Celebrating El Día De Los Muertos

On November 2nd, in conjunction with a community potluck, we celebrated El Día de Los Muertos, or The Day of the Dead, which is a holiday and festival celebrated in Mexico and by Latin Americans. The holiday centers on gatherings of family and friends to remember friends and family members who have died. These festivals can be traced back hundreds of years to indigenous Aztec civilizations with rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors.

Each region, and sometimes each town, have their own specific rituals and variations on the holiday, which makes the festivals even more exciting! Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using candles, decorated sugar skulls, marigolds favorite foods and beverages as gifts for the departed. A common symbol of the holiday is the skull (in Spanish calavera) which celebrants represent in masks and in foods like sugar or chocolate skulls. These are gifts that can be given to the living and the dead.

Attendees at the potluck, after enjoying dinner, were able to decorate sugar skulls to place around a small altar that was put together by visiting students from the College of the Atlantic. Messages were written, candles were lit, and small decorations and gifts placed around the space. See below to take a look at pictures from this event!