This year I decided to stay in Queretaro for Dia de las Muertos or Halloween if you will. Queretaro is not the most beautiful place to experience the celebrations but since it is my new hometown I thought I should honor it by staying and judging for myself.
These days of remembering and honoring the dead take place on the two first days of november. The first is in honor of the children and the second is for the adults. The Aztecs didn´t use these dates but the Spanish decided to move them to a date better suitable for the Catholic faith after they conquered the country.
The weekend leading up the celebrations has many cultural experiences ranging from City Legend Walking Tours, complete with oil lamps and a elaborately dressed guide who knows how to delivering a story in a dramatic and exiting way, to Indigenous dances and musical performances on the many plazas of the city. A live version of the Priest Miguel Hidalgo (Father of the Mexican war of Independence who gave his famous Cry of Independence on the 16 september, 1810) is also walking around town giving his famous speeches of liberty and independence.
Many official buildings and otherwise off-limit historical houses also open their doors to show of their version of the traditional 7 step shrine donned with painted skulls, flowers, candles, bread and candies which of course are brought for the pleasure of the dead which on this day are being honored for who and what they were when walking amongst us. The 7 steps represent the 7 deadly sins should you wonder... The story goes that the dead somehow "sucks" the nourishment from the bread and candies.
This tradition dates back more than 3000 years in Mexico to the Aztecs and their fellow colorful indigenous groups in Meso-America. In those days they did not use sugar skulls by the way. The Spaniards who conquered Mexico in 1521, considered this ritual to be sacrilegious and barbaric, and during their implementation of Catholicism they tried to kill the ritual. But like the old Aztec gods and spirits, the ritual refused to die.
Today many families with a Catholic spirit create their own in-house altar to match their Virgin de Guadelupe shrine and the graves of their loved ones gets a serious decorative overhauling including an all-night family celebration right there by the grave in the cemetary . This festival alone is worth a trip to Mexico.
And some sunday daytime photos from around the historic centre of Queretaro.
