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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mark silvers who wrote (21310)	10/25/1998 8:40:00 PM
From: Sam Ferguson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 39621

A religious celebration of old still exists just south of our Texas Christians. Just wonder if any have visited to witness the pageantry. Dias de los Muertos Every year, on the last day of October, Mexico comes alive for Los Dias de los Meurtos, the Days of the Dead. This festival brings families together to honour their ancestors and remember their lives and deaths. There is nothing sombre or macabre about this conscious embrace of death; like the Aztecs who once occupied the land, modern Mexicans see life, death, and rebirth as parts of a continuum. In the pre-dawn hours of November 1st, the families of the departed place flowers on the hillocks, the last resting place of those that have gone before. They have spent the night cleaning the headstone and decorating the grave in welcome for the returning souls. The family will prepare a meal at the grave site which will be offered first to souls of the deceased, and then shared by the family. This sharing is a symbolic breaking of bread with the dead that simultaneously affirms an ancient tradition and enlivens the present. The evening has been serious but never sombre; through song and the dancing light a thousand candles, the relatives massed in the graveyard have joyfully remembered and celebrated the life of departed relatives. Within their psyche they have also perhaps remembered to celebrate their own lives in the year ahead. Today, unlike Mexico, most first world cultures avoid the topic of death; it is the unmentionable, and entirely at odds with the worship of youth we see in the 1990s. Octavio Paz uses his eloquent poetry to highlight the difference: 'To the resident of New York, Paris, or London, the word DEATH is never pronounced because it burns the lips. Mexicans, on the other hand, frequent it, caress it, they sleep with it, they celebrate it, it is one of their favourite games and their most permanent love.' Mexico's Day of the Dead is in venerable company. Celebrations of the dead have been traced back through the Aztecs, Celts and Romans, to ancient Egypt, where the festival of Osiris would facilitate the journey of the deceased to the next world. The Days of the Dead evolved through a marriage of Aztec and Catholic traditions. Back then, the Aztecs devoted a whole month to celebrating and acknowledging the dead. However, when the Spanish came to town in the 15th century they made the festival coincide with the Catholic celebrations of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Concluding the festival, Dale Hoyte writes 'Voices sang the strangely repetitive, almost hypnotic music of many centuries past. Bread, tamales and a fermented beverage made from the maguey plant were offered for the repose of the dead. The vigil lasted all night in the light rainfall. I thought of the magnificent church built upon the foundation of an older temple; it seemed a fitting metaphor for this seamless web of old and new rituals.' For these few days, images of death abound; in fact Mexicans deliberately immerse themselves in sights, sounds and experiences that fully confront the spectre of death. Relatives dress up as ghouls, skeletons and mummies while carrying an open coffin containing a 'corpse' around the town. In each home an altar will be built with flowers, bread and sweets. Flowers capture the transiency of life and thus yellow marigolds, known as the 'flower of the dead', are placed around the relative's photograph. The bakers busy themselves making up pan de muertos or Bread of the Dead. This sweet, egg-rich loaf is thought to represent the souls of the dead. Bakeries will make loaves in many different shapes, depending on regional tastes and habits; they will also hire extra staff, such will be the demand. An industry has evolved supplying the symbolic offerings for the dead. There are skeletons, skulls and a plethora of macabre toys; candles and incense; elaborate wreaths; to-die-for food stuffs, and sweets and breads, often in the shape of skulls or coffins. Combinations of these accoutrements will adorn the altar or grave site. Items of particular relevance for the individual will also be used: a pack of his favourite brand of cigarettes perhaps; a bottle of scent she used to wear. Visitors come to watch the awe-inspiring candle-processions and to share in this fascinating and unique demonstration of true Mexico.