tw // death
día de muertos/ day of the dead; a thread.

"nuestro culto a la muerte es culto a la vida"/ "our worship to death is a worship to life"
-octavio paz.

day of the dead or día de muertos is celebration to someone's life, someone who was close to you and you loved dearly. it takes place oom november 1st and 2nd, and it can depend on each state of méxico, for example in oaxaca, the celebration starts since october 31st.

the history of this tradition goes back to the precolonial period and after spain colonized all the different indigenous population, it became a combination of both cultures. in the prehispanic point of piew the celebration started with the end of the calendar in August (+)

in the catholic point of piew, the calendar marked the life and death of jesus christ, celebrating all the saints and the faithful departed.

ofrendas or shrine was important in every culture but it's mainly influenced by mexican culture. ofrendas were offered because souls (souls were still alive) still had many material attributes such as eating, drinking water and fighting with their weapons.

the food in the ofrenda has it's own meaning, the bread (bread of dead) or pan de muerto represents, the skull and bones, candy skulls with the persons name, and food that they used to love in life. flowers will guide them to their ofrendas along with water.

in mexican culture, after you died you went through three destinations depending your cause of death. the first one was tlalocan, a paradise filled with corn, trees with fruits and chia for who di*d of a sickness or drowned.

there was also tonatiuhuchan (house of the sun) destiny of those who di*d in labor or in war; filled with gardens with flowers and many smells. and for those who didn't di* in any of those conditions went to mictlan, the place of the de*ds, they had to go through 9 stages (+)

to finally rest. that destination was reigned by mictlantecuhtli and mictecacíhuatl, god and goddesses of death.

on the day of the de*d many families go to the cemeteries to reach once again to their lost ones, they arrive in the morning, eat with their lost ones the food they took, they mourn and celebrate. there's a poem related to what i just said called "crying to the bones" (+)

a rough translation of a verse is "the cemetery is transformed into an outing, in search of a distraction in the mansion of death, our people laugh at it, they mock it, enjoying it in their own way, and cries to the bones"

quoting a phrase i saw in a book, ofrendas, and día de muertos is celebration of life and release that tension and fear of death and losing someone.

i know you have seen this makeup look, it's not just a makeup look, it's a statement against the poverty of the start of the XX century. that's why people get offended by other people using it. it's not a look to look scary, it's a representation of death.

death is a common topic here, even though we fear it, we mock death. we call her names. de*th is a common theme in mexican songs. this one explains how after de*th, they will take things with them to keep partying, in funerals it's common to have music and even alcohol.

to finish this thread, dia de muertos is a tradition that has been on every step of this (and other countries like guatemala, el salvador) history and it should be treated with a lot of respect. even though it seems and it can be a party, it's still a way to mourn people.