DAY OF THE DEAD

CARLOS

FUENTES

1928-2012

IN MEMORY OF

Carlos Fuentes

(1928-2012)

The sun is burning alive, iron is falling like dust, aimless energy is being diffused into the universe, mass is being wasted away by radiation, earth is being cooled by death…You will be waiting for a mulato and a beast in order to cross the mountain and begin to live, to fill time, to take the steps and mannerisms in that macabre game in which life moves forward at the same time that life dies; a crazed dance in which time will devour time and no one alive will be able to stop the irreversible course of extinction...the boy, Earth and the Universe: one day there will be no light, heat nor life in any of the three...There will only be a total unity, forgotten, with no names and no men to name it: time and space, energy and matter blended ...and everything will share one name...Nothing...But not yet...Men are still born... These are some of the meditations on death made by the narrator in one of Carlos Fuentes’ greatest novels, The Death of Artemio Cruz. In this quote the reader can perceive an almost furious attempt to reach for a kernel of truth that language grapples to capture; as if the writer’s words touched with their fingertips an essential truth about one of man-kind’s most puzzling mysteries. This yearning to overcome the limits of our language, existence and vital ignorance seem to stretch throughout this universal Mexican’s work. Unlike most people, curiosity in Fuentes was not a personality trait, but a way of life, something which was also evident by his transversal knowledge, his insatiable passion for books and a fervent commitment to his craft.

As the son of the career diplomat Ambassador Rafael Fuentes, Carlos was born in Panama and lived in Quito, Montevideo, Río de Ja-neiro, Washington, Buenos Aires and Santiago before he was 15 years of age. Fuentes would maintain this cosmopolitan relation to the world, not only as Ambassador of Mexico to France, but also as a teacher at universities such as Princeton, Brown, Harvard and Cambridge.

Notwithstanding his acclaimed standing on an international level, Carlos Fuentes continued throughout his life to aim the potency of his critical mind towards deciphering what he considered a captivating enigma: Mexico. In doing so, he not only bequeathed the world’s literary canon with an assortment of gems, but he cemented key building blocks in the country’s national identity, one which is comprised by the dense blend of symbols and traditions from two originally separate civilizations.

One such treasure of this

dual inheritance is the Day of the Dead. Up to this day every town bestows its own idiosyncrasy on the celebration of this custom. The island of Janitzio -which sits in the lake of Patzcuaro in the western state of Michoacan- has perhaps one of the most beautiful ceremonies. A candle lit proces-sion makes its way across the lake towards the island on rafts that are decorated with the autochtho-nous butterfly-shaped fishing nets, thus symbolizing the journey through which the dead cross the frontier between their world and that of the living, in order to visit their loved ones.

In many ways, the forces behind the more than 60 titles that

Fuentes left us with echo this “crossing of borders” present in the Day of the Dead. Creativity and critical enquiry are all forms of transcending and displacing limits that seemed insurmountable. Moreover it should be noted, as Plato did many centuries ago, that the pursuit of knowledge is originally born from the sense of amazement caused by the world. Therefore, Fuentes’ omnivorous curiosity is an eloquent testament to the wonder he felt at being alive. In this sense and true to Mexico’s ironic sense of humour, it is impossible not to notice the irony behind the fact that what guaranteed this literary giant’s immortality was precisely his love of life.

In order to understand and make sense out of “Día de Muertos”, the day of the dead, it is necessary to firstly take into consideration the origins of how Mexico came to be as it is today. The key word in this inquiry is that of “syncretism”.

Once the dust had settled after the Spanish conquest of the indigenous civilizations that inhabited what is now Mexico, a distinct personality emerged which bore a transformed version of symbols, beliefs and traditions that originated on separate sides of the Atlantic. What began as a collision of two very different worlds was resolved through a metamorphosis that created a new one. However it is crucial to note that this was enabled by the fact that there were underlying coincidences and correspondences between them.

The date of the day of the dead is quite telling of this charac-teristic. Catholics celebrate their Saints and departed on the first two days of November, the same month that Preshipanic cultures dedicated to welcoming the temporary return of those who were no longer among the living.

Prehispanic cultures believed that according to the type of death one had, followed a journey that would lead to different rest-ing sites. Today this is echoed by the fact that the 1st of November is dedicated to children who passed away, while the 2nd is for those who died in their adulthood or old age. The most common of these afterlife sites was Mictlan, were those who died of natural causes would arrive after crossing nine stages of the somber underworld (the same number of celestial spheres that Dante surpassed to reach Beatrice).

The meeting of two worlds

The offerings that play such a central role in altars for the dead up till this day are another essential feature of preshipanic cultures. They believed that the creation of mankind was possible thanks to an act of self sacrifice by their main god, Quetzlacoatl (the feathered snake), which in turn had to be reciprocated. The idea that the foun-dational value behind our existence was utmost generosity, resulted in the fact that offerings and tokens of gratitude were part and parcel of everyday life.

It was no coincidence that these cultures commemorated their dead on the month that marked the end of the harvesting season of their main source of sustenance, i.e. maize. Since this ceremony celebrated the long journey the dead had to embark on to visit the living, it was only fair that they should be the first to enjoy the crops of the year, which were served as an offering of welcome and gratitude.

In the case of día de muertos, this gesture evolved in such a way that the living offer to their loved one both the things she enjoyed the most and symbols that best represent her time while alive, thus raising the point that even though the excuse for this occasion might be death, it is in fact an affirmation of life.

Finally, even though it is obvious that the idea of an afterlife was one shared belief between the Spanish Conquistadors and Prehispanic peoples, the prominently familiar character of día de muertos, allows this belief to be interpreted in a form that speaks to all: that by remembering the life of those we love, not only do we nurture the bond we have with them, but we allow them to shine with a renewed flame.

“La Catrina” by Jose Guadalupe Posadas

Even though each community has its own specific take on the

altar, it normally has a series of arch like structures that reminisce the structure of the underworld in prehispanic cosmology. Also there are a series of generic objects that every altar must have:

Candles- these help to illuminate the dark path that the deceased must walk from the underworld to earth and back.

Beverages and traditional Mexican dishes- it is reasonable to infer that such a journey must be long and tiring, hence, the loved ones of the dead welcome them, first with a glass of water and then with some of the finest earthly delights such as tequila and mole –a Mexican dish made out of chicken or pork covered in a chocolate, tomato and chile sauce.

Marigolds-cempasuchitl, the nahuatl word for these bright yellow flowers, means literally “the flower of the dead”. Not only does their scent guide help to guide the dead to the altar, but they also symbolize fire and are the same colour as the last river the dead must cross before reaching the final chamber of Mictlan

Earth and seeds- these serve as a reminder to the living that “from dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”.

Sugar skulls and pan de muerto (bread of the dead)

these normally bear the names of the person for whom

the altar is made, but can also be given to the living as a

treat.

In 2008 the Indigenous festivity for the d e a d w a s i n c l u d e d i n t h e representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

The bread normally has allegorical

shapes allusive to skeletons, which is

how Aztecs represented Mictlantecuhtli,

Lord of Mictlan.

Mictlantecuhtli