IN a rare occasion, the Mexican Embassy in the Philippines celebrated the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos in Spanish) with an invitation to friends and members of the diplomatic corps to view the various displays heaped on a makeshift Altar de Muertos (Altar of the Dead) at the diplomat’s residence in Makati City.
The country’s Mexican Ambassador Gerardo Lozano Arredondo and Madame Mariza Arciniego de Lozano prepared the elaborate exhibit that must have taken days to erect.
“We wish to highlight, distinguished guests, that this is the first time in more than 20 years that the Embassy held a showcase of the Altar,” Lozano opened his speech as he welcomed the visitors.
“This celebration is, perhaps, the most iconic of all because it represents the fusion of old and the new; the pre-Hispanic and the colonial heritage of Mexico. It resembles the Mexican twofold belief of death: We remember our dead by celebrating life.”
Lozano said every year, the offering is dedicated to one of their beloved family members or close relatives who have passed away.
“On this occasion, the Embassy’s Altar is made in honor of our dear countrymen who perished during the earthquakes that affected Mexico [in] September.”
The 2017 Central Mexico earthquake killed 370 people and injured more than 6,000. It caused damage in the states of Puebla and Morelos, as well as the Greater Mexico City area, which saw the collapse of more than 40 buildings.
The tremor coincidentally occurred on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which killed around 10,000 people. The latest quake struck just two hours prior while the country was commemorating the 1985 quake.
Twelve days earlier, a larger earthquake struck 650 kilometers, or 400 miles away, off the coast of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
Ambassador Lozano said that at the beginning of every September, Mexican families celebrate the Day of the Dead by welcoming them back into their homes and providing feasts with splendid picnics and decorating gravesites.
He revealed that some families build altars—just like the one he had in his abode—decorated with a shrine of skulls and skeletons covered in flowers with various dishes, beverages, sweets and in some cases, cigarettes, as offerings.
According to accounts, the spirits are greeted with gifts of special food and things that they enjoyed when they were alive. These are laid out on an altar in the family home, and it is believed that the spirits consume the essence and the aroma of the foods.
When the spirits depart, the living consumes the food and shares them with family, friends and neighbors.
Other items that were placed on the altar include sugar skulls often with the person’s name inscribed on the top, pan de muertos which is a special bread that is made especially for the season, and cempasuchil or marigolds which bloom at this time of year and lend a special fragrance to the altar.
Festivities of this kind take place over two days: The first remembering the departed children and the second, for adults.
According to historical references, in pre-Hispanic times, the dead were buried close to family homes (often in a tomb underneath the central patio of the house), and there was great emphasis on maintaining ties with deceased ancestors who were believed to continue to exist on a different plane. With the arrival of the Spaniards and Catholicism, All Souls’ and All Saints’ Day practices were incorporated into these beliefs and customs. The holiday came to be celebrated as Mexicans know it today.
The belief behind the Día de Muertos practice is that spirits return to the world of the living for one day of the year to be with their families. It is said that the spirits of babies and children who have died (called angelitos, or “little angels”) arrive on midnight of October 31st, and spend an entire day with their families and then leave. Those of adults come the following day.
“In this celebration, people not only share an ancient pre-Hispanic ceremony and some Catholic ritual, but also a range of manifestations supported by the ethnic and cultural plurality of the country,” Lozano noted.
The envoy said these celebrations also rest on the artistic creations that Mexican musicians and painters have generated in the past centuries, given the works of singular value.
“Proof of this can be attested tonight [by having] one of the paintings of the renowned Philippine artist Manuel Baldemor whom I deeply appreciate and thank for lending his pieces to this occasion.”
A prolific artist, Baldemor is a Filipino painter, sculptor, printmaker, writer and book illustrator. Several of his works adorn the walls of the room where the Altar was erected.
Because of its importance as a defining aspect of Mexican culture and the unique aspects of the celebration that have been passed down through generations, Lozano pointed out that Mexico’s indigenous festivity dedicated to their dead was recognized in 2008 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Image credits: Roy Domingo, Recto Mercene