Day of the Dead: Mexicans mourn loved ones
| OAXACA, Mexico
As soon as darkness fell, festive crowds streamed into the candle-lit cemeteries of this southern Mexican city and nearby towns by the thousands.
Day of the Dead falls on Nov. 2 but the celebrations in Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-ha-ca) begin days before with the creation of elaborate altars to the dead in homes. The offerings of flowers, fruit, bread, candles, and prayers rarely fail to include testaments to the more mundane aspects of the departed one鈥檚 earthly existence: playing cards聽and other relics of their old life such as yarn for the grandmother who loved to knit or a favorite聽sombrero聽for a father who never took off his hat.
For many across the country, the pain of a loved one鈥檚 death is fresh.聽More than 50,000 people have died in the six years since President Felipe Calder贸n deployed the military to fight the country鈥檚 brutal drug cartels and criminal organizations.
However great the collective mourning may be in Mexico, families in Oaxaca reminisced last night about their own lost loved ones in the traditional way: with music, food, tears, and laughter.
A somber celebration turns festive
After alters are built, next come the visits to the cemeteries.
Graveyards at night can seem the scariest of places 鈥� good for the setting of a horror film and little else 鈥� but in Mexico, on this Catholic holiday, the abundance of flowers, the sweet scent of candles, and low light seem romantic; when the bands strike up, the somber celebration turns festive.
Those who have lost loved ones hold all-night vigils at their tombs.
In the small town of Xoxocotl谩n outside Oaxaca City, locals adorn family graves with marigold-yellow xempazuchitl and magenta-colored 鈥渞ooster鈥檚 crest鈥� flowers. Here, long, flat gravestones are sometimes decorated with finely ground, colored rice and glitter to make images of saints or angels.
Last night Vicente Bautista and his brothers hovered over the grave of their father, who passed away in June. They drizzled the grains in a pattern to create an image of Santa Muerte, a skeletal representation of 鈥渟aint death鈥� widely worshiped by the poor and downtrodden in Mexico, but condemned by the Catholic Church.
鈥淲e鈥檙e holding vigil for 辫补辫谩 until tomorrow morning,鈥� Mr. Bautista says.
A powerful downpour in the evening left the narrow spaces between graves thick with mud, but that didn鈥檛 stop locals and tourists from winding through the dark labyrinth of tombstones to marvel at the decorations.
The Day of the Dead 鈥渋s a centuries-old tradition,鈥� says Bautista. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an offering to our dead.鈥�
