Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead Glossary:
alfenique: a special confection used to fashion skulls, fruits and other figures.
angelitos: the souls of the children who have died, literally, "little angles."
atole: an ancient drink made from corn meal and water flavored with various fruits.
calaveras: songs and poems about the festival
cempazuchitl: a yellow marigold, the symbol of death.
copalli: a sented resin used to make candles.
mole: a thick sauce made from a varaity of ingredients including chillis, sesame seeds, herbs, spices, chocolate/fruit.
ofrenda: an offering, refers to the goods set out on the altars.
pan de los muertos: bread of the dead.
While some prefer to visit the graves of loved ones, others build an ofrenda (offering), or altar, in their home. It consists of a photo of the one being honored; prayer candles in purple for pain, white for hope and pink for the celebration; pan de los muertos (bread of the dead), a sweetened bread baked in round loaves or skull shapes; marigolds; sugar skulls; papel picado (Mexican tissue-paper decorations); copal (incense to clear the path for spirits return); a glass of water and a bottle of beer.
These whimsical renditions of skulls and skeletons are used in many forms of artwork, toys and mini-shadowboxes.
This popular Muertos image was created by Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). It was modeled in the French style, after the ladies of the early 1900s.
In certain parts of Mexico, family members gather at the graves of their loved ones and build the altar by the headstone rather than in their home.
Also known as "the flower with 400 lives," marigolds were thought by the Aztec Indians to symbolize death. It is believed that the scent of the petals forms a welcome path for the spirits to return to their altar or grave.
Molded from a sugar paste, then decorated with icing, glitter and foil, these skulls often are placed on altars. The sugar represents the sweetness of life, and the skull represents the sadness of death.
Day of the Dead:
A special holiday each year to honor the dead, involving, parties, feasts, special foods, songs and parades.
Unlike holidays such as Memorial Day or Veterans Day, in which citizens remember former members of the armed forces with a parade, a gravesite ceremony and a long weekend, the Day of the Dead in most cultures brings the living and the dead together for a great feast and celebration to remember the departed and to placate them for another year. The worship and lacation of the spirits of the dead is an ancient and universal practice, and it continues in many parts of the world.
The Chinese, who venerate their ancestors, perform special ceremonies in spring, summer and autumn to ease humankind's two souls: the spiritual and the animal. The spiritual soul is petitioned to give special consideration to the departed's decendants, and the animal soul is discouraged from rusing the corspe and disturbing the living.
Of particular import is the Hungry Ghost Festival, a two-week observance that takes place in the autumn during the Seventh Moon. People prepare food for those ghosts who have no living decendants to take care of them, and therefore are hungry.The ghosts are symbolyzed by lotus flower lamps that are carried through streets, and small boats with candles that are floated in streams at dusk.
In Japan, the equivalent of All Soul's Day is Obon, or "The Feast of Lanterns." It is celebrated between July 13 and 16. It is believed that the spirits of the dead come home during this time; they are entertained with food and offerings. Household services are conducted for the dead, and special lights are placed at gates to guide the spirits.
The "shades" of former tribal Africans remain with their families and intercede on their behalf with the divine spirits. To keep them happy, living relatives hold feasts with plenty of food and drink, frequently accompanied by animal sacrifice. The ancestor's kin must attend the meal, since it is a communion among the living and the dead. If any of the family is quarreling, such disagreements are resolved at the feast to ward off withcraft.
Hindu sraddhas, or rituals for the ancestors, lasts for 10 days. During that time the departed spirit recieves food to help it survive the required trips through 10 different hells. Additionally, on the first of the new autumn moon, the head of each Hindu family holds ceremonies venerating the dead of the last three generations.
Perhaps the most elaborate ceremonies for the dead occur in Mexico. The Spanish conquistadores were shocked to find the Aztecs and the Mayans practicing cannibalism and human sacrifice, and they violently discouraged such practices. But to the native Mexicans, personal and collective salvation did not depend on faith in future redemption but on the continuity of life and death: more specifically, the blood and death of humans.
They saw little distinction between life and death, viewing each as merely phases of a cycle. According to Octavio Paz, the well-known Mexican writer and diplomat, for the Aztecs the chief function of life was to die; death was life's natural compliment. Conversely, death was not an end but the food of future life. Sacrifice, then, served two purposes: to allow humas a role in the creative process and to pay back their debts to the gods. Celebrating death made continued life possible.
Forced to adopt Catholicim, the native Aztecs and Mayans transferred their death rites into the worship of the martyred saints. Grim religious artworks portray death in graphic detail. Even popular cartoons feature skeletons cavorting in a danse macabre representing all walks of life. Calaveras, or death's heads, still can be found in any Mexican market or gift shop.
The official day of the dead, El Dia De Los Muertos, is November 2, All Soul's Day. The native peoples recieved this date from the missionaries, but it fit in well with traditional corn festivals. Festivities actually begin on October 31, Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve. The women of each family clean house, make candles and cook great quantities of chicken, tortillas, hot chocolate, sweet corn gruel called atole and a special bread baked in the shapes of little animals. The men build small clay altars on which they place offerings of food and toys to the angelitos, the little children in the family who have died. Around midnight, as the family prays, the angelitos come and enjoy their presents, then leave.
The next day, All Saints' Day, the children enjoy the food prepared for the angelitos while the adults prepare an even bigger feast for the older deceased who will arrive near dawn the next morning. Such a part requires spicier food and plenty of tequilla and aguardiente. Older departed spirits deserve a bigger altar as well, complete with gaily decorated skulls' and bones made from marzipan or a special bread baked for the occasion. Across the skulls' foreheads appears the names of the departed or even a suitable motto or sentiment, such as "as I am, so shall you be." Up until about the turn of the century, celebrants dug up real skulls and then reburied them under the supervision of the local priest.
Outsiders may find such celebrations morbid, but the Mexicans do not. Walking through the town square, wrapped in banners and streamers, celebrants enjoy amusement park rides, munch on candy bones and tiny coffins, and drink quantities of strong alcohol. Mexicans believe the dead want to have a good time too, so mixing the sacred and the profane is quite normal.
Later on the local priest visits his parishioners' home altars, offering prayers and blessings. The shrine is usually hung with photographs of the departed and pictures of the families patron saints. Yellow marigolds surround the altar (yellow was the color of death before the Spanish conquest). Neighbors go from house to house, sharing food and drink and swapping memories of the deceased, who have now gathered to listen to what the living say about them. No dead soul is neglected for fear it may be sad or vengeful.
These visitations last all night and are followed by a mass at about 8:00 the next morning. All Souls' Day, at which time the departed return to their graves. After a day of rest, everyone proceeds to the cemetery that evening, where each family says prayers, sings songs and shares another meal with the departed with a picnic over the Loved ones' graves. These last visitations satisfy the deceased, who are once more able to rest comfortably until they need to rejoin the living again the next year.
Ancestor Worship:
The worship of deceased relatives, or ancestors as if they were deities.
Ancestor worship may take several forms. In it's most generalized form, it is simply the laying out of food or drink for the deceased in the belief that this will encourage them to bring good to the community, and ward off evil. Ancestral spirits are widely believed to be able to influence the fertility of women and crops. Propitation of ancestors is caracteristic of Animism, the world view to which the majority of tribal societies around the world adhere, but since the ancestors are not really though of as gods, it may be going to far to describe this as "worship."
A more definite form of ancestor worship is found in Aisa, where one part of the spirit of a deceased person is believed to pass into a special tablet after death. The tablets are placed in a cerimonial room and are bowed to, talked to and fed regularly by their living descendants, quite as if they were living persons. The purpose of these acts is, however, the same as in the tribal societies: to please the ancestors, thereby making sure they coninue to look out for the household and community.
An intermediary type of ancestor worship is found throughout West Africa. Here each family line, or lineage, has it's own ancestral shrine, inhabited, it is believed, by the founder of the lineage. These shrines are usually carved wooden representations of the persons in question, and they may be fed, cared for and asked for favors, especially for children.
Afterlife:
Almost every society known has some belief in survival after death and what happens to people when they die, although these beliefs vary enormously. The basic possibilities include a continuation of life with little change in the nature or quality of existence; a series of lives and deaths before ultimate extinction; moral improvement
through a series of stages, levels, or 'planes'; and bodily resurrection at some future date. Alongside the idea of a future life one often finds beliefs in Reincarnation, a return to earth life in successive bodies.
Christian ideas about the afterlife include a judement upon death and an assignment to either Heaven or Hell, depending on one's merit leading to an indefinite period of existence in a discarnate state that is followed by a resurrection in the body at the time of the second coming of Christ, which is also to lead to the end of the world. Christian ideas heavily influenced 19th-century Spiritualism, although Spiritualist authors, such as Andrew Jackson Davis, mainly elaborated what it was like during the intermediary state. According to Davis, who dictated his lectures in trance, after death human beings continue their spiritual progress through a series of celestial spheres, until they reached the seventh sphere and become one with "The Infinate Vortex of Love and Wisdom and the great Spiritual Sun of the Divine Mind."
Most traditional societies also have beliefs about what happens to people when they die, although the conception of an afterlife is not always formulated clearly. Sometimes there is a vague belief in continued existence, with little interest or concern in the nature of this existence. In other societies, the afterlife is believed to be structured very similarly to life on earth: there is the same type of social organization, and there is plenty. It was images like this that led to the potrayal of a "Happy Hunting Ground" as the idea of the Native American afterlife. In some societies, existence is believed to continue much in the same way as on earth, but in reverse. In communicating with the dead, one says and does the opposite of what one means.
The land of the dead is not always located in the heavens. Prehaps even more often, it is located under the earth. The Zulus believe in an underworld, where mountains and rivers and all things are as above. The dead live in villages, and milk their cattle, which are the spirits of the cattle which have been killed on earth. Or again, the dead may live on a mountain or in a valley on the surface of the earth. One European in Boreno managed to get native guides to take him to the summit of the mountain said to be the region of the spirits. He was shown the moss in which the spirits fed and footprints of the ghostly buffaloes which followed them, but his guides refused to spend the night there.
In traditional societies, knowledge of the afterlife is said to have been gained from the experiences of Shamans, whose primary function is to act as an intermediary between the living and the dead. Shamans may travel to the Land of the Dead in search of souls that have had difficulty getting back to their bodies, either through accident or illness. Not infrequently, Shamanic teachings are supplemented by accounts of Near Death Experience, in which regular people have their own visionary experiences of the afterlife.
Spiritualism and the animalistic belief of tribal societies have in common the beliefs in the possibility of communication between the living and the dead. In animism, ideas about the soul are fairly complicated and vary a great deal from one place to another. Many societies distinguish between the ghost, or the spirit proper (which travels to the land of the dead), and a different part of the spirit, which reincarnates. The ghost part of the spirit is believed to be particularly strong before it's main spirit has begun its trip to the Land of the Dead, which may not begin before three of four days after death, and therefore various things are done to facilitate the departure and to discourage the ghost from returning to plague the living.
The spirit ancestors may return at special occasions such as after death, however, and on these occasions they are no longer so dangerous. The Ghost Dance was a special type of Native American festival, in which it was believed that the spirits of the dead would return to lead the way back to the life they had led before the coming of the white man.
Feasts and Festivals of the dead:
Celebrations that are part of the cycle of funerary activities in tribal societies around the world.
In the system of beliefs about souls and spirits called animism after death has a treacherous road to travel to the Land of the Dead. (see afterlife). The journey begins a few days after and may take several months, up to about a year, to complete. The feasts that are held at this time are intended partly to celebrate this journey, but also partly to help it along. Once the spirit reaches the Land of the Dead, it will find the means of sustaning itself, but while on the way, it requires nourishment from surviving members of the community.
Food may be left out for the spirit, in which case it is believed to eat its material as well as spiritual essence, or else the food may be consumed or burned, in which case the spirit is thought to partake of its spiritual essence only. Sometimes there are a series of feasts, at intervals, over a course of months, with the last, rather than the first, being the biggest one.
The last feast is the biggest because it celebrates the arrival of the spirit in the Land of the Dead, and its final transformation from a deceased person into an ancestor. Significantly, in many societies it is not until this time that a widow ends her mourning, whatever goods the deceased possessed are transferred to his heirs, and if he held an office, a successor is named. Until the spirit has reached its final destination, the entire society remains in limbo.
Special Thanks to Landa & Bryant for their help! :O)
Taiwan: people feed ghosts to have prosperous year traditional festival
7/25/06
Taiwanese from all walks of life believe that feeding and entertaining ghosts during the festival leads to a year of peace and prosperity.
The Liberty Times newspaper said the American rap band Black Eyed Peas would burn incense sticks and make offerings of fruit, pork and chicken before their Tuesday night concert, the first in a series of musical events during the ghost festival.
Ghost month coincides with the seventh lunar month. This year it lasts until Sept. 21 because of leap year considerations in the lunar calendar, the AP reports.
Another performer observing ghost month this year will be Singapore heartthrob Stephanie Sun Yan Zi, Liberty Times said, adding that she will preside over a ghost-worshipping ceremony at concerts this Saturday and Sunday.
The newspaper quoted her producer, Chen Chen-chuan, as cautioning stage workers against saying anything that might annoy ghosts in the concert area.
For the departed - Can the living help the dead? Some Chinese believe they can. - 4/5/07
Phi Ta Khon Festival - Ghosts, masks, magic, fun - by JAC VIDGEN - Everyone loves a good ghost story. The gruesome, the spiritual and the supernatural arouse an instinctive curiosity in all of us. In the west, ghostly fervor reaches a peak with Halloween. In Thailand, the spirit-world comes closest around June with the Phi Ta Khon festival, an event filled with fun, mischief and of course, a touch of the unknown. - 6/1/07
ALL SOUL’S DAY
Christian Holy Day, instituted by St. Odilo of Cluny in the 10th century as a festival for prayers releasing souls from Purgatory. According to legend, Odilo was persuaded by a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land that on a particular island the plaintive moans of souls in Purgatory could be heard, begging for prayers to release them. Folk tradition observed during this period include the decorating of gravestones and the leaving out of food for hungry returning spirits. The feast is celebrated on 2 November, and is closely associated with the potent image of Hallowe’en.
The feast is in honor of the dead is well established in religion and folklore throughout human history, found in ancient Babylon, Greece and Rome. In China and Japan the Feast of Lanterns fulfilled a similar purpose, and Buddhists celebrate the date of Buddha’s attainment of Buddha hood (15 April) as a feast for all the dead. Most feasts for the dead in the northern hemisphere occur towards the end of the year associated with winter and the need to safeguard life.
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::10 Quick ( Fun ) Facts about 'Day of the Dead'::
1. Day of the Dead combines the ancient Aztec custom of celebrating ancestors with All Souls' Day, a holiday that Spanish invaders brought to Mexico starting in the early 1500's.
2. Shaped like bones or people, pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, is one of the foods traditionally eaten on Day of the Dead.
3. Some altars include a basin of water, a brush, or even a toothbrush - just in case the spirits want to spruce up a little.
4. Day of the Dead has nothing to do with Halloween, even though it's the day after. But Mexican children do dress up as skeletons and receive treats of candy skulls, bones, and coffins.
5. The altar is set up in homes and lit up by candles so that the spirits can find their relatives.
6. Besides food and drink, items that were important to the ancestors when they were alive are also placed on the altar.
7. The biggest party is held at the cemetery, where families bring huge feasts to eat while cleaning tombstones, singing, and talking to their deceased loved ones. A baby will even be presented to a deceased family member whom had died before the child was born.
8. During the festivities, skeletons made out of paper mache, plastic, or clay are made and placed everywhere. This is done to honor their ancestors on the Day of the Dead, and also serves as a reminder that death is merely a part of life. Hanging out with skeletons reminds them that one day they'll be skeletons someday as well!
9. The skeletons a set in different poses, such as cooking, playing guitar, and even bathing!
10. Day of the Dead is a joyful time that helps people remember the deceased and celebrate their memory.
Extra:
Hungry ghost - A hungry ghost is a kind of ghost associated with hunger common to many religions.
