Día de Muerto (Day of the Dead)

(Text in ENG)

  Halloween, Halottak Napja, Día de Muerto, Obon... all these holidays are for the beloved who have passed away.
  Halloween in the US is celebrated with fun (the pumpkins, masks, costumes, "trick or treat"-s) on the 31st October. And although Halloween is followed by more and more countries, each country has its own way to remember the dead.

  It is Obon in Japan, when it is thought that the dead souls are returning to their homes. Obon is celebrated in the middle of August - in Japan, it is a quite remembering when people go to the cemeteries and take flowers to the graves. Similar to the Hungarian "Halottak Napja", which is on the 1st November. I always thought that this day is perfect for this holiday, because November is the start of the winter. It was always cold and cloudy and foggy - just the atmosphere for this sad holiday. In Mexico, this remembering lasts for 2 days: on the 1st is it thought that the souls of the children come back from the other world, while the adults visiting on the 2nd. Although Mexico is a deeply christian country, día de muerto resembles for the ancient times. This holiday well shows the mix of christendom and the old religions.
  On Día de Muerto, the people prepare traditional food, flowers and most of all all kinds of skulls and skeletons. Of course, not real, mainly made of candy or chocolate, but there are objects as well, made of paper or wood. The approach of the Mexican to skulls and skeletons astonishes me all the time - in our culture, a skull should be disgusting, while here it is widely approved and even liked: the skulls are funny in Mexico: made of beads, wood, paper painted colorfully (and always smiling). There is even a mummy museum in Morelia, with hundreds of real mummies displayed....
  Going back to the Día de Muerto, the most popular food of this day is the "pan de muerto" (bread of the dead): it is a round, sweet bread with sugar on the outside and (mainly) walnut in the inside. This bread (and the skull sweets) are sold in the supermarkets and all over the city since weeks before the holiday.

  The biggest festival of these days are held at Lake-Pátzcuaro, near Morelia. However, festivals are all over the country. We were traveling at this time and arrived back on the 2nd, but on our way home, we could see huge traffic jams around the cemeteries in Mexico City. People were pouring in and out the and flower stands were lining up along the cemeteries.

Skeleton on the street made of flower petals

Altar for Dia de muerto