Day of the Dead: A Walk in the Graveyard

Image by Renee Silverman

Every Autumn, Dia De Los Muertos or Day of the Dead blossoms from the very earth of Los Angeles, a potent integration of ancient Aztec rituals and the Catholic All Saint’s Day. Flower shrines or ofrendas appear honoring the dead. Votive candles flicker beside yellowing photographs of the departed and graves are piled high with bright chrysanthemums, baby’s breath and cockscombs, symbolizing the blood of Christ. By night fall, groups of friends and families stroll casually through neighborhoods, their faces painted like sugar skulls, wearing black hats tipped at a jaunty angle or flowing veils attached to garlands of fragrant gladiolus and roses.

LA has always been intrigued by Dia De Los Muertos, it’s in our bones. My writing partner Alix Sloan when she lived in LA, was a curator with the La luz De Jesus Gallery whose owner Billy Shire was one of the first people to bring the curious Day of the Dead artifacts from Mexico; elaborately painted plaster skulls and tableus of skeletons dressed in their Sunday best, enjoying the pleasures of life.

Image by Luz Gallardo

My friend Erin, an intrepid adventurer who goes to places like the South pole, took me to the Dia De Los Muertos festival at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery this year. The streets were packed and we had to park blocks away, then walk over to the cemetery near the Paramount Lot. We followed the procession of ghoulish participants through the gate and over the dark grass, winding past rows of graves where relatives set small gifts; photos, sugar skulls and libations of Tequila on tombstones to appease the spirit realm.

In Mexico, paths from the graveyard are sprinkled with cempasuchil marigold petals, the Aztec funerary flower, so the spirits can follow the scent to the family altar. Erin stopped at the grave of a friend who died too young and spent a few moments communing there. The grave was lovingly covered in small mementos and though I didn’t know her, she was clearly an artist.

We followed the winding paths deeper into the park, past booths where celebrants wait in long lines to have artists paint their faces like death.

In the distance, the park’s cathedral was lit up with ghostly projections. Colored skulls floated on tall stone walls, echoing the ancient Aztec tzompantli altars illustrated in the codices (racks of sacrificial skulls). At the height of the empire, the Aztecs reported sacrificing over 80,000 victims in a single celebration, feeding the sun god with the burning hearts of the slain and indulging in cannabilism. The ancient Aztecs are a puzzle to our modern minds, having created a culture of extraordinary beauty and horror.

Image by Luz Gallardo

“And when we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level Causeway going towards Mexico, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and temples and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers said that all these things seemed to be a dream…There is so much to ponder in this, and I do not know how to tell it, for never was there seen, nor heard, nor even dreamt, anything like that which we then observed.“ –Bernal Diaz de Castillo, upon entering Tenochtitlán on 8 November 1511.

Image by The Flying Enchilada

Hernan Cortéz wrote detailed letters to Emperor Charles the V in 1520 also described Tenochtitlán as a city rising from a vast lake with fountains and canals peppered by boats transferring goods, elaborate palaces with marble columns, gardens and hothouses of flowers, pet birds of every species, aqueducts streaming fresh water, teeming markets rich with fruits, vegetables, game, gold and precious metals, feathers, herbs, wood and coal, shrines and vast temple complexes where sacrifices were made to the sun god by the priests.

But as the Spanish learned more about their hosts, the festive vibrant city took on a more ominous tone. Blood sacrifices were carried out on a vast scale and bodies were dismembered and sometimes consumed. To the Spanish, the revelation was hallucinatory and disorienting, just as the Aztecs found the Spanish horses to be strange and frightening. And of course, this terrible collision of  two worldviews was followed by the slaughter of the Aztec people, reported faithfully from the Aztec point of view in The Broken Arrows.

“At this moment in the fiesta, when the dance was lovliest and when song was linked to song, the Spaniards were seized with an urge to kill the celebrants. They all ran forward, armed as if for battle and closed the gates. They posted guards so that no one could escape, and then rushed into the Sacred Patio to slaughter the celebrants. They ran in among the dancers to the spot where the drums were played, they attacked the man who was drumming and cut off his arms. Then they cut off his head, and it rolled across the floor. They attacked all the celebrants, stabbing them, spearing them, striking them with their swords. Others they beheaded: or split their heads to pieces. They slashed others in the abdomen and their entrails all spilled to the ground. Some attempted to run away, but their intestines dragged as they ran; they seemed to tangle their feet in their own entrails. No matter how they tried to save themselves, they could find no escape. The blood of the warriors flowed like water and gathered into pools. The Spaniards ran into the communal houses to kill those who were hiding. They ran everywhere and searched everywhere; they invaded every room, hunting and killing….” The Broken Spears (Leon-Portilla)

Image by The Flying Enchilada

El Dia De Los Muertos is a shadow of the ancient Aztec rituals where the living communed closely with the dead. Sugared skulls, death masks, dances, stone artifacts and painted codices are all that survive of the Aztec philosophies which are still so opaque and mysterious. The Aztec sacrifices were a way of feeding the sun and honoring the gods who had, according to their mythology, sacrificed themselves for the creation of our world. (Like the opening scene in the film Prometheus, where the alien engineer allows his body to be broken apart to fertilize the planet). When the Aztec priests were asked about human sacrifice, they defended the act  by saying, ” Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life… They produce our sustenance… which nourishes life.”

The Aztecs sacrificed their own bodies, animals, birds, butterflies, seeds, gold and jade in elaborate rituals. They created sacrificial mounds, enfolding one temple in the next, building higher and higher toward the sky. In their poetry, the Aztec’s spoke of flowers the way the Persian poet Hafiz speaks metaphorically of intoxication. Reading the poetry of  NezahualCóyotl, the 15th century Aztec king, the word flower seems to be a way to describe the copious and transitory nature of life, whether in the physical world or the realm of the mind and spirit. The blossom of life opens in opulence and fertility, then withers and dies. El Dia Day Los Muertos is full of flowers, cut down at the height of their beauty, broken, crushed, releasing their scent just as the Aztecs sacrificed their children, slaves, vessels, animals and captives; crushing, breaking and cutting open their bodies to release the heart (tona) which housed not only the individual soul, but a fragment of the Sun’s heat (istli). To the Aztecs, life was only a dream and a passionate death ensured power and abundance for the soul. The Aztecs preferred violent penance to sin and often chose death willingly. They had an arcane system of sacrifices, ranking some forms of death as preferable to others, considering a lethargic death in bed to be ill omened, while death by sacrifice, childbirth or war transported the soul to a higher plain of existence.

Winding past the ofrendas, we found the path again and walked slowly back to the city, leaving the graveyard full of youthful faces painted like the dead. Once a year the world meditates on its mortality and people step into the night wearing macabe costumes to remind us of the bones lying just beneath our skin.

Image by Luz Gallardo

THE FLOWER TREE  attributed to   NezahualCóyotl  (Poet King of the Texcoco crowned in 1431 

Begin the song in pleasure, singer, enjoy, give pleasure to all, even to Life Giver. Yyeo ayahui ohuaya.

Delight, for Life Giver adorns us. All the flower bracelets, your flowers, are dancing. Our songs are strewn in this jewel house, this golden house. The Flower Tree grow and shakes, already it scatters. The quetzal breathes honey, the golden quéchol breathes honey. Ohuaya ohuaya.

You have transformed into a Flower Tree, you have emerged, you bend and scatter. You have appeared before God’s face as multi-colored flowers. Ohuaya ohuaya.

Live here on earth, blossom! As you move and shake, flowers fall. My flowers are eternal, my songs are forever: I raise them: I, a singer. I scatter them, I spill them, the flowers become gold: they are carried inside the golden place. Ohuaya ohuyaya.

Flowers of raven, flowers you scatter, you let them fall in the house of flowers. Ohuaya ohuyaya.

Ah, yes: I am happy, I prince NezahualCóyotl, gathering jewels, wide plumes of quetzal, I contemplate the faces of jades: they are the princes! I gaze into the faces of Eagles and Jaguars, and behold the faces of jades and jewels! Ohuaya ohuyaya.

We will pass away. I, NezahualCóyotl, say, Enjoy! Do we really live on earth? Ohuaya ohuaya!

Not forever on earth, only a brief time here! Even jades fracture; even gold ruptures, even quetzal plumes tear: Not forever on earth: only a brief time here! Ohuaya ohuaya!   Cantares Mexicanos #20 (16v-17r)