The Day of the Dead

Halloween is awesome holiday were you dress up, and go from door to door asking strangers for candy. I wanted to know if our culture, if Mexico celebrated Halloween. I asked my mom if she celebrated Halloween when she was little, that was a huge mistake.

Dia de los muertos is a celebration in Mexico that starts November first and goes to November 2. It is a holiday were Mexican families honor their dead by making and altar specially for them. Where they put the person's picture in the middle and decorated it with everything they liked when they were still alive. Dia de los muertos is the belief that we get visited by our dead that day. People also put sugar skulls and marigolds in their altar's and in their graves, they even leave possessions of the deceased.

"The historical roots of this celebration date back to the pre-Hispanic cultures of Meso-America of the indigenous people, especially the Nahua (Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecas, Tlaxcaltec, Chichimec, Tecpanec) and others native to Mexico more than 3,000 years."(Day of the dead). The Pan the Muerto or dead bread is bread that symbolizes the old human sacrifices done by the native tribes. To stop people from sacrificing other people for their dead, us Mexicans make this bread that resembles bones of a person and powder it with red sugar, to symbolize blood. It is not a cheap bread since it is made with more eggs and more flour, than any other regular bread. It is super delicious.

I recommend everyone to look up their own culture and see what interesting celebrations or traditions you may have, who knows you may find something really interesting. I know that this tradition is just one of many, for example we Mexicans don't believe in the tooth fairy but in a mouse who comes and takes your teeth.