http://www.peoplesguide.com/1pages/chapts/viva/dodead/1dodindex.html

[Link added 10/19/03]: From the People's Guide to Mexico comes a Dia de los Muertos site with literate, thoughtful excerpts, links to book reviews, travel diaries,and oddles of threads going in too many directions for me to follow (e.g., buying handmade ikons of the Virgin of Guadalupe, retiring to Mexico, and much more).  What caught my immediate attention were the following two excerpts from Indo-Hispanic Folk Art Traditions II by Bobbi Salinas-Norman:

What is the difference between Halloween and the Day of the Dead?  Halloween is based on a medieval European concept of death, and is populated by demons, witches (usually women) and other images of terror -- all of them negative. The Day of the Dead, in contrast, is distinctly different. It is a uniquely Indo-Hispanic custom that demonstrates strong sense of love and respect for one’s ancestors; celebrates the continuance of life, family relationships, community solidarity and even finds humor after death -- all positive concepts!

From the same author's book comes an excellent, lucid look at American (and Western) attitudes towards death versus "Indo-Hispanic" [i.e., indigenous Indian-Hispanic] attitudes:

...Children in the United States today learn about sex, gunslinging, drug dealing and other forms of corruption much earlier than their parents did (largely through television), but they learn very little about death. In some states the subject is even taboo in public school textbooks. For many, death is therefore an uncongenial intruder who can be dealt with only by calling in the police, the coroner or the mortician.

Does the Indo-Hispanic view of death, which is radically different, imply less regard for the sanctity of life? By no means. The Day of the Dead offers us the opportunity to examine this universal experience in the context of a family tradition, illuminated by the hope of an after-life. In this way, it loses some of  its terror and becomes more meaningful, even beautiful....

Set aside a good block of time of you plan to explore here....each page leads to more treasures.

"What do Mexicans celebrate on the Day of the Dead" is the title of this illustrated and informative essay by Ricardo J. Salvador.  This is a fine introduction to the festival held the first two days of every November.  Here is how it opens:

This is an ancient festivity that has been much transformed through the years, but which was intended in prehispanic Mexico to celebrate children and the dead. Hence, the best way to describe this Mexican holiday is to say that it is a time when Mexican families remember their dead, and the continuity of life.

The original celebration can be traced to the festivities held during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli, ritually presided by the goddess Mictecacihuatl ("Lady of the Dead"), and dedicated to children and the dead. The rituals during this month also featured a festivity dedicated to the major Aztec war deity, Huitzilopochtli ("Sinister Hummingbird")....

I am struck by the "Sinister Hummingbird" war deity and am curious to know more.  The tiny, fleet, jewel-like, sugar-sipping hummingbird seem an odd choice for a war deity.

Here is how it closes:

In general, the more urban the setting within Mexico the less religious and cultural importance is retained by observants, while the more rural and Indian the locality the greater the religious and economic import of the holiday. Because of this, this observance is usually of greater social importance in southern Mexico than in the northern part of the country, which is characterized by a more dilute Indian cultural influence.

The ancient festival was originally celebrated in late July/early August.  The feast was moved to All Hallows' Eve by Spanish priests, but the original tone and exuberance, despite the best efforts of those priests, remained the same.  The page offers uncaptioned but interesting photos and a general overview of history and changing local customs.  There are also good internal links to maps, Mexican cooking, MesoAmerican calendars, and more.  [Annotation expanded 10/18/03]:

Woman preparing marigolds for the "Angelitos," or dead children.
[From Inside Mexico -- see directly below]

[Link added 10/19/03]: From May Herz at "Inside Mexico" comes a great page of information, photos (see above for one of them), history, classroom activities, related riddles, proverbs & sayings, music, recipes (e.g., for sugar skulls and Pan de Muerto), links, hypertext, and much more.   Here are several excerpts from the site's survey of history and traditions:

From the beginning of time, man has felt the need to explain the mystery of life and death.  Many civilizations and cultures have created rituals to try and give meaning to  human existence....

...To the indigenous peoples of Mexico, death was considered the passage to a new life and so the deceased were buried with many of their personal objects, which they would need in the hereafter....

...Sometimes, when people of other cultures hear for the first time about the celebration of the Day of the Dead, they mistakenly think it must be: gruesome, terrifying, scary, ugly and sad. Nothing further from the truth, Day of the Dead is a beautiful ritual in which Mexicans happily and lovingly remember their loved relatives that have died.  Much like when we go to a graveyard to leave some lovely flowers on a tomb of a  relative.

...Markets are filled with the cempasúchil flower; this orange marigold was the flower that the Aztecs used to remember their dead by.  Its color represents the tones of earth and is used to guide the souls to their homes and altars....

...Very early in October, all over the country, bakeries offer the delicious Pan de Muerto, Day of the Dead bread, made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, orange peel, anise and yeast.  The bread is adorned with strips of dough simulating bones and at the top a small round piece of dough that symbolizes teardrops. These breads are placed on the altars or ofrendas, and are also taken to the tombs in the graveyard....

In addition to general information, the site highlights "Mixquic, a small town in Mexico City," and "Janitzio, a charming little island in the state of Michoacan."

[Link added 11/4/00]:From Boise Matthews comes a series of fine pages on Dia de los Muertos celebrations in the American Southwest:

While many if not most of the people in the Southwest celebrate Halloween, there's a lesser known festival that originated in Mexico as much as 4,000 years ago....

This page also has links to many other Latin American festivals.

La Muerte -- Lady Death
[From Mexico Connect:
see directly below]

[Link added 10/19/03]: From Mexico Connect comes an illustrated and well crafted page by longtime Mexico resident, Dale Hoyt Palfrey.  She begins:

Her face is unforgettable and she goes by many names: La Catrina, la Flaca, la Huesuda, la Pelona--Fancy Lady, Skinny, Bony, Baldy. A fixture in Mexican society, she's not some trendy fashion model, but La Muerte--Death.

Renowned writer Octavio Paz observes that, undaunted by death, the Mexican has no qualms about getting up close and personal with death, noting that he "...chases after it, mocks it, courts it, hugs it, sleeps with it; it is his favorite plaything and his most lasting love"....

About attitudes to death elsewhere, Palfrey comments:

While death is a topic largely avoided in the USA, the remembrance of deceased ancestors and loved ones is traditional among diverse cultures around the globe, often marked by lighting candles or lamps and laying out offerings of food and drink.  Such celebrations can be traced back as far as the glory days of ancient Egypt when departed souls were honored during the great festival of Osiris.

In Mexico the Day of the Dead is a holiday that tends to be a subject of fascination for visitors from abroad. With its rare mix of pre-Hispanic and Roman Catholic rituals, it is also a perfect illustration of the synthesis of pre-Hispanic and Spanish cultures that has come to define the country and its people.

Death held a significant place in the pantheons and rituals of Mexico's ancient civilizations. Among the Aztecs, for example, it was considered a blessing to die in childbirth, battle or human sacrifice, for these assured the victim a desirable destination in the afterlife....

Here is what she says about the recent resurgence of ancient Mexican traditions in the face of Western globalization:

...Not surprisingly, as Mexican society has modernized, long-held customs have begun to fall by the wayside, particularly among urbanites. But the rapid encroachment of U.S. culture, intensified since the enactment of North American Free Trade Agreement, seems to have spurred many citizens to actively pursue the preservation of Mexican traditions. While each October the country's supermarket shelves are now crammed with plastic pumpkins, witches' hats and rubber masks, government and private institutions have recently increased promotion of commemorative altars displayed in museums, educational centers and other public venues....

[20 October 2003, FYI: for a related link looking more deeply at the resurgence of indigenous traditions in Meso- and South America, see: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/102003F.shtml.]

[Link added 9/26/06]:This is an elegant and visually rich site from award-winning photographer and author, Mary J. Andrade (not for older browsers, unfortunately). The "Traditions" page looks at Dia de los Muertos altars in terms of the four elements, earth, air, water, fire. Here is what the author says about fire:

Fire is represented by a wax candle: each lit candle represents a soul, and an extra one is placed for the forgotten soul.

And these are the people we're building thousands of miles of fences to keep out of the United States. Truly, we are a nation of lost and "forgotten souls," despite all the so-called Christians building those stupid, mean-spirited fences. (Have they never heard of Robert Frost's "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down"????????)

[Link added 10/19/03]: From Aracely Hernandez, a journalism student at Northern Illinois University, comes a brief overview on Dia de los Muertos (with some good links, some of which are also on my page).  About what some cultures view as the morbidness of death:

...It might sound somewhat morbid, but the Mexicans react to death with mourning along with happiness and joy. They look at death with the same fear as any other culture, but there is a difference. They reflect their fear by mocking and living alongside death.

Living alongside death means that Mexicans have to learned to accept it within their lives. Death is apparent in everyday life. It is in art and even in children's toys. It is not respected as it is in other cultures. Children play "funeral" with toys that are made to represent coffins and undertakers.

Death is laughed at in its face. Many euphemisms are used for death, La calaca (the skeleton), la pelona ("baldy"), la flaca ("skinny"), and la huesada ("bony")....

A paper cut-out skeleton
[From the Palomar site -- see directly below]

http://www.palomar.edu/library/DayDead.htm: [Link updated 10/3/02]:

This is the Palomar College Library's lengthy and thorough list of books, videos, periodicals, and internet sources on the Hispanic Day of the Dead.  The page is very long -- for a direct link to the section that covers websites, click here: http://www.palomar.edu/library/DayDead.htm#IS. [URL updated 4/26/02].  You'll find a large number of websites covering a range that includes ritual, lore, history, art, photos, personal experiences, at least one detractor (Catholic), and pre-Columbian views. (Note: on the home page, also click on LINKS for more web resources that are updated more frequently, according to the auhors.)

28 October 2007: http://www.palomar.edu/multicultural/DaysoftheDead2007.htm

Note from Michaela, my Links-Elf: This is the 2007 link. They still seem to be doing a lot of work on this site, but it’s much more robust than last year.  I don’t know if they have everything you once saw there, but it’s working well on my computer and there’s a lot of stuff there.

Note from me: in my Netscape 4.7 and 7.2, this 2007 link (above), like the 2006 link (below) has useless content having nothing to do with the topic. Michaela's computer is more recent.

26 September 2006: unfortunately, except for the above library links, portions of this wonderful series of pages are now under re-construction and much has been lost. Hopefully, some of it will be restored, which is why I am keeping the original links.  In the meantime, this is what's left:
General info: http://www.palomar.edu/multicultural/DiadelosMuertos/
2006: http://www.palomar.edu/multicultural/DayoftheDead2006.htm: useless page, but the remaining dated links below still work.
2005: http://www.palomar.edu/library/displays/Oct-Nov2005/DayoftheDead2005.htm
2004: http://www.palomar.edu/library/displays/Oct2004/dayofthedead2004.htm
2002: http://www.palomar.edu/library/displays/October2002/default.htm
1999: http://www.palomar.edu/library/displays/October99/default.htm
1998: http://www.palomar.edu/Library/displays/October98/default.htm

For the record, these two are from my original links for this series of webpages -- both are now dead:

[Data updated 12/7/99]: Sponsored by the Palomar College Library in San Marcos, California, this is the bilingual "Day of the Dead" home page; it includes a link to a spectacular 1999 exhibit full of wonderful photographic details (they also have their 1998 exhibit online).  [Note-- 4/26/02: the site continues to offer annual exhibits going back to 1998.] The site offers over 160 links so you could spend days here.  For those with limited time, I have extracted the following ones from this entry page (and elsewhere on their website). . . .

This is Palomar's general overview of altars and offerings.  It includes a great number of linked photos of cemeteries, gravestones, tombs, offerings, altars, parades, sugar-skulls, paper-art, and flowers of the dead (marigolds -- this link is quite interesting because it looks at the ancient symbolism of the flowers).

[Link added 10/18/03]: This is a fascinating little page on how to make your own altar for the Day of the Dead.  I love the details.

[Added 26 September 2006 on the recommendation of Michaela Oldfield]: This site has minimal text but offers a series of photos of Day of the Dead altars -- these remind my meticulous and much-appreciated volunteer links-checker, Michaela, of Haitian altars she has seen.

[Link added 10/18/03]: This is "DAY OF THE DEAD IN TOTIMEHUACAN: A Photographic Study." This is an excellent, touching site offering "more than 60 color photographs of decorated graves, family altars and public spaces, plus a bibliography."

[Link added 10/19/03]: This is a 3 or 4 day classroom project written for 4th and 5th graders by Andrea Pretti .  The background information is excellent and the activities sound wonderful -- except for the "Ghostly Remedy," which, hopefully, is meant to be a spoof (and should be captioned" Do not try this at home).

From Sara Silver of the Associated Press comes this engrossing 2 November 1995 account of a Day of the Dead celebration in Miahuatlan, Mexico.  (Note: the plain site is from an e-mail list archived by the University of California in San Diego.) Here's an excerpt:

...In the cities, the day is heavily influenced  and at times crowded out  by a U.S. import, Halloween. But traditions are fiercely defended in many parts of the Mexican countryside, such as Mihuatlan, a town 50 miles south of Oaxaca City.

Day of the Dead pre-dates the All Saints Day celebrations of the Roman Catholic tradition brought by Spanish colonizers in the 1500s.

Zapotec Indians in this region worshipped the goddess Huitzilopochotli with food, incense and flowers on a special holiday when the dead were believed to parade around their communities....

From the same source as the above comes Sara Silver's 3 November 1995 description of a Day of the Dead celebration in Zaachila, Oaxaca (portions are the same as the above link). An excerpt:

...At dusk, the people of the village gathered to fill the cemetery with tokens of life for their dead.  They laid marigolds and purple flowers at the corners of graves made of cement, stone and tile.  And then, in a scene repeated in cities and towns across Mexico, the Day of the Dead celebrations reached a crescendo Thursday night. Some set off fireworks, while others mediated in silence.

Pedro Mases was one of the quiet ones. He laid a wreath of daisies on the grave of his 13-year-old son, Ivan, who died of an undiagnosed blood ailment a year ago.  ``This helps us accept that our son's death was not a punishment from God,'' he said.

His wife, Blanca, nursing the youngest of their four other children, said it helps her remember her boy.  ``To each his own day,'' she added.

Then it was back to work until next year for the people of Zaachila, a village 21 miles south of Oaxaca City that is inhabited partly by Zapotec Indians....

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