Students Celebrate Día de los Muertos

Art teacher Susan Morley fashioned a number of sugar skulls for Blair Spanish students to decorate and, thereby, participate in the celebration of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. For more information on making these sweet treats, visit www.mexicansugarskull.com. An article by Carlos Miller in The Arizona Republic explains Día de los Muertos :

More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing for at least 3,000 years and a ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. The rite is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States. Although the ritual has since been merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls.

Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend, according to Mary J. Adrade, who has written three books on the ritual. The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual; the skulls symbolized death and rebirth. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream.

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Updated 11/2/09

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