Each year, beginning on October 31st and ending on the 2nd of November, the streets and cemeteries of Mexico overflow with colour, candlelight, and song. Sugar skulls smile from market stalls, marigolds fill the air with their scent, and relatives gather to welcome home the souls of the deceased. Día de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — is a feast that turns grief into music, and memory into ritual.
At its essence, Día de los Muertos is not a day of sorrow, but of presence. It is a day when worlds are most indistinct, when the living open their doors and hearts wide to those who have abandoned life. The dead, in this system of beliefs, are never really absent — merely waiting to be remembered.
The celebrations have their roots going back to pre-Columbian times. Long before Spanish colonization, the Mexica (Aztec), Maya, and Purépecha cultures honored death as an extension of life. The cosmos for them was circular, creation and destruction were partners in an eternal rhythm. Death was not cessation, but metamorphosis.
When Spanish Catholicism arrived in the 16th century, these Indigenous practices merged with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.
From the mixture, something uniquely Mexican emerged: a holiday that synthesized Indigenous spiritual thought and Catholic imagery.
