The Guadalajara Reporter

Is Day of the Dead still a day of celebration?

For some Mexicans a dolorous mood hangs over days that traditionally have been celebrated with high hearts, beginning with the Thursday, October 31 celebration of  El Dia de Brjuas (The Day of Sorcerers).  Friday was Dia de Los Santos (All Saints Day),  remembering los angelitos, the “little angels,” who died in infancy.   Saturday is Dia de los Muertos, (Day of the Dead), also called Fieles Difuntos and La Parca, honoring teen-agers and adults.  By whatever name, this cluster of days has become more complex – emotionally and spiritually – in recent years.  This complexity grows out of myriad kidnappings and of mass, and individual, random slayings by drug gangs.  Especially troubling is the slice of the kidnappings that a discomforting number of eye-witnesses report are carried out at the hands of the Mexican military.

November 1 and 2 constitute a fitting example of syncretism, a classic mestizo moment when Mexicans observe a tradition that twins Catholic ritual and the Aztec/indigenous belief that the dead return once a year to visit kinfolk. 

But increasingly as the plague of death and disappearance has spread, many mourners no longer feel impelled to join in the the robust joking, the often dervish acts, costumes and performances accompanying the decoration of graves, of bringing great platers, canastas overflowing with sugar- and chocolate-covered skulls and papier-mache skeletons.  These accompany the dead’s favorite drinks, the toys of childhood, those close-held impedimenta fostering both the recall and reasons for celebrating those kinfolk and friends who’ve passed on, it is believed, to another world.  Many parents  across the Republic have had too many offspring kidnapped, tortured and killed, or simply vanished, to crank up the traditional sense of mocking humor about death.  The ironical caress of death, the jovial recall of remarkably silly and very lively past deeds no longer breed unabridged laughter, but more often tears of loss and anguish.

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