Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, throughout much of the Catholic world, especially in Latin America, is a time to celebrate life by remembering loved ones who have died. Friends and family members gather to clean and decorate graveyards and visit cemeteries offering prayers for the dead, set up devotional altars in their homes where they make offerings of food and drink to the deceased and gather to tell stories about ancestors, family lore, and recall loving anecdotes of friends and family who have died. Here’s what you need to know to participate in this colorful and life-affirming tradition that honors those we’ve known and loved, but have passed from this life.
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Day of the Dead nomenclature
Los angelitos: young children who have died
Calavera: skulls. Often made out of sugar and placed on ofrendas or eaten.
Ceras: candles lit to guide the souls of the departed.
Ofrenda: altars often decorated with flowers, photos, trinkets and food in honor of deceased souls.
Pan de muerto: sweet bread often baked into buns shaped like bones and eaten or set on ofrendas.
Papel picado: paper cut into elaborate patterns and used for decorations or on ofrendas
Retablos: small devotional artwork.
Skulls: Why are there so many skulls and skeletons? Because that’s these are iconography preferred by the First Peoples, which have been incorporated into mainstream Latin American societies.
Casa Catherwood encourages you to visit the city’s General Cemetery, which will be filled with families honoring their ancestors.
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