A brief history of Day of the Dead

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is one of Mexico’s most celebrated festivals. It was declared part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2008, and its popularity has increased dramatically, especially in the United States. Despite this popularity, its origins are misunderstood because its Spanish Catholic roots have been ignored or underestimated. Consequently, Day of the Dead has often been represented as an essentially indigenous festival.

In Mexico, Day of the Dead has become a nationalist symbol that is opposed to Halloween. Anthropologist Stanley Brandes argues that emphasizing the indigenous character of Day of the Dead has an important function: it dissociates Mexico from Spain and the U.S., two powerful countries that dominated it. In the U.S., highly politicized Chicanos often initiated and popularized public Day of the Dead festivities. They were highly critical of Spanish colonization, which had genocidal consequences, and they had a deep desire to make contact with their indigenous roots. 

Day of the Dead consists of observances associated with the Roman Catholic All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. European practices, including attending mass, cleaning and decorating graves, sharing food and drink, and making home altars were transmitted to the Americas. 

The Spanish regarded Aztec religion as Satanic due to the practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism. They were also troubled by the Aztec’s sacramental consumption of amaranth dough and their reverence for a ceremonial pole known as Xocotl. Some friars thought they were so similar to the sacrament of communion and to Catholic veneration of Christ’s cross that they feared the devil had created an infernal parody of Christianity in Mexico. In the 1570s, the Dominican Friar Diego Durán (c. 1537-1588) wrote: “The people claimed that they had eaten the flesh and bones of the gods, though they were unworthy. … Let the reader note how cleverly this diabolical rite imitates that of our Holy Church.”

The Spanish attempted to eradicate indigenous religious beliefs and practices. They attempted to demolish every temple, smash every sculpture, and burn every book in the possession of the indigenous peoples. Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico, claimed in 1531 to have destroyed 500 indigenous temples and more than 20,000 “idols of the devils they worshipped.” A few years later, Motolinía, another Franciscan friar, made the exaggerated claim that “almost no recollection of the [indigenous] past remains.” 

Despite commonly held assumptions, the traditional skull and skeleton imagery utilized during Day of the Dead is not directly descended from indigenous sculptures. Indigenous sculptures were destroyed, buried, or repurposed during the conquest. Moreover, a long period of intolerance followed, during which Catholic skeletal imagery was visible, while corresponding indigenous imagery was not. Today, of course, contemporary art made for Day of the Dead celebrates and imitates canonical works from Mesoamerican cultures, but this is a phenomenon that began in the 20th century. 

The Aztecs dedicated two 20-day festivals to the dead (one for children and one for adults). Diego Durán called these festivals “the ancient idolatries and false religion with which the devil was worshiped until the Holy Gospel was brought to this land [Mexico].” The significance of these two festivals is a matter of debate because our primary sources for them (Diego Durán and the Franciscan Friar Bernardino de Sahagún) are not very insightful, and they conflict on many points. Sahagún (c. 1499-1590) described the Aztecs as “more than bestial and diabolical,” and he characterized Mexico as “the cave, the forest, the thorny thicket where this accursed adversary [the devil] now hides.”

The Spanish attempt to efface indigenous religion was not entirely successful. Some memory of the indigenous festivals survive in the belief that the souls of children return from the dead on November 1, and the souls of adults on November 2. Colonial era Catholics, by contrast, believed all souls came back on All Souls’ Day. The belief in a two-day return of souls (differentiated by age) exists only because it hid under the cover of orthodox Catholic practices. Durán feared – correctly, as it turns out – that he was witnessing an “evil simulation” whereby “the pagan festival has been passed to the Feast of Allhallows [All Soul’s Day] in order to cover up the ancient ceremony.” 

Crucially, Aztec religion was very different from Christianity. The Mesoamerican peoples believed in dualism. In this context, philosopher James Maffie discusses life and death as “competing aspects of one and the same process.” They are two sides of the same coin: death feeds off of life, and life feeds off of death. One is necessary for the other. The Aztecs buried their dead close at hand, under their homes or in their fields. Bones were thought to have enormous power, and the compact between the living and the dead harnessed this power and helped to bring prosperity and fertility to the living.  

The candlelight vigil in a Catholic cemetery before and during All Souls Day is often described as the purest indigenous practice within Day of the Dead. But this interpretation fails to recognize that cemeteries themselves were a Spanish imposition. The indigenous peoples were forced to convert to Catholicism, they were forced to bury their dead in church cemeteries, they were forced to attend Catholic mass, and they were forced to say Catholic prayers. Even many of the trappings most closely associated with Day of the Dead in Mexico were Spanish imports: candles, bread (including special bread made for Day of the Dead), sugar (and the sweet treats made with sugar).  

The earliest account we have of sugar animals and figures in Mexico dates to the 1740s. The Capuchin friar Francisco de Ajofrín writes:

“Before the Day of the Dead they sell a thousand figures of little sheep, lambs, etc. of sugar paste, which they name ofrenda, and it is a gift which must be given obligatorily to boys and girls of the houses where one is known. They also sell coffins, tombs and a thousand figures of the dead, clerics, monks, nuns and all denominations, bishops, horsemen, for which there is a great market and a colorful fair.”

Ajofrín does not mention sugar skulls, which became the most famous of these objects. As anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz notes, calaveras (skulls) were “alms for the poor on days of remembrance,” including funerals as well as Day of the Dead. The alms giver donated money or goods to an impoverished alms seeker or to a child, who served as proxies for a departed soul (the souls in Purgatory were considered to be the poorest of the poor, since, unlike the living, they were powerless to affect their situation). To the extent that sugar paste figures (including skulls at some point) had religious significance in Mexico, this significance was Catholic rather than indigenous. 

In Mexico, two rather different traditions evolved. One was urban and largely secular, with toys and popular attractions that could include circuses and cockfights. The rural tradition was more oriented towards the cemetery and the home altar. But even the rural tradition emulates Spanish customs that were brought to the Americas. Anthropologist Hugo G. Nutini demonstrates that such practices were once widespread in Europe, but ultimately became confined to marginalized areas such as the Mediterranean. Similarly, I believe that what had been widespread practices in Mexico ultimately survived most strongly in less affluent and rural mestizo and indigenous communities in Mexico, and that they came to be regarded as the pure indigenous core of Day of the Dead. Powerful motives – both inside and outside of Mexico – have served to over-emphasize indigenous content in Day of the Dead, and, simultaneously, to obscure or overlook the Spanish content.