Summary

'IAPTER 5 lnference 237

i:t {j j.,1 rli: *r"3;,$ i!#ijfiiqTffil$: I i"$rfl $T,,"\y a}F ,{:niH r}ffiiix} Psul NI. Insel andWalton T. Roth

I n contrast to the solemn attitude toward death so common in the United lS,rt.r, a familiar and even ironic attitude is more common among Mexicans and Mexican Americans. ln the traditional Mexican worldview, death is another phase of life, and those who have passed into it remain accessible. Ancestors are not forever lost, nor is the past dead. This sense of continuity has its roots in the culture of the Aztecs, for whom regeneration was a central theme. When the Spanish came to Mexico in the sixteenth century, their beliefs about death, along with such symbols as skulls and skeletons, were absorbed into the native culture. :'

Mexican artists and writers confront death with humor and even sarcasm, 2 depicting it as the inevitable fate that all-even the wealthiest-must face. At no time is this attitude toward death livelier than at the beginning of each November on the holiday known as el Dia de los Muertos, "the Day of the Dead." This holiday coincides with All Souls' Day, the Catholic commemoration of the dead, and represents a unique blending of indigenous ritual and religious doctrine.

Festive and merry, the celebration in honor of the dead typically spans two I days-one day devoted to dead children, one to adults. lt reflects the belief that the dead return to Earth in spirit once a year to rejoin their families and partake of holiday foods prepared especially for them. The fiesta usually begins at midday on October 31, with flowers and food-candies, cookies, honey, milk-set out on altars in each house for the family's dead. The next day, family