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Los Días de los Muertos - The Days of the Dead
A Fascinating, Intricate Blending of Ancient Cultures
A ritual in México known as Los Días de los Muertos, or The Days of the Dead, is a fascinating holiday which blends the ancient Aztec and Maya cultures, layered with Roman Catholicism brought there by the Spanish invaders.

For 2,000 years, in what is now Europe and the neighboring areas, the ancient Celts and their Druid priests celebrated their end-of-season harvest with large festivals to mark the end of the year. They celebrated the new year on November 1. The Celtic dead were believed to have access to earth on Samhain, October 31, when they believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead relaxed. The Celts danced around huge bonfires, wearing animal heads and hides to confuse the spirits and burned crops and animals as offerings to the returning dead.

In the eighth century, the Catholic Church decreed November 1 as All Saints Day -- a day to honor all the saints who had passed on -- in an attempt to replace the 2000-year Celtic tradition which was still being practiced in parts of the world.

Later, around the end of the first millennium, the Catholic Church attempted to reinforced its attempt to replace the Celtic celebration by designating November 2 as All Souls Day to honor all those who have passed on. All Souls Day was celebrated with parades, big bonfires and the people dressed as saints, angels and devils.

The holiday we now know as Halloween means Hallow [revere] Eve and was celebrated on October 31 to mark the beginning of the two-day event of November 1 and 2.

Centuries later, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now México, they encountered natives practicing a two-month ritual honoring death, the fall harvest and the new year. For more than 500 years, the goddess Mictecacihuatl (Lady of the Dead) presided over Aztec harvest rituals using fires and incense, costumes of animal skins, images of their dead and offerings of ceramics, personal goods, flowers and foods, drink and flowers. The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life.

The Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious, barbaric and pagen. In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards tried to kill the ritual. But it refused to die; so to make the ritual more Christian-like, the Spaniards moved it to coincide with All Saints Day and All Souls Day on November 1 and 2.

Today, the two-day event is marked throughout México with extended family get-togethers and reunions. Colorful adornments are laid out at family burial plots, and special foods are prepared, some of which is put on commemorative altars. The religious rites are likely to include noisy fireworks. They honor those who have passed on by celebrating the happiness the departed had brought them while they were alive. There will often be mariachi bands or people playing their guitars as people join in and sing.

November 1 is usually set aside for remembrance of the deceased infants and children, who are referred to as angelitos, or little angels. Those who have died as adults are honored November 2.

The Days of the Dead -- Los Días de los Muertos -- is a holiday that tends to be a subject of great fascination for visitors from abroad. It is a perfect illustration of the synthesis of the Indian and Spanish Roman Catholic cultures that has come to define the country and its people.