In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ORIGINS AND CELEBRATIONS OF EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS by J. Rhett Rushing  Harvest time. The crops are in and the fields are torn and broken from giving their all. What has been nurtured and tended since the first warming winds of spring is now cold and dead and spent. Ghosts roam here as the line between the living and the dead is blurred and any door separating them stands ajar. This is the liminal time of transition and uncertainty. This is Samhain. In Northern European history when the ancient Celts farmed and struggled—before the Christians and even before the Romans—Samhain was the end of the harvest time when farmers gave thanks for the bounty and prepared for the long winter to come. It was a time of celebration, but equally a time of caution. The normal rules and behaviors were suspended and time seemed to stand still. For agricultural peoples the world over, the fall equinox signaled the end of the year, the onset of the Harvest Moon (when many farmers worked by full moonlight to gather crops before the weather turned bad), and the beginning of winter. The symbolic “death” of the crops was celebrated with feasting, with the ritual burning of the “Wicker Man” made of stalks and stems left over from the harvest, and the scattering of ashes over the fields to ensure fertility in the coming seasons. It was time of remembering the human dead as well, including the offering of foods and prayers. And since the dead were free to wander the earth, the living stayed close to their homes. If anyone had to be out at night, they were careful to wear a mask so as to confuse the ghosts who might be seeking them. In Ireland , travelers carried small lanterns carved from turnips to light their way, and those turnips were frequently carved with spooky faces as well. 147 Roman conquest did little to alter Samhain celebrations, but the coming of Christianity and organized Catholicism made a mark still in evidence today. For a thousand years all across Christendom , the church worked to supplant “pagan” rituals with Christian characters and themes, and by the conquest of the New World, Roman Catholicism had turned the harvest festival from harrowing to holy. In an attempt to de-emphasize the spooky and liminal aspects of the season, it was decided that a day of celebration for all the hallowed saints would satisfy the farmers’ need for a celebration while shepherding it into a religious event. For the most part this was a successful conversion, but it did not address the people’s need to “blow off steam” after the hard work of harvesting. Samhain had allowed for a period of ritualized misbehavior and a suspension of the normal rules governing daily life. Simply retooling the feast did not cure the social restlessness, and being as creative as only humans can be, the night before All Hallows Day became the target for eeriness and mischief—All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. Coming to the New World, Catholic conquerors again encountered harvest festivals where agricultural populations celebrated with feasting and a time of reverence for the dead returning to share the harvest. For untold centuries, Toltecs, Mayans, and Aztecs typically dedicated an entire month to the dead, and enjoyed a corn harvest fully intended to be shared among the living and the deceased. Again incorporating indigenous practices under the blanket of Catholic belief, All Saints Day took root in New Spain as a day of veneration and remembrance for those gone on. Initially, November the first was dedicated to recognized Catholic saints, but since children could die in a state of grace, the “little saints” were included as well. November the second (All Souls Day, or as it is known in Mexico and the American Southwest , El Día de los Muertos) developed as a formal time for remembering deceased adults. 148 Getting There: Rituals, Ceremonies, and the Process of Dying There are no formal guidelines for celebrating El Día de los Muertos, but there are several hallmarks of the holiday. Altars, whether constructed in the home or in larger, shared spaces, are often decorated with images of the deceased and filled with ofrendas , or offerings. These offerings frequently include pan de muerto, bread baked only during this season, in the shapes of the Virgen de Guadalupe or other religious figures, skulls, skeletons, or little animals if intended for los angelitos (deceased children). Other...

Share