Religion · History

The Day of the Dead

From Mictlan to the marigold altar

On 1 and 2 November, Mexican families build altars, decorate graves and welcome back the people they have lost; in 2026 Mexico City marks it with its tenth Grand Parade and a 32-metre Catrina in the Zócalo. This film follows the festival back through the evidence: the Mexica belief that most souls made a four-year journey through the nine levels of Mictlan, and their two twenty-day months for the dead; the Spanish conquest and the Catholic feasts of All Saints and All Souls; how the two calendars met in New Spain, and why scholars still disagree about how much of the festival is pre-Hispanic. Then the ofrenda, element by element, the nights for children and adults, regional customs from Lake Pátzcuaro to Mixquic and Oaxaca, the satirical calaveras, José Guadalupe Posada's skull in a European hat and how Diego Rivera made her the Catrina, UNESCO recognition, a parade that began after a film, and how it all differs from Halloween.

Interactive 3D film12 minc. 1500 to 2026Published 1 November 2026

Watch the interactive film Read in ไทย

Prologue

Religion · History

The Day of the Dead

An Aztec festival, a Catholic feast, or both?

Every November, Mexican families lay a path of marigold petals to the door and set a table for the dead.

On the first and second of November, across the country, they build altars, clean graves and light candles for the people they have lost.

A festival about death, yet full of colour, food and music. Is it Aztec, or Catholic? The answer runs through Aztec temples, Spanish churches, and a long argument among historians.

**The way home** The petals are cempasúchil, a marigold native to Mexico. AI-generated illustration.

**Colour, not mourning** Giant papier-mâché skeletons in flowered dresses have become a fixture of the season. AI-generated illustration.

Mictlan, the Mexica land of the dead
All Saints, All Souls and the blend
The ofrenda, element by element
Calaveras, the Catrina and a parade

In this film

Prologue

This weekend in Mexico

Publimetro (21 October 2026): Mexico City’s Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos, its tenth edition, was scheduled for Saturday 31 October from 14:00, from the Diana Cazadora fountain to the Zócalo, with more than 4,000 participants, 12 floats, two giant balloons and 14 community groups. A cartonería Catrina about 32 metres tall, honouring José Guadalupe Posada, can be visited in the Zócalo from 30 October to 2 November; Guinness recognition of it as a record is still to be confirmed. Mexico City’s official visitor guide gives the same parade time and route, and lists the Zócalo’s monumental ofrenda, dedicated this year to Posada’s Catrina, from 29 October to 2 November. México Desconocido confirms the date.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Chapter I · The land of the dead

Chapter I

The land of the dead

In Mexica belief, how you died decided where you went.

Begin with the Mexica, the people often called the Aztecs, around the year fifteen hundred. In their belief, where a soul went depended on how the person died, not on how they had lived.

Warriors who died in battle or as sacrifices were thought to join the Sun as it rose in the east. Women who died in childbirth went with the setting Sun in the west.

Those who drowned, or died of causes linked to the rain god Tlaloc, went to Tlalocan, his realm.

Everyone else, which meant most people, went down to Mictlan, the land of the dead. Choose a way of dying and see where Mexica belief sent the soul.

Tenochtitlan: their island capital, today Mexico City

Who the Mexica were

East, with the rising Sun: warriors
West, with the setting Sun: women who died in childbirth
Tlalocan: deaths linked to water and rain
Mictlan: everyone else

Four destinations

storms, floods: deaths that avoided Mictlan, per World History Encyclopedia

Spared the underworld

The Aztecs reserved no special paradise for the righteous; most people shared the same destiny.World History Encyclopedia, summarising

No reward for the righteous

Chapter I · The land of the dead

Four destinations

Wikipedia, Mictlān: most of the dead went to Mictlan. Warriors who died in battle or as sacrifices accompanied the morning sun in the east; women who died in childbirth accompanied the setting sun in the west; people who drowned, or died from causes linked to the rain god Tlaloc, went to Tlalocan. Britannica: souls whose deaths did not qualify them for another paradise went to Mictlan. World History Encyclopedia: the Aztecs “did not believe in a special paradise reserved only for the righteous”; all shared the same destiny regardless of the life they had led, except those who died violently, women who died in childbirth and people killed by storms or floods.

Try it: pick a way of dying and watch where the soul’s light travels. The four destinations are drawn schematically.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

Sources: Wikipedia: Mictlān (nine levels, four-year journey, other destinations of the dead); Encyclopaedia Britannica: Mictlantecuhtli (Aztec god of the dead; nine hells; four years); World History Encyclopedia: Mictlantecuhtli (no special paradise for the righteous; who avoided the underworld)

Mictlan was imagined as nine levels beneath the earth, and the journey down was believed to take four years.

At the first level there was a river to cross. In one well-known account, a yellow dog that recognised its owner carried the soul across on its back.

Further down came the trials: mountains that crash together, and a wind full of knives. Lists of the levels differ between sources, so we show only what most accounts share.

At the ninth and deepest level waited Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Underworld, usually shown with a skull for a face, and his wife Mictecacihuatl, Lady of the Underworld. There, in these accounts, the soul came to rest, or faded away.

Other beliefs, as we will see, let the dead come home each November.

9: levels below the earth
4 years: from the first level to the ninth

The journey

**The river crossing** In the same account, white and black dogs refuse the job; only a yellow one will swim. AI-generated illustration.

A river, crossed with a dog
Mountains that crash together
A wind full of knives
A river of blood, with jaguars

Trials named in most accounts

Mictlantecuhtli: Lord of the Underworld
Mictecacihuatl: Lady of the Underworld

Rulers of Mictlan

**The way down** An original codex-inspired image, not a copy of any real manuscript. AI-generated illustration.

Chapter I · The land of the dead

Nine levels, four years

Wikipedia, Mictlān: “Mictlan consists of nine distinct levels”; the journey from the first to the ninth “is difficult and takes four years”, with trials including a mountain range where the peaks collide, a windy field of flesh-scraping knives, and a river of blood with jaguars. Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacihuatl rule the underworld. Wikipedia, Dogs in Mesoamerican folklore: the first level was “where one crosses the river”; a dog that recognised its former owner carried the soul across, and yellow dogs would do so while white and black ones refused. Britannica: after four years souls either vanish or find rest.

The names and order of the middle levels differ between sources, so the film labels only the river, the ninth level and the trials most accounts share. Try it: press “Descend” to go down one level at a time.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

Sources: Wikipedia: Mictlān (nine levels, four-year journey, other destinations of the dead); Wikipedia: Dogs in Mesoamerican folklore and myth (the river of the first level; yellow dogs); Encyclopaedia Britannica: Mictlantecuhtli (Aztec god of the dead; nine hells; four years)

The Mexica solar year had eighteen months of twenty days, each with its own festival, plus five unlucky days at the end.

Two of those months belonged to the dead: the ninth, the Little Feast of the Dead, and the tenth, the Great Feast of the Dead.

By one common account, the first honoured children and the second adults, and they fell around August and September, not November.

Temples were decorated with flowers, and figures shaped from amaranth dough, called tzoalli, were eaten. Spanish chronicles written after the conquest also link these feasts to sacrifice.

18 × 20: months of twenty days
+ 5: nemontemi, days when nothing important was done
365: days in all

The Mexica solar year

Month 9 Tlaxochimaco, also Miccailhuitontli: “little feast of the dead”
Month 10 Xocotlhuetzi, also Hueymiccailhuitl: “great feast of the dead”

Months 9 and 10

≈ Aug: Miccailhuitontli: dead children
≈ Sep: Hueymiccailhuitl: dead adults

Two feasts, by one account

**Tzoalli** In the chronicles, a dough figure was set on a felled tree, the xócotl, danced around, then shared and eaten. AI-generated illustration.

Chapter I · The land of the dead

Two months for the dead

World History Encyclopedia: the xiuhpohualli had 18 months of 20 days, each with its own festival, followed by five nemontemi days; the ninth and tenth months are Tlaxochimaco and Xocotlhuetzi. Wikipedia: Hueymiccaihuitl, the “Great Feast of the Dead”, is the tenth month, also called Xocotlhuetzi; Wikipedia, Day of the Dead: the Aztecs gave the ninth and tenth months to the dead. Excélsior: the first period honoured children and the second adults, in what are now August and September. Gaceta UNAM (Luis Alberto Vargas): Miccailhuitontli lasted at the end of the rainy season; temples were decorated with flowers; figures of amaranth dough (tzoalli) were eaten; 16th-century chronicles also relate it to sacrificial rituals.

Matching Mexica months to modern dates is approximate.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: World History Encyclopedia: The Aztec Calendar (18 months of 20 days and 5 nemontemi days); Wikipedia: Hueymiccaihuitl (tenth month, also called Xocotlhuetzi; “Great Feast of the Dead”); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Excélsior: México prehispánico, 40 días celebrando a los muertos (Elsa Malvido, INAH); Gaceta UNAM: Miccailhuitontli, fiesta mesoamericana, origen del pan de muerto (Luis Alberto Vargas, IIA-UNAM)

Chapter II · Two calendars meet

Chapter II

Two calendars meet

The Spanish brought their own days for the dead.

In 1521, Spanish forces and their Indigenous allies took Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital. War and epidemics followed: by one estimate, central Mexico's people fell from over twenty-five million to just over one million within a century.

Missionary friars came too, and with them the Catholic calendar.

Its days for the dead were the first and second of November: All Saints' Day, for those already in heaven, and All Souls' Day, first kept at the abbey of Cluny in the eleventh century, for all the faithful departed.

Catholics believed prayers could help souls in purgatory, a state of purification before heaven, to reach it.

1519 central Mexico: over 25 million people, by one estimate
1521 Tenochtitlan falls; about 300 years of Spanish rule begin
1605 just over 1 million by the same estimate, after war and epidemics
1821 Mexico becomes independent

Conquest

1 Nov: All Saints: the saints in heaven
2 Nov: All Souls: near-universal in the West by the end of the 13th century

The Catholic days

Odilo of Cluny: abbot, died 1048/49: a day of prayer for all the dead on 2 November

Who set the date

**Candles for the souls** In colonial Mexico, people paid for candles, Masses and prayers for souls in purgatory. AI-generated illustration.

Chapter II · Two calendars meet

Saints and souls

World History Encyclopedia: Tenochtitlan fell on 13 August 1521 after a 93-day siege by Hernán Cortés and large numbers of Indigenous allies, notably at least 100,000 Tlaxcalans. Religion News Service (Mathew Sandoval, Arizona State University): Mexico’s roughly 300-year colonial period began in 1521; Catholic beliefs about purgatory led people to buy candles and paid prayers for souls. Britannica: All Souls’ Day, 2 November, commemorates all the faithful departed believed to be in purgatory; prayers of the faithful on earth are believed to help purify them; the day was founded as a general intercession by Odilo of Cluny and became practically universal before the end of the 13th century. Wikipedia: Odilo established it at Cluny “probably not in 998 but after 1030”. JSTOR Daily, on Stanley Brandes: the population of central Mexico fell from over 25 million in 1519 to just over 1 million in 1605, and death “was everywhere”.

Two calendars become one

Wikipedia, Day of the Dead: Ruben C. Cordova argues the two Aztec months for the dead were “compressed down to two days” in the Catholic calendar; he also notes that in Mexico, “unlike other Latin American countries”, All Saints’ Day is dedicated to children and All Souls’ Day to adults; toys are brought for the dead children (angelitos), and tequila, mezcal, pulque or atole for adults. Religion News Service: in the 1700s the holiday generated the largest annual market in Mexico City; authorities called the crowds a “public disorder”, and the city later regulated vendors.

Cordova’s compression is one interpretation among several; the next chapter sets out the debate. Try it: switch the wheel between the two calendars.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Religion News Service (Mathew Sandoval): How commercialization over the centuries transformed the Day of the Dead

Chapter III · Whose tradition?

Chapter III

Whose tradition?

Scholars still argue about how much is pre-Hispanic.

So how much of today's festival is really pre-Hispanic? Scholars disagree.

The poet Octavio Paz, writing in 1950, saw it as a continuation of ancient Aztec festivals of death. The anthropologist Hugo Nutini called it syncretic: two religions fused into one.

The historian Elsa Malvido, of Mexico's national institute of anthropology and history, argued the opposite. For her the customs came from medieval Europe, and intellectuals of the nineteen thirties gave existing Catholic practices a pre-Hispanic meaning.

The anthropologist Stanley Brandes sees a blend. The Aztecs did display real skulls on racks, but he argues that much of the festival's playful skull art took shape in colonial times and after. Weigh the views yourself.

A continuation of ancient Aztec festivals of death.Octavio Paz’s view, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), as summarised by Wikipedia

Continuity

Syncretic: Indigenous and Catholic religion fused into one festival.Hugo Nutini’s view, as summarised by Religion News Service

Fusion

A “Cardenist invention”: Catholic customs given an Indigenous meaning in the 1930s.Elsa Malvido (1941–2011), INAH; “Cardenist” refers to Lázaro Cárdenas, president 1934–40

A European origin

**Reading the evidence** The argument turns on colonial chronicles, codices and church records. AI-generated illustration.

Continuity with Aztec festivals: Paz
Fused, syncretic: Nutini
Mostly European and Catholic: Malvido
A blend, with colonial skull imagery: Brandes

Where the scholars stand

Chapter III · Whose tradition?

An open debate

Wikipedia, Day of the Dead: some argue for Indigenous or ancient Aztec influences, others see a local expression of Allhallowtide, the Christian days for the dead, 31 October–2 November. Octavio Paz (The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950) supports continuity with Aztec death festivals. Elsa Malvido (INAH) traces it to Medieval Europe, rejects a native or syncretic origin and calls it a “Cardenist invention”; Excélsior reports her view that 1930s intellectuals recast Catholic customs with a pre-Hispanic meaning. Ruben C. Cordova: archaic Spanish practices in rural areas were mistakenly taken as the “pure” Indigenous core. Religion News Service: Hugo Nutini described the holiday as syncretic. JSTOR Daily, on Stanley Brandes (Ethnohistory, 1998): Indigenous customs and beliefs combined with Spanish Catholic practices; Aztec tzompantli displayed skulls but were not decorated with them; Baroque imagery and 19th-century broadsides came later.

“Cardenist” refers to the 1930s era of President Lázaro Cárdenas. Try it: add each scholar’s weight to the scale. The scale is a teaching device, not a measurement.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Excélsior: México prehispánico, 40 días celebrando a los muertos (Elsa Malvido, INAH); Religion News Service (Mathew Sandoval): How commercialization over the centuries transformed the Day of the Dead; JSTOR Daily: What do sugar skulls mean on el Día de los Muertos? (on Stanley Brandes, Ethnohistory 1998)

Chapter IV · The ofrenda

Chapter IV

The ofrenda

A table set for particular people.

At the heart of the festival is the ofrenda, the offering: an altar built at home or on a grave, for particular people who have died.

Many are built in tiers. A guide from Mexico's national university, UNAM, reads the levels as heaven, earth and the underworld.

At the top go a photograph of the person and, often, a cross, the Catholic side of the tradition. Candles stand for the family's dead and light their way home. Build one, element by element.

**A home altar** Altars stand for days; families add to them from late October. AI-generated illustration.

Top: heaven
Middle: earth
Bottom: the underworld

Three tiers (UNAM reading)

purple: mourning
white: purity

Candle colours

salt or ash: often what it is made of; brought by Spanish evangelisers

The cross

Chapter IV · The ofrenda

An altar for someone

UNESCO: families prepare the deceased’s favourite dishes for the home shrine and the tomb. UNAM (CENDI): the levels of the altar represent the division of heaven, earth and the underworld; candles (veladoras) represent the family’s dead; the photograph is placed with personal belongings to remember them. N+: the photo goes at the top; a cross of salt or ash, introduced by the Spanish evangelisers, is placed beside it; purple candles stand for mourning and white for purity, and candles guide the dead.

Altars vary from family to family; the number of tiers is not fixed. Try it: add the elements to the altar one at a time and read what each means.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead (proclaimed 2003, inscribed 2008); UNAM (CENDI): Día de muertos, elementos de la ofrenda; N+: Qué se pone en la ofrenda de Día de Muertos (elements and their meanings)

A glass of water quenches the thirst of souls after their long journey; salt purifies.

Marigolds, cempasúchil, take their name from a Nahuatl word for twenty flowers, and are native to Mexico. The Mexica linked their yellow to the Sun; today their petals mark a path that guides the dead.

Copal, a tree resin, is burned as incense to cleanse the space, and papel picado, cut tissue paper, stands for the air.

Then the favourite foods and drinks of the dead, pan de muerto, a sweet bread topped with dough bones, and sugar skulls. Some believe the dead take in the essence of the food.

In this bread, the UNAM scholar Luis Alberto Vargas sees traces of the Mexica feasts of the dead.

water: strengthens the soul for the way back
salt: keeps the soul from corruption, keeps bad spirits away

Water and salt

Tagetes erecta: scientific name; 35 Tagetes species grow in Mexico
cempohualxochitl: the Nahuatl original

Cempasúchil

medicine: pre-Hispanic healers used it for fevers and coughs
Florentine Codex: 16th century: records its ceremonial use

Before the altars

**Papel picado** The banners are cut from tissue paper, so they move in the slightest draught. AI-generated illustration.

**Pan de muerto and sugar skulls** The round bump on top of the bread is read as a skull (Gaceta UNAM). AI-generated illustration.

Chapter IV · The ofrenda

Element by element

UNM Latin American & Iberian Institute: water is placed so souls can quench their thirst after the journey; salt purifies the spirits; marigolds form “the bright and golden path”; candles guide the souls home; copal smoke rises like spirits; papel picado represents wind. UNAM (CENDI): water strengthens souls for their return; salt keeps the soul from corruption and drives away evil spirits; copal symbolises the ascent of the spirit. SEP/N+: papel picado represents the air. National Geographic en Español: cempasúchil, Tagetes erecta, from Nahuatl cempohualxochitl, is native to Mexico; the Mexica linked its yellow to the Sun and used it on altars and in burials. Gaceta UNAM: the bump on pan de muerto represents a skull, and Luis Alberto Vargas sees in the bread traces of the Mexica feast Miccailhuitontli. Wikipedia: some believe the spirits consume the food’s spiritual essence.

Meanings differ a little from source to source and family to family. Try it: add or clear the elements on the altar.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

Sources: University of New Mexico, Latin American & Iberian Institute: About Día de los Muertos (ofrenda elements, Mictlán); UNAM (CENDI): Día de muertos, elementos de la ofrenda; N+: Qué se pone en la ofrenda de Día de Muertos (elements and their meanings); National Geographic en Español: 4 datos curiosos de la flor de cempasúchil; Gaceta UNAM: Miccailhuitontli, fiesta mesoamericana, origen del pan de muerto (Luis Alberto Vargas, IIA-UNAM); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade)

Chapter V · Nights and places

Chapter V

Nights and places

The same nights, kept in many local ways.

The dates, and the ways of keeping them, change from place to place.

Around Lake Pátzcuaro, Purépecha communities keep an all-night vigil, and on the first of November fishermen's torches light the water around the island of Janitzio.

In Mixquic, on the southern edge of Mexico City, the cemetery glows on the night of the second with the alumbrada: hundreds of candles lit on the graves.

In Oaxaca, cemeteries are decorated from the thirty-first, and bands play beside candlelit graves.

In Huaquechula, in Puebla, church bells announce the arrival of the dead at two in the afternoon on the first.

And on the Yucatán Peninsula, Maya communities call the season Janal Pixán, food for the souls, and begin on the thirty-first of October. Tap a place on the map.

1 Nov, night: vigil in the Janitzio cemetery
torches: carried by fishermen in rowing boats

Lake Pátzcuaro

**A night in the cemetery** Preparations begin days earlier; by about 8 pm the candlelight is at its height. AI-generated illustration.

San Miguel: Oaxaca City’s cemetery, decorated 31 Oct–2 Nov
mariachi: live bands at gravesides in nearby Xoxocotlán

Oaxaca City

Huaquechula: “cabo de año” altars for those who died that year
Huasteca (Xantolo): an all-night vigil on 1 November, the offering renewed at the end of the month

More local customs

31 Oct–2 Nov: the main days, though the season spans all of November
mucbipollo: a maize dish baked in an earth oven, set on the altars

Janal Pixán

Chapter V · Nights and places

Regional customs

México Desconocido: Purépecha communities around Lake Pátzcuaro hold a ritual vigil; boats leave for Janitzio; in Tzintzuntzan events take place on the night of 1 November; in Huaquechula (Puebla) church bells announce the arrival of the dead at 2 pm on 1 November, and “cabo de año” altars honour those who died in the preceding months; in the Huasteca Potosina (Xantolo) an all-night vigil is held on 1 November and the offering is renewed on the last day of the month. AFAR: on 1 November thousands gather in the Janitzio cemetery; fishermen in rowboats light the lake with torches; in Oaxaca City the Panteón de San Miguel is decorated from 31 October to 2 November, and in Xoxocotlán there are candlelit gravesides with live mariachi bands. Time Out México: Mixquic, in Tláhuac, holds the alumbrada on 2 November, peaking around 8 pm. Wikipedia: people spend the night beside graves in Janitzio and Mixquic. Wikipedia (Spanish), Janal Pixan: the Yucatán Peninsula’s variant of the Day of the Dead, from the Maya for “food for the souls”, held from 31 October to 2 November though the season spans the whole month, with dishes such as mucbipollo set on the altars.

Try it: tap a place on the map. The map is schematic and not to scale.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: México Desconocido: 4 destinos clásicos para vivir el Día de Muertos (Lake Pátzcuaro, Mixquic, Huaquechula, Huasteca); AFAR: Where to celebrate Day of the Dead in Mexico (Oaxaca, Janitzio); Time Out México: Guía de Mixquic (the alumbrada, 2 November); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Wikipedia (Spanish): Janal Pixan (Maya “food for the souls”, the Yucatán Peninsula’s Day of the Dead, from 31 October)

Chapter VI · Laughing at death

Chapter VI

Laughing at death

Mocking verses, cheap prints and a skull in a hat.

The Day of the Dead also laughs at death. Calaveras literarias, literary skulls, are short rhyming verses that describe living people as if they were already dead.

The first known ones were printed in 1879 in El Socialista, a newspaper in Guadalajara. They mocked the powerful, and some were censored.

The printmaker José Guadalupe Posada filled cheap broadsheets with lively skeletons. One showed a female skull wearing nothing but an elegant European-style hat: La Calavera Garbancera.

Playful skulls like these are what Stanley Brandes had in mind when he dated the festival's skull art to colonial times and later.

A garbancera was a woman who sold chickpeas. The verse printed beside it, in a broadside from the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, was not Posada's. It mocked people who hid their roots behind European fashion. It first appeared in 1913, months after his death.

1879: first known, El Socialista, Guadalajara
panteones: their older name: “cemeteries”

Calaveras literarias

Diego Rivera, painter
Tata Nacho, composer
Rodolfo Gaona, bullfighter

Later targets (after the Revolution)

**A broadside skeleton** An original print in the style of the period, not a work by Posada. Broadsheets like this were printed to be thrown away. AI-generated illustration.

Aztec skull racks, tzompantli, displayed real skulls; they were not decorated with them.JSTOR Daily, on Stanley Brandes

Brandes, 1998

c. 1890–1913 Posada works as an illustrator in Mexico City
1913 he dies; months later the skull is first published
later Vanegas Arroyo often reuses Posada’s plates (Britannica)

Posada’s skull

Chapter VI · Laughing at death

Literary skulls

National Geographic en Español: calaveras literarias began in the 19th century; the first known examples were published in 1879 in El Socialista, a Guadalajara newspaper; they were earlier called “panteones”, and some were censored for expressing discontent; they parody people, presented as already dead, or events. Wikipedia: they are short, mocking verses or epitaphs about living people, public figures or the deceased. Britannica: Posada’s print, now called La Calavera Catrina, was first published several months after his death in a 1913 broadside; a garbancera was a woman who sold chickpeas, and the 1913 text, which Posada did not write, mocked garbanceras as having abandoned their heritage by wearing European fashions. Posada worked as an illustrator from about 1890 to 1913. WikiArt: the print is a zinc etching of about 1910–1913, showing a skull “dressed only in a hat” in early-20th-century European fashion.

The film does not reproduce Posada’s print; the figures shown are original teaching graphics.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: National Geographic en Español: Así nacieron las calaveras literarias mexicanas; Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Encyclopaedia Britannica: Catrina (Posada’s print, the 1913 broadside, Rivera and Toor 1930, the 1947 mural); WikiArt: La Calavera Catrina (zinc etching, c. 1910–1913); JSTOR Daily: What do sugar skulls mean on el Día de los Muertos? (on Stanley Brandes, Ethnohistory 1998)

The skull got a new name in 1930, in a book by the painter Diego Rivera and the writer Frances Toor: Catrina, from catrín, a dandy.

In 1947 Rivera painted her into his mural, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central.

Today the Catrina is a national symbol: figurines on altars, painted faces and costumes, and this year, a cartonería Catrina thirty-two metres tall in the Zócalo.

1913 Posada’s skull first printed
1930 named “Catrina” by Rivera and Toor
1947 Rivera’s Alameda mural
2026 a 32 m Catrina in the Zócalo

From garbancera to Catrina

catrín: a well-dressed dandy; Catrina is its feminine form

A word

Figurines on altars
Face paint and costumes
Giant figures in parades

The Catrina today

Chapter VI · Laughing at death

How she became the Catrina

Britannica: in a 1930 book by Diego Rivera and Frances Toor the skull was dubbed “Catrina”, a feminised form of catrín, roughly “dandy”; Rivera featured her in his mural Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central (1947). She has become a national symbol of modern Mexico, seen at Día de los Muertos as figurines on altars, in face paint and in costumes. Wikipedia gives the mural’s dates as 1946–47. Publimetro: the 2026 Zócalo Catrina is about 32 metres tall.

The figure in the scene is an original design, not a copy of Posada’s print or Rivera’s mural. Try it: show or hide a 1.7-metre person beside the 32-metre Catrina.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Catrina (Posada’s print, the 1913 broadside, Rivera and Toor 1930, the 1947 mural); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Publimetro (21 Oct 2026): Día de Muertos 2026 en CDMX — parade 31 October from 14:00, Diana Cazadora to the Zócalo; 32-metre Catrina; ofrendas

Chapter VII · Heritage and parade

Chapter VII

Heritage and parade

An old festival keeps changing.

In 2003, UNESCO proclaimed the Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead part of humanity's intangible heritage, a living tradition rather than a place, and in 2008 it was inscribed on its Representative List.

UNESCO ties the festival to the end of the yearly maize cycle, and to the brief return of loved ones, welcomed along paths of petals and candles.

Some traditions are very new. In 2015, a spy film opened with a huge Day of the Dead parade through Mexico City, though no such parade existed. The next year, the city organised a real one, and about a quarter of a million people came. This year's, on the thirty-first of October, was the tenth.

An image from abroad, changing the tradition at home. Back to the scholars' scale, then: whose tradition is this? One still being made. Switch between the film and the real parade.

2003 proclaimed
2008 inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity: practices and knowledge, not monuments

UNESCO

The “transitory return to Earth of deceased relatives and loved ones”.UNESCO, nomination file 00054

In UNESCO’s words

2015: Spectre, a James Bond film: its opening parade was invented
2016: first real parade, on Paseo de la Reforma

A parade from a film

4,000+: participants and 12 floats planned, from the Diana fountain to the Zócalo

Mexico City, 31 October 2026

“pizza effect”: scholars’ term for a custom reshaped abroad and then taken up again at home

A name for it

Chapter VII · Heritage and parade

Heritage, and a parade

UNESCO: “Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead”, originally proclaimed in 2003 and inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; the festivities, at the end of October and the beginning of November, mark the end of the annual maize cycle and the “transitory return to Earth of deceased relatives and loved ones”; families lay out flower petals, candles and offerings along the path from the cemetery to their homes. Wikipedia: the 2015 James Bond film Spectre opened with a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City although no such parade existed; in 2016 the city organised a real one on Paseo de la Reforma, attended by 250,000 people, an example of the “pizza effect”. México Desconocido: the parade arose in 2016 from the impact of that film. Publimetro and Mexico City’s visitor guide: the tenth parade, on 31 October 2026 from 14:00, ran from the Diana Cazadora fountain to the Zócalo, with more than 4,000 participants and 12 floats planned.

Try it: switch between the film’s parade (2015) and the real one (2016 onward). The street is schematic.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead (proclaimed 2003, inscribed 2008); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); México Desconocido: Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos 2026 (31 October 2026; began in 2016 after the 2015 film Spectre); Publimetro (21 Oct 2026): Día de Muertos 2026 en CDMX — parade 31 October from 14:00, Diana Cazadora to the Zócalo; 32-metre Catrina; ofrendas; Mexico City Government, Visitor’s Guide: Day of the Dead 2026 in Mexico City (parade 31 October 14:00; Zócalo ofrenda 29 Oct–2 Nov; 32-metre Catrina)

So is the Day of the Dead simply the Mexican Halloween? Both fall within Allhallowtide, the Christian days for the dead, which is why they are often confused.

But Halloween today is mostly costumes, lanterns and sweets. The Day of the Dead is about remembering particular people by name, and welcoming them home.

As Michelle Téllez of the University of Arizona puts it, they should be different things.

**Two traditions** Allhallowtide runs three days, 31 October to 2 November. AI-generated illustration.

Halloween, 31 Oct: costumes, lanterns, trick-or-treat
Día de Muertos, 1–2 Nov: altars, graves, family meals
Shared dates: the Christian days for the dead

Side by side

They “should be different things”; confusion comes mostly from both falling in autumn.Michelle Téllez, University of Arizona

A scholar’s view

Chapter VII · Heritage and parade

Not the Mexican Halloween

University of Arizona News: Michelle Téllez, associate professor of Mexican American Studies, says confusion between the two holidays comes mainly from both falling in autumn; they “should be different things”, and Halloween parties with altars, or people dressing as “Día de los Muertos”, blur them. Wikipedia: some see Día de Muertos as a local expression of Allhallowtide, the Christian days for the dead (31 October–2 November) within which Halloween also falls.

Beliefs about souls and the afterlife are described as the traditions themselves hold them, not as statements of fact.

The altar, the levels of Mictlan, the calendar wheel, the scale, the map and the figures are teaching graphics, not reconstructions of real places or objects.

Sources: University of Arizona News: Understanding the history and traditions of Día de los Muertos (Michelle Téllez); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade)

Epilogue

So whose tradition is it? The scholars' scale never settled: Mexica months, Catholic feasts, a printed skull and a ten-year-old parade all went into it.

Historians still disagree about which parts are oldest. But families agree on what matters: for a few nights each year, the dead are remembered by name.

Whose name would you say?

c. 1500 Mexica months for the dead; Mictlan
1521 Conquest; All Saints and All Souls arrive
1700s Mexico City’s largest annual market
1879 first known calaveras literarias
1913 Posada’s skull in a European hat printed
1947 Rivera’s Alameda mural
2008 UNESCO inscription
2016 first Mexico City parade

The road to the Day of the Dead

**The way home** A path of marigold petals leading to a lit doorway. AI-generated illustration.

The roots: still debated
The form: still changing, as the parade shows
The purpose: remembering particular people

What the evidence allows

Stills are AI-generated illustrations
3D scenes are schematic
Beliefs are described, not asserted

About this film

Epilogue · Sources

Sources

Every fact in this film comes from the sources below. The origin of the Day of the Dead is debated: Octavio Paz saw continuity with Aztec festivals, Hugo Nutini a syncretic fusion, Stanley Brandes a blend whose skull imagery is largely colonial and later, and Elsa Malvido a mainly European, Catholic origin recast with pre-Hispanic meaning in the 1930s. Beliefs about souls are described as the traditions hold them. The stills are AI-generated illustrations; the 3D scenes are schematic teaching graphics.

Sources: Mexico City Government, Visitor’s Guide: Day of the Dead 2026 in Mexico City (parade 31 October 14:00; Zócalo ofrenda 29 Oct–2 Nov; 32-metre Catrina); Publimetro (21 Oct 2026): Día de Muertos 2026 en CDMX — parade 31 October from 14:00, Diana Cazadora to the Zócalo; 32-metre Catrina; ofrendas; México Desconocido: Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos 2026 (31 October 2026; began in 2016 after the 2015 film Spectre); Wikipedia: Day of the Dead (origins debate, dates, ofrenda, calaveras, the 2016 parade); Wikipedia: Mictlān (nine levels, four-year journey, other destinations of the dead); Encyclopaedia Britannica: Mictlantecuhtli (Aztec god of the dead; nine hells; four years); World History Encyclopedia: Mictlantecuhtli (no special paradise for the righteous; who avoided the underworld); Wikipedia: Dogs in Mesoamerican folklore and myth (the river of the first level; yellow dogs); World History Encyclopedia: The Aztec Calendar (18 months of 20 days and 5 nemontemi days); Wikipedia: Hueymiccaihuitl (tenth month, also called Xocotlhuetzi; “Great Feast of the Dead”); Gaceta UNAM: Miccailhuitontli, fiesta mesoamericana, origen del pan de muerto (Luis Alberto Vargas, IIA-UNAM); Excélsior: México prehispánico, 40 días celebrando a los muertos (Elsa Malvido, INAH); World History Encyclopedia: The Fall of Tenochtitlan (13 August 1521; Indigenous allies); Religion News Service (Mathew Sandoval): How commercialization over the centuries transformed the Day of the Dead; JSTOR Daily: What do sugar skulls mean on el Día de los Muertos? (on Stanley Brandes, Ethnohistory 1998); Encyclopaedia Britannica: All Souls’ Day (2 November; Odilo of Cluny); Wikipedia: Odilo of Cluny (All Souls’ Day at Cluny, probably after 1030); UNAM (CENDI): Día de muertos, elementos de la ofrenda; N+: Qué se pone en la ofrenda de Día de Muertos (elements and their meanings); University of New Mexico, Latin American & Iberian Institute: About Día de los Muertos (ofrenda elements, Mictlán); National Geographic en Español: 4 datos curiosos de la flor de cempasúchil; México Desconocido: 4 destinos clásicos para vivir el Día de Muertos (Lake Pátzcuaro, Mixquic, Huaquechula, Huasteca); AFAR: Where to celebrate Day of the Dead in Mexico (Oaxaca, Janitzio); Time Out México: Guía de Mixquic (the alumbrada, 2 November); Wikipedia (Spanish): Janal Pixan (Maya “food for the souls”, the Yucatán Peninsula’s Day of the Dead, from 31 October); National Geographic en Español: Así nacieron las calaveras literarias mexicanas; Encyclopaedia Britannica: Catrina (Posada’s print, the 1913 broadside, Rivera and Toor 1930, the 1947 mural); WikiArt: La Calavera Catrina (zinc etching, c. 1910–1913); UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead (proclaimed 2003, inscribed 2008); University of Arizona News: Understanding the history and traditions of Día de los Muertos (Michelle Téllez)