What Dia De Los Muertos Means for Afro-Mexican Students
By: Brionna Gillis
Dia de los Muertos isn’t just another holiday of celebration but appreciation and remembrance of those you have lost.
El Dia de los Muertos, also known as the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday where families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives as the door between the world of the living and the dead swings open on the first two days of November, the souls of the dead awaken and return to feast, drink, dance, and play music with their loved ones.
“Dia de los Muertos means being able to take a moment and truly enjoy the presence of the loved ones who’ve passed away. It’s a day where the air feels softer and the world slows down just enough to remember. I find that Dia de los Muertos has become one of the few times a year where those I’ve lost feel tangible, like I can almost reach out and touch them through memory,” said Indigo Williams-Brown, a fourth-year, political science major on the pre-law track.
While Dia de los Muertos may look different from family to family, the celebration is all the same. Loved ones gather to honor their deceased, leaving their favorite foods and offering at gravesites. These sites, better known as ofrendas in Mexico, are often decorated with candles, bright marigolds called cempasuchil, red cock’s combs, along with foods such as tortillas and fruit. The most prominent symbols of the Day of the Dead are skeletons and skulls, which are also used as decorations.
“My family takes the traditional route. We put together an ofrenda and set up candles and pictures of the loved ones we lost,” said Misha Jefferson, a graduating senior entrepreneurship major.
The origins of Dia de los Muertos can be traced back some 3,000 years to rituals honoring the dead in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The Aztecs and other Nahu peoples living in what is now Central Mexico held a cyclical view of the universe and saw death as an integral, ever-present part of life. Once passed, a person is believed to travel to Chicunamictlan, the Land of the Dead. Only after getting through non challenging levels, a journey of several years, could a person’s soul finally reach Mitclan, the final resting place.
El Dia de los Muertos is commonly thought of as the Mexican version of Halloween, but it’s not. Dia de los Muertos is a day of remembrance, love, and the belief that death doesn’t end connection.
