Dressing up as skeletons is part of the fun. People of all ages have their faces artfully painted to resemble skulls, and, mimicking the calavera Catrina, they don suits and fancy dresses.
Many revelers wear shells or other noisemakers to amp up the excitement — and also possibly to rouse the dead and keep them close during the fun. Artisans stack coloured tissue paper in dozens of layers, then perforate the layers with hammer and chisel points. Draped around altars and in the streets, the art represents the wind and the fragility of life.
But the most authentic celebrations take place in Mexico. If you find yourself in Mexico City the weekend before Day of the Dead this year, make sure to stop by the grand parade where you can join in on live music, bike rides and other activities in celebration throughout the city.
The spiritual home is Oaxaca, but here are a few places that stand out for their colourful and moving celebrations:. Mixquic In this Mexico City suburb, bells from the historic Augustinian convent toll and community members bearing candles and flowers process to the local cemetery, where they clean and decorate the graves of their loved ones. Tuxtepec This small city in the northeastern part of Oaxaca state is best known for its sawdust rugs. For days, locals painstakingly arrange coloured sawdust, flower petals, rice, pine needles and other organic materials in elaborate, ruglike patterns on city streets.
The festival culminates in a grand parade of skulls along Avenida Madero. National Geographic National Geographic. Travel and Adventure. Over woman gathered in Mexico City on November 1, , to set a Guiness World Record for the largest gathering of women dressed as Catrina. Photograph by Tomas Bravo, Reuters.
Additionally, people would dress up and go house to house asking for food, which eventually became the modern practice of asking for candy. It replaced the very old traditions of leaving bowls of food outside for the visiting spirits.
Black cats have long been associated with witches, and there is a belief that dates to the Middle Ages when people believed that witches could shapeshift into the form of a cat when they needed to hide. People began to carve their own lanterns with scary faces to ward off evil spirits like old Jack, and "Jack of the Lantern" became what we know as the smiley-faced pumpkin set outside to light the way of revelers on the night of Halloween.
When the Irish started to settle in America, they discovered that the pumpkin, which grows native in the Americas, was the perfect vessel for carving these lanterns and is now a staple of Halloween fun across the country. Today, Halloween is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in America, with spending in the billions. Only Christmas has more retail success than Halloween, to put a bit of perspective on the amount that we spend on this one night of ghoulish fun.
The holiday takes place from November , though, celebrations can begin as early as October The holiday began in ancient times, with the pre-Hispanic indigenous peoples, the tribes of the Aztec, the Nuhau, and the Toltec people. Mourning the dead was not honor, it was disrespect in those cultures, rather they believed the dead were still among the community—they were part of life, alive in spirit and in memory.
The holiday is strongly associated with the beliefs of the early people of what is now Mexico. Today's celebrations are a combination of these early traditions and other Catholic and Christian celebrations that followed, such as the earlier-mentioned All Souls Day, as well as practices from Europe and the people of Spain.
It is believed that when family members leave offerings of food, lit candles, and pictures of their departed loved ones on an alter, an ofredna, in their homes or in graveyards, it will welcome their souls back to the land of the living. People dress up as skeletons in fun, but also, to attract the souls of those who have passed on, wanting to keep them earthbound. Graves are often decorated with orange Mexican marigolds.
Toys are brought for dead children, and bottles of tequila, mescal or pulque are brought for adults. Some people wear shells on their clothing, so that the noise when dancing will wake the dead.
Rituals vary from town to town. In contemporary times, Halloween is celebrated by both children and adults.
Children dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating from house to house for candy. Costumes are traditionally supernatural or frightening, but over time, they have changes to be costumes on any theme. Popular games include apple bobbing and visiting haunted houses. Adults also enjoy Halloween with costume parties, often with varying themes that aren't necessarily related to the horror genre. The Day of the Dead is commonly represented by a skull.
People celebrating wear skull masks, called calacas. Sugar skulls are given as gifts. Symbols of Halloween include pumpkins and various tropes of horror literature, including vampires , ghosts and mummies. There are about 41 million trick-or-treaters in America—children between the ages of 5 and Share this comparison:.
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