In
Mexico, on the ‘Dia de Muertos’ or ‘the Day of the Dead,’ Cempasuchitl flowers can
be found everywhere.
Bright
orange glow spills out of their petals on to large paper-Mache skeletons, they
adorn candy skulls made form cast-sugar and chocolate, and they frame ‘Dead Man’s
Bread’ on the family table.
The
Cempasuchitl are tied into flower-chains, displayed in large pots or laid on
the ground alongside lit candles like a golden rug around ‘ofrendas’ (altars to
the dead.)
The
native Mexican word for the Marygold hides an important meaning: ‘Cempasuchitl,’
or: ‘Cempoal-Xochitl;’ means ‘Flower of Twenty’ -some say it’s because of its
20 petals.
The
flower was the ideogram for the number twenty; and twenty was a special number
to the Mexica -known in Europe as ‘Aztecs.’ Twenty was the base of their arithmetic
and calendar systems.
‘20’
was to them, what ‘10’ is to us today.
The
Mexican ‘Flower of Twenty’ or ‘Cempasuchitl’ was believed to contain the very heat
and light of the sun inside each crown of orange and yellow petals. The light
inside the Cempasuchitl was believed to be visible to the departed, and -on the
Day of the Dead- it would illuminate the way back to their former earthly
abode. Once there, the deceased would find her (or his) picture alongside
images of dancing skeletons all dressed up for the ball.
Some
say that: “Mexicans like to mock death.”
Well,
we certainly choose to laugh at life, especially when the only other option is
to cry; and even when things are good, it sometimes seems that earthly existence
is but a long awkward moment.
Like
that clumsy, bump on the forehead as you try to look out at a beautiful sunset
through a greasy window.
Sometimes
I think that life after death could be just as messy and awkward as this life.
I
may have my indigenous ancestors to thank for this.
Aztecs
had not only one, but two ‘gods of the dead,’ ‘Mictlantecuhtli,’ and his wife;
‘Mictecacíhuatl’ who –like any other married couple- kept themselves company by
doing each other’s heads in, while barely staying together throughout an
eternity down in the underworld.
After
being welcomed by the lovely couple, the souls of the recently-expired found
out their fate. Those who died of natural causes could make themselves at home in
the underworld, those who drowned became part of an eternal ‘Waterworld,’ and lastly;
a temporary heaven inside the sun awaited men who died in battle and women who
died while giving birth.
These
dead men and women could then return to earth in the shape of the
flower-drinking hummingbird, a sacred animal.
The
Spanish had never seen a hummingbird until they came to the ‘New World.’ They
marvelled at the bird and called it: ‘the flying jewel.’ They captured as many
as they could, and sent their colourful feathered skins to Europe, creating an
unsustainable demand for more skins and causing the death of many millions of these
birds.
So,
it was back to square-one for the brave reincarnated souls.
It
seems in Mexico, life is always spilling into death and death is always splashing
back onto life.
On
the Day of the Dead, this thin boundary between life and death becomes even
fainter, as the departed souls of relatives are thought to be closer to the
living than on any other day of the year.
Even
though the Cempasuchitl will light the way for the visiting spirits, some
families are eager to save the deceased the trouble of the journey back, and so
they venture into the ‘Panteones’ (Graveyards) not only with Cempasuchitl flowers
and candles, but with food, guitars and even Tequila.
Mexicans
could easily use the modern Spanish word ‘cementerios’ for graveyards; but they
choose to use the older word: ‘Panteones,’ maybe it’s because in its Greek root
the word means: ‘all the gods’ as in: ‘the more the merrier’–but to keep things
Catholic: ‘Diosito’ (the God,) his
son Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the lesser saints are also invited to
the Day of the Dead party.
During
this eclectic graveyard picnic, people will lovingly decorate their dead relatives’
graves and then sit down to chat to them or amongst themselves for hours on end.
As night sets, they’ll light up a small constellation of candles and listen to
the sounds of rosary prayers blend in with the chords and singing of Mariachi
music. A bottle might get passed around while children eat candy and play on
the burial ground of relatives they never met.
The
sugar skulls children bite into are decorated with common first-names like
‘Maria’ or ‘Francisco;’ or popular sayings like: “Como te ves, me vi, y como me
ves, te verás…” (The way you look now, I once did; and as I look now, so will
you.)
This
is supposed to be Mexicans ‘laughing at death’ as the cliché goes. As a
Mexican, I’m not so sure that’s meant to be funny; this saying is certainly a
cute and welcome reminder of our own impermanence; but the question it has
always raised in my mind is… ‘When?’
When,
will I look like you? Oh, sugar skull with my name on it? (With my name on it
minus the chocolate letters because they’re the tastier ones and I always eat
them first.)
I
hope I don’t look like you too soon –to be honest.
Maybe
we’re trying to hide the fact that in Mexico death has never really been a
laughing matter.
In
distant times the appalling practice of human sacrifice helped an elitist Aztec
theocracy keep millions of souls under control and was of such a scale that it horrified
even the blood-soaked, iron-hearted conquistadores from across the sea.
Since
those days, them and others have continued the mass sacrifice, disguised as ‘Conquista,’
‘Colonia,’ ‘Independencia,’ ‘Manifest Destiny,’ ‘Revolución,’ and mass
emigration.
Present-day
Mexico is still no place to laugh at death. In the grip of a drug war imposed
upon the people by local drug cartels, the Mexican government and the
international demand for drugs; life is cheap… crazy cheap; but death is always
expensive; and no one laughs at the price.
In
the country of sugar skulls and sun-containing flowers, it makes sense that death
be life’s shackled shadow, as near to it as night is to day; and so when you
can taste the sunset just around the corner, you can only pray for sweet dreams
and a free hummingbird’s paradise.
On
the Day of the Dead we remind ourselves not only that death is not the end, but
also that being crazy and care-free right now is essential to maintaining
sanity; because we’re all headed towards that candle-lit night; when children will
play above ground asking about who we were, making our surviving relatives
airbrush our frowns and growls out of anecdotes and stories about us, and our
days on earth.
In
a typically Mexican circular way, the Day of the Dead also suggests a forgotten
life before birth. Because life in Mexico is desperately and comically flawed- but
it’s also mysterious and constantly renewing itself.
As
I ponder on the meaning of the Cempasuchil flower, it’s sad that while growing
up over there I didn’t actually know the true meaning of its name.
In
everyday life in Mexico City, the only remnants of the native language of the
Aztecs survive in the names of neighbourhoods and of the surrounding mountains,
or as a part of a wider ‘Mexican history’ class in schools.
Growing
up in Mexico, the ‘Nahuatl’ language was almost a foreign language to my
generation; even more so than the English that has opened doors for me
throughout my life.
Things
are changing, and that’s why, the ‘Day of the Dead’ itself is having to fight
off its own death these days.
A
mighty rival illegally crossed the border southbound a few decades ago. Armed
with spider-man costumes, sneaker’s mini-chocolate bars and carved pumpkins,
Halloween ‘trick or treating’ is always gaining ground against the traditions
of displaying the Cempasuchitl, of eating sugar skulls and of leaving ‘Dead
Man’s Bread’ crumbs on the great-grandparents’ plot.
How
interesting it seems that Halloween comes from the Irish ‘Samhain,’ the autumnal
festival during which the doors into the world of the dead were considered to
be open for a while.
How
just it seems also, that the pumpkin, the sugar candy and the chocolate of
Halloween are as native to Mexico as the humble Cempasuchitl ‘flower of twenty.’
So,
‘Failte’ Halloween, mi casa es tu casa.
