EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

This is old news now since Muertos was on November 1 -- I've got lots of experiences to catch up on here. I didn't take my computer with me, so couldn't keep up with my promise to make daily entries. So the next several blog posts will be about the last 2 weeks while Marty and Bill were visiting.

We went to Patzcuaro in the state of Michoacan on October 30 by bus -- took about 6 hours because we had to change buses in Morelia. But it was quite comfortable -- bus is the preferred mode of travel here, and the first class buses are pretty luxurious. We got a little bag of food and beverage as we boarded, movies were shown continuously (headphones provided), and there were banos.

Patzcuaro is the largest of the pueblitos surrounding Lake Patzcuaro. In prehispanic times, nearby Tzintzuntzan was the capital of the Tarascan empire. After the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century, Vasco de Quiroga, a bishop, persuaded the Spanish king to allow him to replace a guy named Guzman who had been murdering and exploiting cruelly the local indigenous people. Quiroga was a very humanistic man with a vision, and he established a sort of utopian community in the area. The people of each village were encouraged to develop their own handicrafts and were taught the essentials of self government. To this day, each village around the lake is known for its own particular craft: copper working, guitar making, pottery, needlework, hat making, and basketry.

Patzcuaro is a particular favorite this time of the year for tourists, both Mexican and international, because the festivities surrounding El Dia de los Muertos are most traditional and have continued unchanged for years. The town is filled with tourists and with flowers -- I think more flowers than tourists. All the residents of the area are buying flowers to decorate the graves of their loved ones. The main flower market (a tianguis, indigenous word for temporary market) happened to be in the wide street in front of our B & B, El Refugio en Patzcuaro, so it was a very busy place for the first 3 days we were there.





The tradition of El Dia de los Muertos is a sort of combination of Catholic and indigenous traditions. It is similar to what we call Halloween. Mexicans have also adopted our Halloween, and every night kids run around in costumes asking for dinero o dulces.

When the Spaniards came and began their effort to convert indigenous people to Catholicism, they tried to obliterate the "blasphemous" beliefs of the natives, but often it worked better to just meld them together. I don't know much about Catholicism, and I don't remember much from my early Episcopal upbringing, but I believe Nov. 2 is All Saints' Day.

Anyway, we arranged to go on a tour of some cemeteries the night of Nov.1 led by Miguel Angel Nunez, a local anthropologist. Before we left, he talked with us about the traditions surrounding Muertos. There are slight regional differences in the celebrations, but he emphasized that this is not a gloomy or scarey event. The belief is that on this night around midnight, there is an opening in the cosmos, and the spirits of dead family members can return to visit. The living decorate the graves with flowers, pictures and favorite things of the dead person including favorite foods and water. They also spend the night in the cemetery so they will be present when their loved one visits. It is a very social experience with people moving around visiting with others or just sitting together around the grave eating, drinking and talking. We visited 3 cemeteries: Tzintzuntzan, Cucuchucho, and Tzurumutaro. Miguel assured us that they do not consider it an imposition or disrespectful for tourists to visit and take pictures. So here are some of my favorites: