Death in the City

Sat, Aug 15, 2009

The Zócalo is overrun with Death.

All around us skeletons are grinning and dancing and engaged in endless mocking diversions. A metro train is packed full of ghoulish spectres and the living are fighting to get on board. Death is making tortillas and her starving family are waiting to be fed. A band of farmers have just finished harvesting maize and are lying in a heap of bones.

Crowds of spectators work their way through the scenes, some adorned in eerie costumes of devils and ghosts and monsters. Through all this, Mexico’s Day of the Dead is a time of great joy and happiness. A time when families gather together to honour the departed, to feast, to drink and to dance.

'La Catrina', the 'Female Dandy', satirised by Posada in the 19th Century, is a returning guest and icon of Day of the Dead.

Whilst coinciding with the Catholic holidays of All Saints Day and All Souls Day (November 1-2), Day of the Dead has Pre-Hispanic roots. It recalls a time when the mysteries of Life and Death played a far more prominent role in the day-to-day affairs of the living.

In Aztec society, the gods continually demanded tributes of blood and flesh, the spirits of the dead played vital roles in the world of the living and a plethora of unseen ‘Otherworlds’ were inextricably linked to our own. The world of opposites – Life and Death – were in constant dizzying dance, each energising and replenishing the other. Life springs from Death. Death consumes Life.

Today, Mexico is a nation fixated with Death. In the UK, the tabloids often feature front-page stories about shamed celebrities caught dabbling in vice (reflecting our national obsession with repression and humiliation). In Mexico, the tabloids feature explicit photos of murder victims – severed heads, mutilation, blood and guts and all.

Entire magazines are devoted to traffic accidents with teams of photographers arriving to the scene like vultures. That’s the Mexican paparazzi, picking over a bloody corpse.

But Death, whilst all-pervasive in Mexican society, is not necessarily a morbid affair. The skeletons and skulls adorning the capital’s central square are alive and scintillating with colour. And the feisty cadavers of satirist Posada are the perfect embodiment of the Mexican attitude to death – Death is coming, let’s laugh at it. What could be healthier?

Here are some pictures of the 2008 festivities:

This 'Ofrenda', or altar the dead is filled with sweets and goodies, as well as photos of the departed. The orange marigold blooms help guide the deceased from the underworld to the land of the living.