Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead)

When: Every year on November 1 and 2

In Mexico and in many Latin American communities, families welcome the memory of their dead with altars, flowers, candles, favourite foods and stories. It is a joyful and loving remembering, and it mixes old Indigenous traditions with Catholic All Saints and All Souls.

Where it came from

Long before Spanish ships arrived, peoples of Mexico, such as the Mexica (often called Aztecs), had ceremonies for remembering the dead. After the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, these customs and the Catholic days of All Saints and All Souls slowly blended. The result is a living tradition of its own.

Traditionally, November 1 remembers children who have died, sometimes called the little angels (los angelitos), and November 2 remembers adults. In 2008, UNESCO added the Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead in Mexico to its list of the world's intangible cultural heritage.

How it is kept around the world

• The ofrenda (altar). Families build an altar at home or at the grave with photos, candles, flowers, food and things the person loved.
• Marigolds. Bright orange cempasúchil flowers are scattered or arranged in paths. Their colour and smell are said to guide the dead home.
• Food. Families bake pan de muerto, a sweet bread, and cook favourite dishes. Children enjoy sugar skulls with names written on them.
• Paper cut-outs and skeletons. Colourful papel picado hangs above the altar. Skeleton figures (calaveras and the elegant Catrina) are shown dancing, laughing and living, to say that death is part of life and need not be hidden.
• Guatemala. In Sumpango, huge colourful kites are flown on November 1.
• Ecuador and Bolivia. Families make guaguas de pan (bread babies) and drink a purple fruit drink called colada morada in Ecuador. In Bolivia, bread figures called t'antawawas are shared.

Christians differ

Many Catholics in Mexico see Día de Muertos as both a cultural festival and a way of living out the Christian belief that the dead are still loved and remembered by God. The Church has accepted these customs in many places.

Some Christians, especially some Protestants, are uneasy about practices that seem to treat the dead as if they were present, or about the old religious roots. Others enjoy the customs as culture while keeping their own prayers. Visitors to the tradition are asked to be respectful, since this is a sacred family time and not a costume party.

Do it together

Ages 0 to 2

• Look at bright flowers together and name their colours.
• Hold a photo of a relative and say, “This is Grandma. We love her.”

Ages 3 to 5

• Cut simple paper flowers and make a little altar space with a photo and a flower.
• Draw a picture of a favourite food of someone you love.

Ages 6 to 8

• Cut papel picado from tissue paper with child-safe scissors and hang it up.
• Ask a family member to tell you a story about someone they remember.

Ages 9 to 12

• Find Mexico and Guatemala on a map and read about the kites of Sumpango.
• Write a “calavera” poem: a short, playful rhyme about a person you love.

Ages 13 to 17

• Read about how Indigenous and Catholic traditions blended after 1500. What does it say about how cultures meet?
• Think about why many cultures keep a day for the dead. What does your family do?

A short prayer

God of the living and of those who have died, thank you for the people we remember with love. Keep them in your care. Amen.

Mark as done

Where this comes from

• UNESCO, “Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead” (Mexico), inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, 2008
• Stanley Brandes, Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond (Blackwell, 2006)
• F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005), entries “All Saints' Day” and “All Souls' Day”

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.