Lessons Of Dia De Los Muertos: ‘Death Is Not Something To Be Afraid Of’

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Sasha-Ann Simons (0:33)

Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha-Ann Simons and this is In the Loop.

Be sure to listen all the way through the podcast for a breakdown of the day's top local stories. But first, this weekend, some Chicagoans will gather around alters, filled with photos, candles, marigolds, and not to mourn in silence, but to celebrate the people that they've lost. Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican tradition observed during the first days of November, and it has deep indigenous roots with different rituals and meanings woven throughout. In this episode of the pod, we'll get a history lesson on the holiday's roots, and learn more about the art bringing Dia De Los Muertos to life. At the table with me was Teresa Magaña, who's an artist curator and co-founder of Pilsen Arts & Community House.

Now, she describes the Day of the Dead as its own season. So I asked Teresa to tell us more about what that looks like to her. Here she is.

Teresa Magaña (1:36)

As I started learning about Day of the Dead, Dia De Los Muertos, more so in my adulthood, it did start feeling like it's a season because we start preparing for that time frame with alters, with decorations, with photos and things like that. So yeah, it is celebrated November 1st and 2nd. The 3rd is kind of considered the day where they're traveling back.

But it also kind of starts a little bit, maybe. There's a crossover with the 31st, with Halloween as well. You know, very different cultural traditions have it all over the world. You know, their harvest season is coming to an end. You know, things are passing on. It's just life cycles. So, you know, Halloween is also a derivative of other native indigenous practices all over the world as well.

But yeah, it starts November 1st. There is a fusion of, you know, some religious and Catholic beliefs in there as well. It's considered All Souls Day. And then it goes into November 2nd, which is All Saints Day. And then, you know, at the end of November 2nd, going into the 3rd in the evening, it's kind of this closure of what we consider, I guess, the worlds and the veils being opened and closed.

Sasha-Ann Simons (3:04)

Tell us about the indigenous roots I alluded to there, Dia De Los Muertos.

Teresa Magaña (3:09)

So, you know, if we look really far back to these practices, you know, our Aztec and Mayan ancestors were having basically about maybe a month to two month timeframe of celebrating the harvest, the end of the harvest, and those transition timeframes. So, just imagine, you know, the Spanish, the colonizers coming over and seeing what to our people were celebrations, you know, having skulls, skeletons, you know, flowers, all this mixture of different, you know, indigenous, kind of identities and things, you know, being expressed.

And for them, looking at it in a very distinct, maybe scary way, like what's going on here. But by then, they had already kind of transitioned kind of the Celtic celebrations as well, that they kind of did something similarly, and transitioned it over to what I had described as the All Souls and All Saints Day within the religious beliefs and Catholic Church. So they started kind of fusing these ideas, just like in many colonized lands, right? They fused the Christianity, the religion, and different ways of how to kind of fuse people and to start believing other things, right?

Sasha-Ann Simons (4:33)

And so the indigenous populations, right? Sum up how they interpreted and understood life and death.

Teresa Magaña (4:41)

It was very matter of fact, you know, it's a life cycle. It is something that, you know, we are born into this world and then we have a death and move beyond this world. But it's not necessarily like an ending. You know, we don't necessarily, our soul, our spirit doesn't just end when our body dies. You know, we carry forward.

So I think within a lot of our indigenous and ancestral beliefs, you know, giving homage to like our life source, our spirit, you know, and what happens to that is something that's really rooted.

Sasha-Ann Simons (5:16)

Yeah. So I want to pivot back to the present day, right? Because so much of this holiday is visual, bright colors, sculptures, crafted structures, artifacts. Talk about the art and the items involved here.