The food, the colors, the flowers, music, the ceremonies, the altars, among other elements, surprise the whole world every year, sending a forceful message: “Mexicans even laugh at death itself.”
The coexistence between the Mexican and death is curious. Millions erect altars to their relatives and end up “having dinner” with them. We eat death on bread and it is extremely sweet for our palate.
But beyond a pre-Hispanic celebration, a rite or a celebration, Mexicans have learned to live with death. We sing to it, we celebrate it, it is part of our daily life.
On the indifference that the Mexican maintains and death, the poet Octavio Paz he pointed out “in the face of death, as in the face of life – Mexicans – we shrug our shoulders and oppose it a silence or a disdainful smile.”
#EnPhotos | Among flowers and offerings, Mexico commemorates its dead
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The pantheons of Mexico were once again dyed with the marigold orange that characterizes this date of the year: the Day of the Dead, a celebration that had been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ivan Villanueva / EFE
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This year, Mexico kept the Day of the Dead alive in a hybrid celebration, according to the times of the pandemic, so the pantheons maintained their sanitary measures.
Ivan Villanueva / EFE
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Among the measures is the mandatory use of face masks and small groups to enter the pantheons, this to avoid crowds that can cause infections.
Ivan Villanueva / EFE
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In the pantheon of Tzintzuntzan, in Michoacán, where the celebration of the Day of the Dead is a tradition and tourist attraction, the relatives returned to watch over their dead.
Ivan Villanueva / EFE
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In Tochimilco, Puebla, dozens of people today visit an altar in honor of their deceased loved ones, between prevention measures and a 30% capacity for the pandemic.
Hilda Rios / EFE
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In Mexico City, residents of the Iztapalapa mayor’s office attended this day of the faithful departed to fix the graves of their loved ones.
Victoria Valtierra / Cuartoscuro
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The celebration of this Day of the Dead was held with most of the country at a green epidemiological traffic light.
Victoria Valtierra / Cuartoscuro
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This allowed families to access the pantheons, as always, with bouquets of marigolds to decorate the graves of their deceased.
Victoria Valtierra / Cuartoscuro
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Although one of the restrictions was to prohibit access to people over 60 years of age, the vaccination of this group of the population also allowed them to visit their relatives in the pantheons.
Victoria Valtierra / Cuartoscuro
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These activities for the Day of the Dead are part of the reopening and lack of refinement, more than a year after the health emergency due to COVID-19.
Victoria Valtierra / Cuartoscuro
It is confusing how we relate so closely to “the grim reaper”, “la calaca”, “la calavera”, “la pelona”, “la buesuda”, “wire legs”, “la catrina”, “la chingada”, ” la soot ”, among dozens of other nicknames that we have assigned to death.
On a daily basis, we hear of murders in droves, from Tijuana to Tamaulipas; from Guanajuato to Quintana Roo. In our cities we constantly see cordoned off places, with police and forensic agents.
Death in the environment reigns, controls, embraces us and subjects us to a reality that is no longer surprising to many.
