The Day of the Dead in Santa Maria de Huatulco
The procession begins at the Gates of Hell. That is not their real name, of curse, but I call it that because we are about to descend down to the underworld. The path is garlanded with marigolds, the flower of the Festival of Los Muertos. The gates are festooned with purple blossoms and there is a trio of grinning skeletons guarding the gate and daring the wary foreign visitor to descend into their dark and mystical world. Scattered candles light the way, flickering in a slight breeze that brings with it the odor of cooking meat, perhaps from the barbacoa stands in the nearby streets grilling food for the festival.
I descend slowly, carefully, watching my footing, slipping on marigold flowers, trying to remember to shoot photos in accordance with my twin philosophies of “no looking while walking” and that “you wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t have the photos as proof.” Ghostly white skeletons continue to guard the way, all with grins on their bony faces, as if they are in on a joke incomprehensible to the innocent. Costumed ghouls mill among the jostling parade. The path leads ever so slightly downhill towards the cemetery, crowds building along the way.
Santa Maria, in the impoverished state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, was “settled” by the Spanish in 1539, and the cemetery hearkens from that ancient date. The Zapotecs were here for thousands of years before then, but they didn’t bury their dead six feet deep in the hard, dry, brittle dusty soil of the hill above the town. The Zapotecs had their own mortuary practices, and the Spaniards brought their own, and over the centuries the two cultures collided then eventually merged into one. The Day of the Dead festival is celebrated on the same date as what Europeans used to term All Hallows Eve, or what has become known elsewhere as “Halloween,” but this celebration has nothing to do with Halloween or candy kisses.
The cemetery, like many burial grounds, is found on the side of a hill, so the poisons from the human body, or soul, can drain away into the void without damaging the living. On most days, visitors to the cemetery are few and far between, but today is no ordinary day. In colder climes, funerals are sad, stiff and formal events, open only to select and invited guests who knew the dearly deceased. In the hot and humid tropical climate of Oaxaca, such formalities are discarded and celebration is in the air instead.
The Day of the Dead is not for the dead, but instead for the living to remember and honor those that have passed over to the other side but still live on in the memories of their descendants. Photos of loved ones are placed on the gravesites and balanced on headstones. Marigolds are draped over the stones and offerings of food and drink, especially bottles of the fiery beverage known as mescal are placed on the headstones. It may be that some of the living may indulge in a taste of mescal themselves. Sounds of singing waft through the darkness along with the odours of hot and exotic spices. A young woman with a microphone and small amplifier pours out a passionate plea to her mother, long deceased but still alive in her mind.
Some fools are tossing firecrackers that echo like gunfire. One has landed in a pile of brush made of marigold stems and branches, causing a huge fire. Members of the fire brigade rush through the crowd to stop the blaze from spreading, then stand by watching the blaze burn itself out. The smell and smoke add to the overall cacophony, the odor wafting through the night air. I am reminded of my visits to Pashupatinath on the banks of the holy Bagmati River in ancient Kathmandu where corpses are cremated, where I soon learned not to stand downwind lest the smell permeate my clothes as much as the images of human bodies on fire permeated my mind and soul.
We enter the cemetery following our guide Firmin, who sadly is not tall or wearing a loud hat or shirt, forcing his followers to pay strict attention because he never turns or stops to count heads. There are thousands of graves, of many different sizes and shapes, as varied as the burly Mexicans and smaller Zapotecs. My “no looking while walking” warning soon loses meaning because under no circumstances whatsoever do I want lose track of Firmin because I have no idea where we are and could never find my way back to where our vehicle is parked far away, the entire town under siege from an army of festival attendees. This results in my barking my shins several times on unseen small crosses erected in the memory of those deceased or descendants who lacked the funds for a mighty memorial. On the other hand, some gravesites are veritable houses, magnificent monuments to those wealthy or important town folks who passed away centuries ago, their faint names on the gravestones revealing their fairly young ages because in the sixteenth century few people lived long enough to be described as “old.”
Stumbling on the hard stormy ground on sandals in the dark results in many near falls, and as bizarre as it is to trod on the graves and realize that there are bodies are buried underneath, it is even stranger to realize that I am treading on graves in the first place. I am forced to grab hold on to whatever I can touch while groping in the dark. Dehydration in the hot humid air has also caused me some dizziness, a swirling of the head and mind exacerbated by the realization of where I am and what I am doing. They don’t do death like this back in the cold blue north, where cemeteries are hallowed ground where dancing and singing would be seen as disrespectful to the deceased.
Momentarily losing site of Firmin, I am suddenly greeted by a tiny woman with a big smile on her face who gestures to me to come closer. I point to my camera. Is a photo permitted? She gestures again, happy to see me, obviously a foreigner and stranger from a strange land, somehow joining her and her ancestors during this sacred moment. I smile, take the photo, and bow. She bows back. I stumble along again on my own path, wondering what century it is, and where my own path will lead. Where is Firmin? Where am I? What is reality? Who am I?
Catching up with Firmin, he explains that the procession and graveyard walks start as soon as it is dark and end early because after midnight it may be other possible that bad spirits will arrive and we don’t want to be there if and when they do. Right now, he says, the dead are all around us, their spirits invisible but nonetheless tangible to those that can feel them. For myself, horror would be the reaction I would normally feel amidst a swarm of ghosts and spirits drifting through the air, but oddly enough everything is so strange I somehow feel calm, the warm and smiling faces of the local folks teaching me that there is nothing to fear, that the dead are still alive as long as we remember to remember them, and their spirits are appreciative of our presence. I stumble along the path, looking for the right way to exit, realizing the only way out is to simply to continue going forward because the way through life is always unknown, although instinctually we all know where the path ultimately ends. Music is playing in the zocala and there are people dancing in the streets, and little children are looking for candies, and tomorrow the sun will be back, shining warmly in a clear blue tropical sky.