While there are many countries and cultures in Latin America that take a day to remember and celebrate departed loved ones, Mexico’s celebration is most often identified with the holiday.
The Mexican Día de Muertos is a unique fusion of Indigenous practice fused with Roman Catholic belief and tradition. The tribes of what is now known as Mexico – the Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and others – believed that the spirits of the departed were never far away, and that during particular times of the year, Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec “Lady of the Dead,” would allow the deceased to visit their families and friends in this world. Visiting spirits were welcomed with feasting and celebrations, and Mictecacihuatl presided over those events. Her husband, Mictlantecutli, was the ruler of Mictlan – the lowest underworld.
When Roman Catholicism arrived in the Americas with Spanish invaders, the priests found it impossible to eradicate the Indigenous belief in the spirits, so they fused Catholic practice with Indigenous rituals in a massive act of syncretism. An Indigenous celebration of the departed became a religious ceremony celebrated on November 1 and 2, known commonly in Mexico and throughout Latin America as Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead.
Mictecacihuatl, as she appears in the Codex Borgia. or Codex Yohuaili Ehecatl. The Codex is one of a very few Precolumbian manuscripts of central Mexico to survive the invasion of Spanish Catholic priests, who were determined to stamp out Indigenous religious beliefs. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
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