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Rubios de Oaxaca performs a traditional dance at the 2005 Dia de los
Muertos festival in Oceanside. |
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Sugar skulls on display at Bazaar del Mundo shops in Old Town. |
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Jimi and Jaclyn Gosney build an altar for their grandmother and
great-grandmother at the 2004 ‘Muerte de Todos’ installation in
Escondido. |
Mexico's Day of the Dead
celebrated with local festivals, exhibits
Death is nothing to smile about, unless you look at mortality as simply
another state of being. The thin curtain between the living and the dead is
pulled back once a year in Mexico with the traditional celebration of Day of
the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2.
To honor the holiday, many local colleges, organizations, galleries and
museums will host Day of the Dead-themed exhibits and celebrations this week.
The Mexican people consider Day of the Dead a happy time when they honor the
human spirit through remembering their ancestors. The celebration's historical
roots stretch back more than 3,000 years.
"In the pre-Columbian cultures of Meso-America, it was customary for the Nahua to bury their dead surrounded by their most precious belongings and provisions that would be useful for their journey into the Mictlan or afterlife," said Carlos von Son, a Spanish teacher at Palomar and MiraCosta colleges.
In Mexico, the Day of the Dead marks the one time of year when the souls of
the deceased return to Earth briefly. Families mark the time, von Son says,
with festivities and reunions. Altars are created as a place to leave "the
most treasured items of the deceased," he said. The ofrenda, or altars,
include photographs of the deceased, incense, favorite foods, mementos,
candles and marigolds (the Aztecs' traditional flower of the dead). Also
popular are decorated skulls made out of sugar and models of skeletons, often
decorated or dressed with mementos from deceased loved ones, and other
skeleton-themed artwork.
Here's a roundup of some Day of the Dead-themed activities coming up around
the region in the next few weeks.
An estimated 45,000 people are expected to attend the daylong festival, which will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 28 in downtown Oceanside. More than 75 vendor booths and more than 20 community altars will be erected along three blocks of Pier View Way, as well as on Ditmar Street and in Artists' Alley.
Local Oaxacan families will build more than 20 altars for lost loved ones, and other altars will be built by local artists in the Oceanside Civic Center Plaza. Mellano & Company is donating more than 30,000 marigolds for use in the altar displays.
Visitors can watch the altars being built and can take part in their own remembrance at the chalk cemetery in Artist's Alley. Visitors will be given chalk, a candle and some flowers that they can use however they wish to decorate a section of the walkway in a loved one's honor. The alley will be decorated with papel picado (cut paper) designs, which are traditional Dia de los Muertos crafts in Mexico.
Live music and dancing will be presented all day on two outdoor stages as well as on the street. Performers include mariachis, ballet folklorico troupes from Oceanside, San Diego and Mexico, Banda Alma de Juarez, Imagen Azteca band and more.
From 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., a series of dances will be presented by the Mexican dance troupe Rubios de Juxtlahuaca. The group performs traditional dances for the Day of the Dead carnivals in Mexico. "La Danza de Los Rubios" ("Dance of the Fair-Skinned Ones") is a Mixtex dance honoring the cowboys who herded cattle in the Oaxacan region.
At 12:45 p.m., a traditional parade, the Comparsa Dionisio, will take place. The parade, also called a Muerteada, is a comic play about a woman who pretends to be sad that her husband is dying, while she flirts with other men. There are also other stock characters ---- a greedy doctor and foolish priest ---- who try but fail to help the dying man. Then a worthy shaman arrives and cures the man, leading the devils (who've been waiting eagerly for the dying man's soul) to leave in disappointment.
Food booths will serve pan de muertos (Mexico's traditional "Dead Bread" formed to resemble bones, and supplied to the festival by Oceanside's La Perla Tapatia bakery), tamales, carne asada tacos, sopes, tortas and other Mexican dishes.
A children's zone at Pier View Way at Ditmar Street will give children a chance to decorate their own sugar skulls and masks and make paper flowers.
For more information on festival events, call MainStreet Oceanside at (760) 967-2005 or visit www.msoceanside.com.