Day of the Dead: More spiritual than spooky

With their spooks, skeletons and sweets, Halloween night and the Day of the Dead may look a lot alike. But the truth is they are as different as joy and sorrow.

Halloween, though based on a religious celebration, is now a secular holiday filled with fun and games. It's all about pretending and living it up.

The Day of the Dead also has religious roots that run back to All Saints Day (today). But it has its religious trappings and — especially in Mexico — has become a rich and profound commentary on the Mexican soul.

Halloween skims along the surface.

The Day of the Dead mines the deepest feelings and fears of a race.

Halloween is what Americans do.

The Day of the Dead is what Mexicans are.

Each year, on Nov. 1 (and often Nov. 2) the Mexican people here and abroad meet as families and friends to pray and talk about those who've passed on. Some will build homemade altars to honor their ancestors.

The roots of the day run back to Aztec, Mixtec and Maya times, with the Christian holidays superimposed on top of those early traditions. Some claim the early celebrations for the dead may be as much as 3,000 years old — pre-dating Christ by 1,000 years.

Being a culture well-acquainted with the supernatural, those of Mexican heritage feel the Day of the Dead is the day when ancestors find it easier to commune with the living. Families often put out place settings at dinner for family members who have passed on. Processions often visit cemeteries to "get closer" to the departed. Graves are decorated and celebrations filled with food and drink help create a joyful mood for a rather somber observance.

But then that is the mystique of the Mexican personality. The people have a knack for blending opposites — for weaving life and death together, for instance. They feel happy-sorrowful, bold and shy, regal and abandoned.

Writing about the Day of the Dead in "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a renowned study of the Mexican character, Mexican Nobel laureate Octavio Paz says:

"We decorate our houses with death heads, we eat bread in the shape of bones on the Day of the Dead. We love the songs and stories in which death laughs and cracks jokes."

He concludes:

"Mexican death is the mirror of Mexican life ... A civilization that denies death ends by denying life."

That last remark is a jab at the cultures of Europe and America that Paz sees as fleeing the notion of death by trying to hold onto youth — a fool's errand. Death is the flip side of the coin of life, the Mexicans say. One begets the other. And the Day of the Dead, in classic Mexican fashion, blends together a bright, vibrant celebration of life with the trappings of funeral. It is a sorrowful wake filled with laughter.

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