Every year, as October comes to an end and we are on the threshold of November, debates arise about tradition, what is Mexican, what is 'anti-Mexican', and what is commercial or not around these festivities.
In public perception, it seems, there are legitimate or illegitimate rituals. Let me explain: one of the main arguments against celebrating Halloween is that it is a holiday adopted for commercial purposes from our northern neighbor. Those who go further argue that Halloween is a pagan-inspired celebration of Celtic origin. Add to this the controversies sparked by the new Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City. Regarding these tensions between tradition and modernity, the emergence, persistence, and disappearance of cultural expressions, the emergence of new manifestations or the rupture with the past, anthropologists and historians have much to say and clarify.
Let’s break it down. The Samhain was a festival celebrated by the Celts, and interestingly, it has all the features that serve as ritual precursors to the festivals for the dead held around the world, including Halloween, All Saints’ Day, La Toussaint, etc. The origin of Samhain has nothing to do with witches or diabolical things. The production and consumption of food was important: marking the start of the cold season, it was the day when all harvested food had to be stored, fruits had to be preserved, and the wheat to be sown in spring had to be planted. Large banquets were offered, and it was believed that the dead came to eat with the living. It was the festival marking that endless cycle of the necessity of death for something to be born. In an attempt to Christianize the festival, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints’ Day to these dates. That is why, for example, to this day La Toussaint (All Saints’ Day) in France is a public holiday with school vacations.
Let’s turn to our Day of the Dead. Since the Aztecs, we have had a whole cosmogony about the afterlife, the dead, the Mictlán. The celebration of this day is the result of syncretism, but what we must keep in mind is that traditions are not permanent, immutable, or rigid; they transform according to the conditions of the era and to reappropriations. For example: a purist would be scandalized by the case of my friend Rufina, an Oaxacan artisan who, with her family, organizes an apotheotic Day of the Dead celebration at her home in Oaxaca: the event is so significant that since March she had been making the pots she would debut to cook the delicacies for her departed. Rufina comes from a family of artisans spanning many generations, and through trial and error and a desire to learn new techniques, she makes lead-free clay objects with clean 'Mexican' designs, but with lines inspired by current Scandinavian design trends. Can we blame Rufina for trying to innovate and beautify her pieces for not making them as they have always been made?
Now, it’s not as if our Day of the Dead is exempt from commercialism. For many years, it has been a festival exploited for tourism, where folkloric performances (rather than displays) are staged. In colonial times, it had a commercial character, as food, alcohol, and money had to be paid to the priest for him to dedicate the mass. Then, a Hollywood movie inspired our authorities to create the Day of the Dead parade. Personally, I would love for James Bond to make movies about hunger, food, and other issues, to see if it inspires something, just saying. But wait, I retract that, lest they get inspired and ban sugar skulls, since they are the new public enemy.
Look, in the end, there are no legitimate or illegitimate cultures or rituals, nor should we fall into false puritan traditionalism pretending to believe we are the only originals untouched by commercialism or historically anchored cultural expressions. Our Day of the Dead celebration has a beautiful meaning: sharing food with the dead reminds us of our impermanence in this world, as well as the importance of letting something die so that something new can be reborn.
@Lillie_ML
#dayofthedead #ritual #food #departed #nutrition #traditions #Mexico #anthropology #lifecycles
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.