At first glance, it looks like nothing more than an ethnic spin on Halloween. Colorful skeletons, grinning from ear to ear, dance through the streets as homemade sugar skulls take the place of candy corn.
But this festival, with roots dating back to the ancient Aztecs and their compatriots, is far more than the Mexican version of an Americanized holiday. El Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a lively, colorful festival that takes place each year on Nov. 1 and 2 in order to celebrate loved ones who have passed on.
This month, two different Boston-based galleries will join in the festivities. The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center (CMAC) and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology are both creating their own celebrations that will allow visitors to take part in the traditional Mexican holiday, both featuring art exhibits and artistic performances that will take place throughout the weekend.
Though it appears to be outwardly similar to Halloween, "El Dia de los Muertos" has very different roots. Unlike All Hallow's Eve, which can trace its beginnings to the Celtic fire festival of Samhain, the original Day of the Dead celebrations come from ancient civilizations in Central and South America.
The Cambridge Multicultural Art Center pays homage to the holiday's ancient ties with its exhibit of "Dia de los Muertos" altars, which feature various ofrendas (offerings to the dead). Traditionally, the ofrendas consist of the dead's favorite food as well as their personal possessions. The display is running in the lower gallery through Nov. 4.
The specific altars featured here are decorated with colorful paper cutouts, called papel picado, and lined with sugar skulls intended to honor the dead. Candles and incense set the mood, as brightly colored statues and skeletons grin jovially at visitors from their place on the upper shelves.
Tomorrow, visitors to the Multicultural Arts Center can also take part in traditional "Dia de los Muertos" celebrations. Starting at 5 p.m., the evening will include dances, songs, and a lecture on the customs surrounding the holiday, given by University of Massachusetts Boston Professor Martha Montero-Sieburth.
The activities taking place throughout the night will include a serenading Mexican mariachi band, Mexican singer Veronica Robles, and a routine put on by the Xuchipilli Danza y Cultura de Mexico troupe, all of which are intended to familiarize visitors with traditional Mexican performances.
Children and adults alike can take part in the celebration by creating and decorating their own sugar skulls; the Boston Children's Museum will also be hosting a table where visitors can create Mexican arts and crafts. Traditional food and beverages will also be on sale for an additional fee.
On Nov. 1, Harvard's Peabody Museum will also join in the festivities. For the past three years, the Peabody Museum has hosted a "Dia de los Muertos" celebration on Nov. 2, organized in conjunction with the Mexican Consulate of Boston.
The Peabody's collection will feature an altar built for the event, as well as traditional objects culled from its own Mexican folk art collection, along with panels designed by local artists that address their personal interpretations of the holiday.
The celebration opens that evening with a traditional mohiganga, or masquerade, performed by a bilingual performance troupe from Mexico City in the museum's Geological Lecture Hall. Dance, mimicry, poetry, and live music will all take place throughout the evening, and guests will be invited to partake in traditional "Dia de los Muertos" foods and beverages.
In the Aztec culture, Day of the Dead festivities were held near the end of summer to honor children and past ancestors. Communities throughout Central America, including the indigenous Purepecha, Nahua, and Totonac peoples of Mexico, held similar celebrations to allow the souls of loved ones to return to the land of the living in order to eat, drink and be merry one last time.
After the Spanish conquistadores came to the Americas, the holiday was nominally Christianized. It was moved to the beginning of November to coincide with the dual celebrations of All Souls Day and All Saints Day (Christian trappings that had been placed centuries earlier over the pagan Halloween), and many of the festivities were restricted or toned down.
Still the holiday managed to survive. Today, it is immensely popular in Mexico and Central America, and it remains imminently intertwined with folk art and folk customs in the communities in which it is celebrated.
Though the similarities to Halloween are striking, "El Dia de los Muertos" presents a very different take on the celebration and honoring of the deceased. The artwork and festivities associated with the holiday are deeply rooted in tradition, but both the CMAC and the Peabody Museum have gone to great lengths to make sure that even those unfamiliar with the holiday can take part in its events.
Whether this is your first Day of the Dead or your hundredth, whether it takes the place of a traditional Halloween or not, both exhibits give visitors the chance to experience a holiday that may very well be worth dying for.
