For non-Spanish speaking individuals, Día de Los Muertos closely translates do Day of the Dead. It is a celebration that takes place during the first few days of November. While these two holidays do have some underlining similarities, they are not the same holiday, but for those who do not know, they often associate the two together. Many believe Halloween is America's spirit holiday and Día de Los Muertos is Latin America's spirt holiday. That in fact is not true. In order to understand the correlations and differences lets dive into how each holiday began and morphed over the centuries.
Here in America, a majority of people celebrate Halloween. This tradition began as part of the ancient Celtic religion which was prominent in parts of Europe. At the end of summer, the Celtics believed the barrier between the earthly world and the spiritual world became thin. This would allow for strange and scary ghosts or spirits with powers to roam among the earth. In turn, the Celtics threw a big party to scare away such spirits. Later as the Christian religion expanded, this day became known as All Hallow's Eve. America was introduced to this holiday through the immigration of Irish settlers in the 19th century. It was during this time that Halloween grew in popularity among Americans. Around the turn of the 20th century, this holiday turned into more of how it is known today, commercialized. It now includes costumes, trick-or-treating, social parties, and pumpkin carving. No longer is there a direct association with the Celtic religion as it once had centuries ago. Now, let's view Día de Los Muertos to see what that holiday is about.
Before we get too far into what this holiday is, lets set one thing straight, this is predominantly a holiday celebrated in Mexico. Not all Latin, Spanish speaking cultures celebrate this holiday. While thats not to say that other cultures cannot celebrate, the roots happen to be from Mexico. The tradition of honoring those who have passed on began as a ritual of the Aztec who once lived in what is now modern Central America. They believed the upon dying, a person was believed to travel to Chicunamictlán, Land of the Dead. There were nine challenging realms they must first go through which could take several years, before arriving at Mictlán, the final resting place. In order to aid their ancestors on their journey, living relatives put out food, water and tools on makeshift altars known as ofrendas. This tradition is about honoring those in the family who have passed on and acts as a reunion for families. While the movie from Disney called CoCo is not perfectly acurate to this culture's celebration it does give a good overview of what the holiday is. Now, let's compare the two holidays to discover the overlaps and differences in order to set the record straight about these two cultural holidays.
Día de Los Muertos is not, as is commonly thought, a Mexican version of Halloween, though the two holidays do share some traditions, including costumes and parades. Both believe the border between the spirit world and the real world dissolve. During this brief period, Celtics feared the souls that wandered, while Aztecs believed that the souls awakened and return to the living world to feast, drink, dance and play music with their loved ones. Celtics threw parties to scare off the spirits while the Aztecs in turn, treat the deceased as honored guests in their celebrations, and left the deceased’s favorite foods and other offerings at gravesites or on the ofrendas. Yes, both cultures are about the dead, but they view it quite differently and celebrate for different reasons. Do not confuse the two holidays like the same holiday but for different regions, because they are not. Which do you celebrate?
