Day of the Dead
ancient traditions with Aztec 
SAN MIGUEL CANOA, MEXICO
"Día de los Muertos",
Or Day of the Dead, is one of Mexico’s most famous holidays.
The festival from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, memorialize death as an main element of life and honors loved ones who have passed. It’s believed the dead have authorization to cross the underworld, or Mictlan, and share in a feast with their living family and friends.
The historical roots of the festival stretch back thousands of years to the ancient traditions of the indigenous Aztec people and are still observed by the descendants of the Nahua people.
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| LA FRINDA |
The holiday itself is a very syncretic holiday, combining the Mesoamerican worldview of life and family progression with Catholic traditions, is November 1st while All Souls Day is November 3.
The holiday has been very common in films such as Disney's like "Coco". The Mexican Tourist Board has marketed the celebration in places like Mexico City and Michoacan with extravagant parades with millions of locals and tourists in attendance.
The communities around the cities of Puebla and Tlaxcala along the base of the Malenchi volcano cover the large indigenous Nahua communities.
Día de los Muertos and its ancient traditions are found within the indigenous towns outside the major cities of central Mexico.
They are piece of three families who splited one large altar into three sections.
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| The costums |
They start cooking their mole poblano using a village formula at 4:30 a.m., and it takes two hours to build their final offering. They sprinkle marigold petals on their walkways to attract the spirits to their offerings.
They believe that when they put the offerings up, by the time the celebration is over at noon on Nov. 3, the departed will have “consumed” everything they have made in a spiritual sense, and the richness and smell of the food, flowers and incense will be gone.
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