The Day of the Dead’s ancient traditions live on in this small Mexican town

By Rocío Muñoz-Ledo, Max Saltman, CNN

San Andrés Mixquic, Mexico (CNN) — The route from the land of the dead to San Andrés Mixquic, a little town just outside Mexico City, is lined with marigolds. Ángel Jiménez del Aguila, who died in 2010, need only follow the trail of flower petals, the scent of smoldering copal and the rhythm of danzón music to find his old front door, where his wife and children wait for him.

According to Mexican tradition, every year, the door between the world of the living and the dead swings open on the first two days of November. This is Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

Often mischaracterized as a Mexican version of Halloween, the Day of the Dead is many things depending on whom you ask.

It’s a festival to remember departed relatives, a celebration of Mexican-ness, an ancient holiday with roots in the Aztec Empire, a not-so-ancient Mexican spin on All Saint’s Day, the setting for Disney’s “Coco” – or all the above.

“It is an act of faith, of love, of peace,” says Martha Nashieli Jiménez Bernal, Ángel’s daughter. For her, above all, the Day of the Dead is “a magical moment where life and death come together.”

“It’s 12 o’clock, welcome dad!” Martha says, waving a smoking censer back and forth over the golden flowers that snake from the garden gate into the parlor of her childhood home. “Welcome.”

The trail of marigold petals leads to an ofrenda, an altar covered with even more flowers, colorful cloth, fruit, candy skulls and photos of Ángel and other relatives.

Martha breaks chunks of copal into her censer as she kneels before the altar. Standing up, she holds up a plate of pan de Muertos – sweet baked bread in the shape of skulls.

“Dad, welcome to your home, with your children,” Martha says, her voice cracking with emotion. “You know we love you, and I’ve been looking forward to this day so much, to be able to be with you again. Welcome, Ángel Jiménez.”

Changing times

In recent years, celebrations for the Day of the Dead have taken on new influences, some gleaned from Hollywood.

The same day that the Jiménez family was welcoming their loved ones in the intimacy of their house, a popular parade for the Day of the Dead filled the streets of Mexico City. The practice is very new: it was adopted after the 2015 James Bond movie “Spectre” showed Daniel Craig making his way through a lively Day of the Dead parade in its opening scene.

Even in San Andrés Mixquic, known for its traditional celebrations, some wear the sort of spooky Halloween costumes sold in the United States, although local families themselves do not dress up.

For the Jiménez family, the Day of the Dead is a deeply personal tradition. They take pride in preparing their altar with fruits from the local market and carefully cleaning their relatives’ headstones. Martha even gathers the flowers by hand from the family’s chinampa, a traditional floating garden the Aztecs cultivated hundreds of years ago, making the ritual both intimate and rooted in family history.

“It is a treasure, it is a gift. It is an inheritance that we are living,” says Leonor Bernal Roque, Martha’s mother. Her earliest memory is of her grandfather decorating their family’s altar when she was five years old.

“From the age of five,” she says, “I began to feel love for my ancestors.”

The Day of the Dead teaches “that death is a transition, it is not a punishment,” she says. People “must practice gratitude toward their ancestors.”

“Memory should be important,” Leonor says.

History lesson

The Day of the Dead unfolds over three days in San Andrés Mixquic. On October 31, the family commemorates the souls of children at the altar. The next day, November 1, they greet their adult relatives, like Martha’s father Angel. The third day, families gather at the cemetery from morning till night to decorate graves and say goodbye.

While the holiday has its roots in the Aztec empire prior to Spain’s conquest in 1521, the modern-day celebration blends indigenous Mexican themes with the European Christian tradition of All Saint’s Day, when some Christians visit their departed loved ones in cemeteries.

Soon after arriving in the Americas , Spanish monks noticed the Aztecs had their own celebrations to commune with departed ancestors, according to historian Héctor Zaraus.

“In the Aztec, Zapotec, and Mayan calendar, one of the months was dedicated to the dead, and it was adapted to the first and second of November with the arrival of the Spanish,” says Zaraus, a scholar at the Mora Institute in Mexico City.

The indigenous elements are the most prominent parts of the contemporary ceremony, Zaraus says, especially the tombs festooned with marigolds. Even the photographs on family altars have their roots in ancient times: Zaraus says the Aztecs “used clay figures to portray the dead.”

There’s more than one way to celebrate the Day of the Dead, however. María del Carmen Eugenia Reyes Ruiz, professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, notes that the celebration differs throughout Mexico. She also says that, while some aspects of the modern-day celebration may have ancient roots, others are far more recent additions than might commonly be believed.

“As for the way we celebrate it in Mexico – with colors, candles, altars, and flower paths – I think it’s also worth noting that it isn’t common throughout the entire country, and it’s certainly not as ancient as it’s often made to seem,” Reyes says. “It’s a very romantic and beautiful idea, but not entirely accurate.”

Plenty of other cultures have similar ceremonies, some older than Mexico’s, Reyes says. For thousands of years, families in China have celebrated Qingming after the spring equinox, cleaning and decorating their ancestor’s graves and offering plates of sweet dumplings.

“Although it may sound a little unromantic, there’s something I’d like to make clear,” Reyes says. “The idea of the Day of the Dead celebration, while it is indeed part of Mexican culture, is not exclusive to Mexico.”

The doorway closes

The sun has set in San Andrés Mixquic, but the cemetery here is filled with light. Nearly everyone in town is here for the signature, final celebration of the Day of the Dead. The door between this world and the next is about to close, and it’s time to say goodbye.

After days of cleaning graves and decorating tombstones, the graveyard is awash in color and flickering candles. It’s loud – people are cheerfully talking, remembering their loved ones, playing music, eating food and toasting with mezcal. The bells in the church nearby are tolling.

Even as tourists from around the world wander the cemetery, the Jiménez family treats the holiday as a sacred communion, inviting outsiders only to witness and participate respectfully. Martha says that even these tourists, some of whom come from places as far as Japan, are playing a part in the festivities: their curiosity is part of what keeps the tradition alive.

“It becomes a kind of communion,” she muses as she stands at her father’s grave. “A bond is formed, a connection with them. Even if we don’t know them, we know they come with respect and a desire to learn about our traditions. So, we invite them to come respectfully – to come live our tradition, to get to know it, to preserve it, to take it back to their own homes.”

Diana, Martha’s 19-year-old niece, agrees. She’s made up her face to look like a skull and holds a candle under her chin.

“Tourists, if they have a family member, can also set up their own offering, and in this way, this tradition won’t die,” Diana says. “My family, especially my aunt (Martha), is the one who has instilled this tradition in us so much.”

As the night ends in the graveyard, the family toasts Ángel with mezcal.

“My family is happy and joyful because these were days of hard work, days of great effort,” Martha says. “Some siblings came from far away; others could not be here.”

Martha does not have children, but she knows that she’s entrusted her nieces and nephews with the traditions to keep the Day of the Dead alive long after she’s buried in this cemetery herself.

“I just want them to also welcome me the day I depart,” Martha says. “I want them not to forget me, to know that their aunt will come, and that I love them in the most organic way possible. That they receive me with all the love I gave them – and I know they will. I’m sure of it.”

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