DAY
OF THE DEAD:
 |
The
Day of the Dead (Día de los
Muertos, Día de los Difuntos
or Día de Muertos in Spanish)
is an ancient Aztec celebration of
the memory of deceased ancestors that
is celebrated on November 1 (All Saints'
Day) and November 2 (All Souls' Day)
.Five hundred years ago, the Spanish
Conquistadors that landed in Mexico
encountered natives practicing a ritual
that seemed to mock death. It was
a ritual that the natives had been
practicing at least 3,000 years and
is today known as Día de Muertos.
The natives, unlike the Spaniards,
viewed death as life continued. Instead
of being afraid of death, they celebrated
it.
Though the subject matter may be
considered morbid from the Anglo Saxon
perspective, Mexicans celebrate the
Day of the Dead joyfully, and though
it occurs at the same time as Halloween,
All Saints' Day and All Souls Day,
the traditional mood is much brighter
with emphasis on celebrating and honoring
the lives of the deceased, and celebrating
the continuation of life; the belief
is not that death is the end, but
rather the beginning of a new stage
in life. |
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS
The attitude towards death
evidenced in the quintessentially Mexican
holiday of Día de Muertos (Day of
the Dead) might be puzzling for some. It
isn't difficult for foreigners to interpret
dancing skeletons, candy skulls and general
drunken revelry as disrespect for the dead
and grief at human loss. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
The holiday is especially
popular in Mexico where it is a national
holiday, and is celebrated in the Philippines,
in Mexican-American communities in the United
States and specifically in New Orleans,
and to a lesser extent, in other Latin American
countries. It is a public holiday in Brazil,
where many Brazilians celebrate it by visiting
cemeteries and churches, bringing flowers,
lighting candles and praying.
The original celebration
can be traced to many Mesoamerican native
traditions, such as the festivities held
during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli,
ritually presided by the "Lady of the
Dead" (Mictecacihuatl), and dedicated
to children and the dead. In the Aztec calendar,
this ritual fell roughly at the end of the
Gregorian month of July and the beginning
of August, but in the postconquest era it
was moved by Spanish priests so that it
coincided with the Christian holiday of
All Hallows Eve (in Spanish: "Día
de Todos Santos.") This was a vain
effort to transform the observance from
a profane to a Christian celebration. The
result is that Mexicans now celebrate the
day of the dead during the first two days
of November, rather than at the beginning
of summer. But remember the dead they still
do, and the modern festivity is characterized
by the traditional Mexican blend of ancient
aboriginal and introduced Christian features.
But the November 1 Noche
de Muertos ritual goes on whether tourists
come or not. On the remote island of Pacanda
on a lake in Michocán, as well as
Yunuen, one rarely finds a tourist.
Plans for the festival
are made throughout the year, including
gathering the goods to be offered to the
dead. During the period of October 31 and
November 2, families usually clean and decorate
the graves. Most visit the cemeteries where
their loved ones are buried and decorate
their graves with ofrendas, or offerings,
which often include orange marigold called
Flor de Muerto, Spanish for "flower
of the dead", or zempoalxochitl, Nahuatl
for "twenty-flower", a term that
has been carried into modern Mexican Spanish
as cempazúchil which are thought
to attract souls of the dead to the offerings.
Toys are brought for dead children (los
angelitos, or little angels), and bottles
of tequila, mezcal, pulque or atole for
adults. Families will also offer trinkets
or the deceased's favorite candies on the
grave. Ofrendas are also put in homes, usually
with foods such as candied pumpkin, pan
de muerto or sugar skulls and beverages
such as atole. The ofrendas are left out
in the homes as a welcoming gesture for
the deceased. Some people believe the spirits
of the dead eat the "spiritual essence"
of the ofrenda food, so even though the
celebrators eat the food after the festivity,
they believe it lacks nutritional value.
The pillows and blankets are left out so
that the deceased can rest after their long
journey. In some parts of Mexico, such as
the towns of Mixquic, Pátzcuaro and
Janitzio, people spend all night beside
the graves of their relatives.
Some wealthier families
do build altars or small shrines in their
homes. These altars usually have the Christian
cross, statues or pictures of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, pictures of deceased relatives
and other persons, and scores of candles.
Traditionally, families spend some time
around the altar praying and telling anecdotes
about the deceased.
Public schools at all
levels build altars with offerings, usually
omitting the religious symbols. Government
offices usually have at least a small altar,
as this holiday is seen as important to
the Mexican heritage.
Those with writing talent
sometimes create "calaveras" –
short poems mocking epitaphs of friends,
sometimes with things they used to do in
life. This custom originated in the 18th-19th
century, after a newspaper published a poem
narrating a dream of a cemetery in the future,
"and all of us were dead", proceeding
to "read" the tombstones. Newspapers
dedicate calaveras to public figures, with
cartoons of skeletons in the style of José
Guadalupe Posada. Theatrical presentations
of Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla
(1817–1893) are also traditional on
this day.
A common symbol of the holiday is the skull
(colloquially called calavera), which celebrants
represent in masks, called calacas (colloquial
term for "skeleton"), and foods
such as Candy Skulls, which are inscribed
with the name of the recipient on the forehead.
Other holiday foods include pan de muerto
(or "bread of the dead"), a sweet
egg bread made in various shapes, from plain
rounds to skulls and rabbits often decorated
with white frosting to look like twisted
bones.
The traditions and activities
that take place in celebration of the Day
of the Dead are not universal and often
vary from town to town. For example, in
the town of Pátzcuaro on the Lago
de Pátzcuaro in Michoacán
the tradition is very different if the deceased
is a child rather than an adult. On November
1 of the year after a child's death, the
godparents set a table in the parents' home
with sweets, fruits, pan de muerto, a cross,
a Rosary (used to pray to the Virgin Mary)
and candles. This is meant to celebrate
the child’s life, in respect and appreciation
for the parents. There is also dancing with
colorful costumes, often with skull-shaped
masks and devil masks in the plaza or garden
of the town. At midnight on November 2,
the people light candles and ride winged
boats called mariposas (Spanish for "butterfly")
to Cuiseo, an island in the middle of the
lake where there is a cemetery, to honor
and celebrate the lives of the dead there.
In some parts of the country,
children in costumes roam the streets, asking
passersby for a calaverita, a small gift
of money; they don't knock on people's doors.
New Orleans
Today in New Orleans All
Saints' is more subdued but still an important
day for visiting and decorating cemeteries.
A modest but steady stream of people makes
its way to family tombs in Lafayette or
St. Louis No. 1 or Cypress Grove, and Save
Our Cemeteries, an organization devoted
to the study and preservation of the Crescent
City's historic graveyards, has taken to
stationing its members in several of the
older cemeteries to pass out information
and solicit memberships. This is the traditional
day for visiting and beautifying the cemeteries
of New Orleans. To true New Orleanians this
day is as important as Mardi Gras.
In
the aftermath of Katrina, when all the
city of New Orleans appears to be dead,
who, you might ask, would want to hang
around this place now?
It
would have to be somebody familiar with
desolation, that’s for sure, and
not put off by challenges. Someone who
brings the party with him, so to speak;
who knows just the prescription for
these post-Katrina blues.
No
it ain’t the Big Boeuf of Fat
Tuesday! It's Gede' Of Course!
Too
dread to be dead and too much of
a good time to be kept down, now’s
the time to call on Papa Gede for
a healing wild abandon.
Known
as the Lwa of the Dead in Vodoun,
Papa Gede, or Ghede, is also known
as the Baron Samdi, and is married
to Manman Brigit, mother of all
Gedes. Together the Gedes dress
in funeral colors of purple and
black and surround themselves with
graveyard imagery. The Gedes are
very wise, Papa Gede most of all,
because they possess the accumulated
wisdom of all the dead.
Papa
Gede usually appears wearing all black,
a top hat, sunglasses with one eye
out, to symbolize his power in the
world of the seen and the unseen.
He is a wise counselor and a shameless
trickster; he is especially loving
toward children, and is called the
patron of children throughout the
Vodoun world.
You
can count on Gede to keep you from
wallowing in your sorrows, and he
usually arrives when everyone is
tired, exhausted and ready for sleep.
That’s when Gede will want
to hear another song, have another
drink, and eat another meal!
Devotions
to Gede, who is syncretized with St.
Gerard, are carried out during the
entire month of November, but most
especially on November 1st (All Saints
Day) and 2nd (All Souls Day).
During
these devotions, Papa Gede will
arrive with the entire retinue of
Gedes in tow. They eat and drink
with gluttony, for, like Death,
the Gedes are never satisfied, and
they especially enjoy hot, peppered
foods and rum that has had Scotch
Bonnet peppers soaking in it.
But Papa
Gede is not just gluttony and cool
clothes. He is the powerful Lwa
often called upon for healing. As
the Avatar of Death it is also within
his power to effect healing, and
if ever there was a need for healing,
it is here, now.
 |
Each
Year La Source Ancienne Ounfo
& The Island of Salvation
Botanica & Magical Pharmacy
present their Annual New Orleans
DAY OF THE DEAD CELEBRATION,
Voodoo Mambo Sallie Ann Glassman
presiding holds a open to
the Public day of the dead
ritual. Followers
wear
white with a purple headscarf,
or black and purple for Gede.
They bring a dish of food
for the people, and an offering
for the Dead or Gede.
Gede’s tastes tend
towards peppers, flat breads,
rum, cigars, goats, crosses,
grave-digger’s tools,
black cock feathers, skeletons,
sunglasses with one lens,
hot Creole foods, money, the
colors black, mauve, and white.
He is syncretized with St.
Gerard.
Or you can bring something
that your ancestors or loved
ones enjoyed in life. |
New
Orleans Day of Holy Obligations
The
beautiful city of New Orleans is
broken but not beaten, is bent but
not destroyed. Slowly, it is beginning
to heal. She is like a grand old
dame who is suffering from a serious,
life-threatening illness, and she
needs every healing effort. Who
better to call on now than Papa
Gede?
He
is able to help with grief, and there
are many grieving here and throughout
the Diaspora that is post-Katrina
New Orleans. Gede will also lead the
Beloved Dead across the black waters
of the Abyss where they can rest,
and their loved ones can heal.
In
heavily Catholic New Orleans, All Saints
Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November
2) have been observed for centuries
through rituals celebrating life over death.
During the Yellow Fever epidemics in eighteenth
century New Orleans, death always loomed
close. It's presence left the lasting impression
on this city and its inhabitants that life
is a gift, perhaps fleeting, and should
be enjoyed to its fullest each day. And
so, on All Saints Day and All Souls Day,
New Orleanians honor the lives of their
dead loved ones by painting tombs with brilliant
whitewashes, placing yellow chrysanthemums
and red coxcombs on graves and ringing statuary
with immortelles (wreaths of black glass
beads). On these days, cemeteries throughout
the city are alive with the flickering glow
from fields of candles, as death is forgotten
and lives lived are celebrated.
The most deadly diseases
to strike Louisiana during the antebellum
period were cholera, smallpox, malaria,
and yellow fever. In an epidemic year the
mortality rate could reach as high as sixty
percent of those who contracted a disease.
The death rate in New Orleans ranged from
a low of 36 per 1,000 in the late 1820s
to a high of 1 in 15 during the summer of
1853. Over 12,000 people died of yellow
fever in New Orleans that year, with still
more deaths in rural areas in south Louisiana,
marking the single highest annual death
rate of any state during the entire nineteenth
century. Because people died faster than
graves could be dug, the popular saying
was that pretty soon people would have to
dig their own graves.
It is one of the many rich New Orleans'
traditions we observe annually at International
House, for we can imagine no other city
which has turned such tragedy into such
a joyous celebration of life.
November 1st, All Saints'
Day, is the time when folks in New Orleans
traditionally come to pay their respects
and leave flowers on the family plot.
Of these older cemeteries,
St. Roch's, probably the best kept up, most
retains the older air of All Saints' hustle
and bustle. Once at the heart of the Ninth
Ward's life, it is still visited by many
former residents of the neighborhood who
have moved to Gretna or St. Bernard Parish
or other suburbs. Practically every grave
and every niche in the wall "ovens"
have flowers. People greet each other, chat
with each other, or stop to joke with St.
Roch's indefatigable sexton, Albert Hattier,
about his own recently completed tomb, which
sits prominently guarding the gate to St.
Roch's No. 2.. Lower Louisiana is famous
for its "Cities of the Dead,"
the cemeteries of above-ground tombs and
wall crypts, or "ovens." Because
so much of the area is below sea level,
coffins did not readily stay in the ground
but rather floated to the top. It only took
a heavy rain to raise the dead. To address
the problem antebellum authorities at times
prohibited interment in the ground. Thus,
most south Louisianians were, and still
are, buried above the earth's surface.
Burial construction varied by class and
faith. Wealthy Louisianians commissioned
large, elaborate family tombs, while those
with lesser means were buried in small units
of ovenlike wall crypts. The very poor who
could not afford tombs or crypts were buried
below ground, often in unmarked or mass
graves. During epidemics the dead were often
buried one on top of another.
Jews also interred their
dead below ground. According to Jewish belief,
the body had to return to the soil and thus
was usually buried in the ground in a wooden
casket without nails.
But it is only in a few of Louisiana's rural
communities, like Lacombe on the north shore
of Lake Pontchartrain, and Lafitte, on Bayou
Barataria, where the sublime night-time
vigils, once more common, still take place
to give All Saints' an especially distinctive
aspect. In both of these places, as well
as in many others in South Louisiana where
All Saints' is observed without the candlelight
vigil, the week before is a time of intense
preparation. Undergrowth, weeds, and any
cemetery trash are cleaned up, and tombs
and graves, most of which have copings or
slabs or in some other way conform to the
South Louisiana style of raised grave structures,
are painted (once with whitewash, today
more likely with latex).
Antebellum Louisianians
mourned the dead by staging elaborate funerals
and processions, decorating graves at the
time of death and on All Saints' Day and
All Souls' Day, placing black wreaths on
doors and black ribbons on door pulls, and
wearing clothes and jewelry that symbolized
stages of mourning. Many customs incorporated
Latin and African elements, a cultural heritage
from Louisiana's colonial era.
New Orleans Mourning jewelry
is composed in part of human hair. Hair
jewelry could be made by the mourner or
by artists who specialized in such work
with hair clipped from the deceased at the
time of death.
The level of subterranean water is high
enough that coffins tend to pop up out of
the ground. An exception is Holt cemetery,
where the graves are in the ground.
"It's a cemetery
for mostly people who don't have the money
to build those big magnificent tombs. So
there are a lot of handmade, homemade tombs,
made with found objects, with materials
that are just lying around, very impermanent
materials. It's a lot of very improvised
memorials. Very personalized as well."
Rob Florence is the author
of New Orleans Cemeteries: Life in the Cities
of the Dead.
"It's one of the
things that's very moving about this cemetery.
You can tell that people have put a lot
of thought and a lot of time and a lot of
devotion into these memorials and within
a year or even six months, it's not gonna
be there."
The New Orleans Saints
are a professional American football team
based in New ... since the franchise had
been granted to New Orleans on All Saints'
Day. African-American influences on Louisiana
mourning traditions included the celebration
of funerals with dancing, music, and singing.
The wearing of white at
funerals and other celebrations involving
the dead had religious symbolism and was
most likely an African-American cultural
carryover. In 1819 English-born architect
Benjamin Henry Latrobe encountered a funeral
procession in New Orleans for an old Congo
slave woman and wrote:
