Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead: ofrendas, cempasúchil, sugar skulls, pan de muerto, and the graveside vigils in Michoacán and Oaxaca. Whether the observance is a continuous pre-Hispanic practice or substantially a twentieth-century arrangement of a Medieval European one is genuinely disputed among Mexican scholars, and both positions are noted. The Mexico City parade was invented for a film in 2015.

Part of Mexico

219 moments in this segment.

1890 - Posada's trusting calaveras. A broadsheet relief print on red ground, titled Calaveras de confianza que les dará su pitanza. Drawn by José Guadalupe Posada and published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, about 1890. Posada died in 1913 in poverty and was buried in a common grave.
1919 - Calaveras of coyotes and waitresses. A broadsheet relief print on purple ground, titled Calaveras de coyotes y meseras. Drawn by José Guadalupe Posada for the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, this sheet dated 1919. A coyote in this sense was a street fixer who handled paperwork, and Posada aimed his skeletons at trades rather than at individuals.
2009-04-30 - José Guadalupe Posada Documental 1 de 2. The first part of a Posada documentary. His rediscovery came through French and Mexican artists in the 1920s.
2009-09-29 - Las fiestas indígenas dedicadas a los muertos. UNESCO's Spanish service presents the indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead. The inscription was made in 2008 and covers the indigenous observance specifically rather than the national holiday as a whole.
2009-10-24 - Taller de Máscaras Para Desfile de Calaveras EST3 Atlixco. A school workshop making masks for a skull parade in Atlixco. Schools are a principal route by which the crafts continue.
2011-11-10 - Tradición del dia de muertos en México - Youth Bloggers Latin América UNESCO. A UNESCO piece on the Day of the Dead tradition in Mexico. The dates fall on All Saints' on 1 November and All Souls' on 2 November, so the Catholic scaffolding is not in doubt.
2012-01-31 - Documental "Día de muertos en Oaxaca". A documentary on the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca. The state's observance is among the most elaborate and the most visited.
2012-11-01 - Vivir de la muerte (Promocional). A short promotional trailer for the Canal Once documentary. The trade around the festival supports whole towns for a few weeks each year.
2012-11-01 - Día de Muertos en Mixquic. Canal Once films the observance at Mixquic in 2012. The Mixquic cemetery vigil draws visitors from across the capital.
2012-11-05 - Desfile de Calaveras 2012 Aguascalientes México Producción Aguascalientes TV. The 2012 skull parade in Aguascalientes, produced by the state broadcaster. Public broadcasting recorded the festival in full for years.
2012-11-15 - Documental - Vivir de la muerte. Canal Once's documentary Vivir de la muerte follows those who make a living from the observance. Flower growers, bakers and sugar workers all depend on the season.
2013-02-19 - Posada Genio Desconocido Capítulo 1 Producción Aguascalientes TV. The first chapter of the same Posada series. He worked as a commercial printmaker and was largely forgotten at his death in 1913.
2013-05-03 - 1994 - Mixquic: La noche de las flores amarillas. Canal Once broadcasts Mixquic, la noche de las flores amarillas from 1994. The archive programme records the observance before mass tourism reshaped it.
2013 - The skull stall. Skulls for sale during the festival in Oaxaca. 2013. Oaxaca's markets fill with sugar and chocolate skulls for the last week of October.
2013 - Offerings at the university. Ofrendas built on the Ciudad Universitaria campus. Coyoacán, Mexico City, 2013. University altar competitions are one of the ways the observance keeps being taught.
2013 - The English Pantheon at Real del Monte. The Cornish cemetery in the old silver-mining town. Real del Monte, Hidalgo, 2013. Cornish miners came in the 1820s, and their graves face away from Mexico, towards home.
2013 - The Rotonda de Hidalguenses Ilustres. A monument ringed by a screen carrying the glyphs of all 84 municipalities of the state, cut in stone. Pachuca, Hidalgo, 2013. Rotondas of illustrious citizens are a nineteenth-century civic form.
2013 - Twelve columns of local stone. The rotunda's columns, each 4.20 metres and faced in regional quarry stone, with four eagles at the base. Pachuca, Hidalgo, 2013. State pantheons were built to give a young republic its own honoured dead.
2013 - Against the darkness. A representation of death in traditional Mexican dress on a spring day in the old centre. Mexico City, 2013. Costumed calaveras appear outside the November dates as street performance.
2013 - Altars at the Colegio de las Vizcaínas. An offering in the eighteenth-century school in the old city. Mexico City, 2013. The Vizcaínas was founded in 1734 as a school for girls and has never closed.
2013 - Squash for the sweet. Pumpkin cut into pieces for dulce de calabaza, boiled with piloncillo and offered to the dead. San Joaquín, Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. Piloncillo is unrefined cane sugar sold in hard cones.
2013 - The clay pot. Cut squash in an earthenware pot, ready for the traditional sweet. San Joaquín, Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. Cooking in clay is held to change the taste, and it is what the recipe assumes.
2013 - Squash and bread of the dead. The pumpkin sweet and the bread made together for the offering. San Joaquín, Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. Both are put on the altar and both are eaten afterwards by the family.
2013 - Colour and death on Regina. A tribute to the dead in the street in the old centre. Mexico City, 2013. Regina was pedestrianised in 2008 and is one of the streets where the observance spills outdoors.
2013 - Amaranth skulls. Sweet calaveras made of amaranth for the arrival of the dead on 2 November. Photographed 2013. Amaranth was a staple grain before the conquest and was suppressed for its use in religious figures.
2013 - The oven. Wood burning in a wall oven for baking pan de muerto. San Joaquín, Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. The bread is baked in batches over two or three days before the date.
2013 - Mixing the dough. People of San Joaquín stirring flour, piloncillo, ground guava and egg for the bread of the dead. Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. The recipe varies by town; this one carries guava.
2013 - Pan de muerto. The finished traditional bread, made by the people of San Joaquín. Texcoco, State of Mexico, 2013. The bones laid across the top of the loaf are the shape the name refers to.
2013-10-13 - Michoacán.- Día de Muertos, patrimonio cultural. Declarada por la Unesco en 2003.. A report on Michoacán and the heritage declaration. The state's lakeside observance was central to the nomination.
2013-10-31 - Entrevista con Carmen Chacón sobre el Día de Muertos. Radio INAH interviews Carmen Chacón about the Day of the Dead. Mexican academics are divided over how much of the modern festival descends from pre-Hispanic practice, with Elsa Malvido arguing for Medieval European origin and Octavio Paz supporting a syncretic reading.
2013-11-01 - Historia del Panteon General por Hiram Sánchez. A history of the Panteón General told by Hiram Sánchez. Municipal cemeteries are where most of the observance actually takes place.
2014-06-04 - Posada el Genio Desconocido Episodio 12 Producción Aguascalientes TV. An episode of Posada el Genio Desconocido from the Aguascalientes state broadcaster. The series treated the engraver as a subject worth twelve episodes.
2014 - From one generation to the next. An ofrenda built by small children, standing for the passing on of the practice. Photographed 2014. School altar-building is how most Mexican children learn the form.
2014 - The cheerful side of death. An offering showing two skeletons enjoying themselves. Photographed 2014. The dead in these images are never suffering, which is the point being made.
2014 - In their memory. An ofrenda for figures who shaped the country's history, framed in marigolds. Photographed 2014. Cempasúchil is Nahuatl, from cempoalxochitl, twenty flowers.
2014 - Thanks for the memories. An offering dedicated to major figures of Mexican history. Photographed 2014. Public altars honour national dead where household ones honour family.
2014 - Honouring Iturbide. An ofrenda dedicated to Agustín de Iturbide. Photographed 2014. Iturbide crowned himself emperor in 1822, was deposed within a year, and was shot in 1824 on returning from exile.
2014 - The language of the dead. An offering built around the wry expressions attributed to the departed. Photographed 2014. Calaveras literarias are mocking verse epitaphs written for people who are still alive.
2014 - A rest well earned. A skeleton standing for the repose of the dead, beside its offering. Photographed 2014. The reclining or sleeping calavera is a standard figure in the craft.
2014 - In their honour. An offering built to remember those who have been lost. Photographed 2014. The altar is dismantled after 2 November and the food is eaten.
2014 - Dancing skeletons. An offering showing two calaveras dancing. Photographed 2014. Posada's calaveras dance, drink and ride, which is where the convention comes from.
2014 - The Catrina dressed as a charro. A Catrina figure in charro dress on an offering. Photographed 2014. The traje de charro was fixed as a national costume in the 1930s, not in the colonial period.
2014 - Catrinas at the Coyoacán fountain. Costumed figures at the fountain in the centre of the district during the celebration. Mexico City, 2014. Coyoacán's version draws crowds from across the city.
2014-10-31 - Día de Muertos, obra maestra del patrimonio cultural de la humanidad: UNESCO. A regional report calling the observance a masterpiece of cultural heritage. The 2008 inscription used the earlier masterpiece terminology.
2014-11-11 - Ofrenda 2014 de la Coordinación Nacional de Antropología - INAH. The 2014 ofrenda of the National Coordination of Anthropology at INAH. Institutional altars are built by staff rather than contracted out.
2015-04-12 - Xantolo Documental. A documentary treatment of Xantolo. The Huasteca observance involves wooden masks and dance troupes that perform across several days.
2015 - An altar at the Puebla congress. Detail of an offering built in the courtyard of the state legislature. Puebla, 2015. Public institutions build altars as a matter of course through late October.
2015 - The travelling Catrina. Symbolic figures in cartonería with a traditional Mexican altar. Photographed 2015. Cartonería is moulded paper over a frame, the same craft used for judas figures and alebrijes.
2015 - The cemetery, in paper. A cartonería graveyard built as part of a traditional altar. Photographed 2015. Alebrijes as wooden Oaxacan carvings are a craft of the 1970s to 1990s, which borrowed the name from a 1936 Mexico City paper figure.
2015 - Death in graphic form. A cartonería figure made for a traditional altar assembly. Photographed 2015. The paper craft is centred on Mexico City and is passed down within families.
2015 - The skeleton couple. Bride and groom calaveras made in cartonería for an altar. Photographed 2015. Marriage, drinking and dancing are the scenes the skeletons are most often given.
2015 - Papel picado for the altar. Cut paper made as part of a traditional altar assembly. Photographed 2015. Purple and orange are the colours most used, standing for mourning and for the flower.
2015-10-23 - Elaboración de calaveras de azúcar. NotimexTV films the making of sugar skulls. The state news agency covered the seasonal trades annually.
2015-10-29 - Elaboracion del tradicional pan de muerto. The making of traditional pan de muerto. Bakeries add the bone decorations by hand before the second proof.
2015-10-31 - Elaboración de tapetes del día de muertos. The making of sawdust carpets for the Day of the Dead. The work is done overnight so the carpet is fresh at dawn.
2015-11-02 - Aquí nos tocó vivir - La fiesta de los muertos (31/10/2015). Aquí nos tocó vivir films the festival of the dead for Canal Once. The programme worked in the neighbourhoods rather than at official events.
2015-12-13 - Xochimilco Panteón Xilotepec - Día de Muertos - Documental. The Xilotepec cemetery in Xochimilco during the observance. Neighbourhood cemeteries fill with families who stay through the night.
2016 - Catrinas and catrines at Toluca. Craft figures made for the Feria del Alfeñique. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2016. Posada drew the original as La Calavera Garbancera around 1910, mocking Mexicans who denied their own origins.
2016 - Sugar skulls. Calaveras moulded from sugar, made to decorate the altars. Photographed 2016. The names iced on them are of the dead, and sometimes of the living as a joke.
2016-10-22 - Inicia la elaboración y venta de calaveritas de azúcar. Puebla reports the start of the sugar skull season. Production begins weeks ahead because the figures must dry before decoration.
2016-11-02 - Día de Muertos en San Andrés Mixquic Video 2 Noviembre 2016 Celebracion. The observance at San Andrés Mixquic in November 2016. Mixquic lies inside Mexico City limits and its vigil is the capital's best known.
2017 - A ritual at Pátzcuaro. A demonstration of the observance on the lake. Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, 2017. The Purépecha night vigil on Janitzio island is the version that became famous abroad.
2017 - Copal smoke. Incense burned by Tsotsil Maya people to clean the body and the soul. San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2017. Copal is a tree resin burned in Mexico since long before the conquest.
2017 - Calaveras on the street, 2017. Skeleton figures set out in Mexico City for the festival. 2017. The city's parade was invented for the 2015 Bond film Spectre; the first real one was held on 29 October 2016 and drew 250,000 people.
2017 - Skeletons in the crowd. More calavera figures during the Mexico City observance. 2017. Before the film there was no parade in the capital at all, only household altars and cemetery visits.
2017 - A calavera in costume. A skeleton figure dressed for the festival. Mexico City, 2017. Dressing the skeleton in the clothes of a trade or a class is the oldest joke in the form.
2017 - Painted faces on the avenue. Participants in the Mexico City celebration. 2017. The city government took over the parade after the film and has run it every year since.
2017 - A figure in the procession. A costumed calavera in the capital. Mexico City, 2017. The parade route runs along Paseo de la Reforma.
2017 - Skulls in the street. Calavera figures during the city observance. Mexico City, 2017. The 2016 parade was announced only weeks in advance and drew a quarter of a million people anyway.
2017 - A costumed group. Participants together during the Mexico City festival. 2017. Costume groups apply months ahead to take part in the official parade.
2017 - Bones and colour. A calavera costume in the capital. Mexico City, 2017. The black-and-white skeleton painting is a recent convention, not an old one.
2017 - On Reforma. Figures during the Day of the Dead observance on the main avenue. Mexico City, 2017. Reforma was laid out in the 1860s on the orders of Maximilian.
2017 - A calavera portrait. A single costumed figure in the crowd. Mexico City, 2017. UNESCO listed the indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead in 2008.
2017 - Faces in the procession. Participants in the capital's celebration. Mexico City, 2017. Elsa Malvido argued the festival owes far more to Medieval European practice than to any unbroken indigenous line.
2017 - Along the parade route. Costumed figures moving with the crowd. Mexico City, 2017. Whether the observance is genuinely pre-Hispanic is a live academic dispute in Mexico, not a settled point.
2017 - A skeleton in the street. A calavera during the city festival. Mexico City, 2017. The nineteenth-century broadsheet skeleton was political satire before it was a folk symbol.
2017 - More figures on the avenue. Participants during the observance in the capital. Mexico City, 2017. Sales of costumes and face paint now run for weeks before the date.
2017 - A pair of calaveras. Two costumed figures together. Mexico City, 2017. The parade is filmed and broadcast nationally.
2017 - Costume in the crowd. A participant in the Mexico City celebration. 2017. Mexico City's own version is younger than the state versions in Michoacán and Oaxaca.
2017 - A figure among many. One of the costumed participants. Mexico City, 2017. Alongside the parade, household altars remain the more common practice.
2017 - Painted for the day. A calavera face in the crowd. Mexico City, 2017. The parade route was extended after the first year to hold the numbers.
2017 - Skeletons in procession. Figures moving along the street during the festival. Mexico City, 2017. Municipal parades have since been copied in cities across the country.
2017 - The end of the route. Participants at the Mexico City observance. 2017. The official parade falls on the weekend nearest 2 November.
2017 - A painting that is not dead. A work made for the festival, treating the dead and the living as present at once. Photographed 2017. The two dates are All Saints on 1 November for children and All Souls on 2 November for adults.
2017-08-15 - José Guadalupe Posada – PINTURA MEXICANA / Cine en Línea. Filmoteca UNAM presents a film on José Guadalupe Posada. Posada died in 1913, so his prints are long in the public domain and circulate freely.
2017-10-29 - Elaboración de las calaveritas de azúcar. Puebla's state news service films sugar skull production. Puebla and the State of Mexico are the main centres of the trade.
2017-10-30 - Especiales Noticias - Día de muertos en Michoacán (29/10/2017). Canal Once reports the observance in Michoacán in 2017. The Purépecha lakeside vigils are the images most often used to represent the festival internationally.
2017-10-31 - El Día de Muertos es una festividad ancestral considerada patrimonio de la humanidad.. A report calling the Day of the Dead an ancestral festivity recognised as heritage. The UNESCO listing of 2008 named the indigenous observance specifically.
2017-11-03 - Itinerario - Calaveras de azúcar y chocolate. Canal Once's Itinerario looks at sugar and chocolate skulls. Chocolate versions are a later commercial variant of the alfeñique tradition.
2017-12-13 - El día de los muertos -DOCUMENTAL COMPLETO. A full documentary on the day of the dead. The observance is not a single tradition but a family of regional practices sharing dates.
2018 - Cut paper for the table. Traditional papel picado made for the Day of the Dead. Photographed 2018. The sheets are cut in stacks with chisels, forty or fifty at a time.
2018 - The light that guides. A clay ornament and marigolds beside a candle on an ofrenda. Photographed 2018. The candle and the flower are both said to be there to show the dead the way in.
2018 - Never forgotten. An old photograph set among candles, sweets and ornaments on an offering. Photographed 2018. The photograph is what makes the ofrenda specific; without it the altar is for no one in particular.
2018 - Dressed as the Catrina. People in costume taking the Catrina as their model. Photographed 2018. Rivera gave her the name La Catrina and put her in his 1947 Alameda mural, decades after Posada drew the figure.
2018 - The muerteada at Peñón de los Baños. The festival held year after year in the town. Mexico City, 2018. A muerteada is a masked night procession, danced rather than watched.
2018 - Sweetness and death. Sugar work made for the celebration. Photographed 2018. Alfeñique is a sugar paste worked like clay, and the craft came to Mexico from Spain.
2018-10-23 - Ofrenda en el Museo Nacional de Antropología. INAH TV films the ofrenda at the Museo Nacional de Antropología. The institute mounts an altar annually in the building that opened in 1964.
2018-11-01 - Tutorial de pan de muerto con Da Silva Panadería Artesanal. El Universal films a pan de muerto tutorial with an artisan bakery. The bone-shaped strips on the loaf and the knob at the centre are the standard form.
2018-11-13 - Patrimonio Inmaterial de la Humanidad |Dia de muertos| 💀💐. A treatment of the observance as intangible heritage of humanity. The designation covers practice rather than any single town's version.
2019-02-08 - Cómo lo celebro - Día de muertos (06/02/2019). Canal Once asks people how they celebrate. Practice varies enormously between regions, households and generations.
2019-03-21 - Documental José Guadalupe Posada. A documentary treatment of José Guadalupe Posada. He produced thousands of engravings for the Vanegas Arroyo press.
2019 - Bread from Miahuatlán. Loaves baked for the offering, in the shape that this town alone makes. Miahuatlán, Oaxaca, 2019. Every community bakes its dead a different bread, and the form is local rather than national.
2019 - An offering to the singers. An ofrenda dedicated to figures from the arts, among them Germán Valdés and Jorge Negrete. Mexico City, 2019. Tin Tan and Negrete both belonged to the golden age of Mexican cinema and both died young.
2019 - Papel picado. Cut tissue paper strung as decoration, made in several colours. Mexico City, 2019. The craft is centred on San Salvador Huixcolotla in Puebla, which holds a state designation for it.
2019 - The Xoco cemetery. A graveyard much like those of any Mexican town, visited by families at the start of November. Mexico City, 2019. Cleaning and repainting the grave is part of the visit.
2019 - Crosses for the Morales family. A pilgrim walking behind crosses marking where the Morales family died on 16 January 1982. Photographed 2019. Roadside crosses mark the place of a death rather than a grave.
2019 - Where remembering is living. A scene from the observance, made under the idea that Mexico celebrates its dead rather than hides them. Photographed 2019. Octavio Paz wrote that the Mexican courts death and mocks it, a reading later scholars have argued was more literary than historical.
2019 - A wedding of skeletons. Calaveras arranged as a marriage as part of the offerings on a main street of colonia Santa Cecilia. Photographed 2019. Skeleton figures are shown doing the ordinary things of the living, which is the whole joke.
2019 - Black clay skulls. Barro negro skulls of the kind used on offerings. Photographed 2019. The black shine of barro negro is not ancient: Doña Rosa Real worked it out at San Bartolo Coyotepec in the 1950s, and before that the ware was matte grey.
2019 - Skulls in the Coyoacán market. Calavera decoration through the market hall. Coyoacán, Mexico City, 2019. Markets sell sugar skulls with names iced on the forehead, to be given to the living as well as left for the dead.
2019 - Mausoleum and church at San Luis Potosí. The exterior of the Jesús Divino Maestro parish with its mausoleum. San Luis Potosí, 2019. Burial inside or beside the church was the norm until the mid nineteenth century.
2019 - Figures cut by hand. Papel picado, cut by hand into open figures whose colour and large voids are the point. Mexico City, 2019. The paper is hung in rows above the altar and moves with any draught.
2019-10-10 - Desfile Internacional de Día de Muertos 2019 en CdMx. Milenio previews the 2019 international Day of the Dead parade. The event was only three years old at that point.
2019-10-31 - Día de Muertos 2019. Correos de México marks the 2019 observance. The postal service issues Day of the Dead stamps most years.
2019-10-31 - Te decimos cómo se elabora el papel picado en Huixcolotla, Puebla. El Sol de Puebla explains how papel picado is made in San Salvador Huixcolotla. The town holds the recognised tradition and its cutters work with chisels through many sheets at once.
2019-10-31 - Huaquechula Día de Muertos (Documental).. A documentary on the Day of the Dead at Huaquechula. The white altars can reach three storeys and take a household days to build.
2019-11-01 - Inauguración de la Ofrenda Monumental de #DíaDeMuertos2019 en el Zócalo de la Ciudad de México. The federal government inaugurates the monumental ofrenda in 2019. The Zócalo installation is a state production rather than a folk practice.
2019-11-07 - Xantolo - La fiesta de los muertos | Trailer oficial (Documental). A trailer for a documentary on Xantolo, the festival of the dead. The Huasteca spans several states and its practice varies within them.
2019-11-09 - Unesco catalogó el Día de Muertos como Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la Humanidad. CGTN reports the UNESCO listing of the Day of the Dead. Chinese state media covered it as world heritage news.
2019-12-02 - Artesanías Abigail nos muestran el proceso del papel picado en Huixcolotla. A workshop shows its papel picado process. Cutting is done by hand even where the designs are now drawn digitally.
2019-12-05 - José Guadalupe Posadas Documental. A short documentary on Posada. His calaveras illustrated satirical verses about the living, which is the tradition the calaveritas continue.
2019-12-05 - Día de Muertos en la zona indígena de Michoacán 2019. The observance in the indigenous zone of Michoacán in 2019. Communities around Lake Pátzcuaro keep all-night vigils in the cemeteries.
2020-01-08 - Documental: Fiesta de Muertos entre los Mazatecos. A documentary on the feast of the dead among the Mazatec. Indigenous observances differ from the national template in music, timing and dress.
2020-09-14 - Elaboración de pan de muerto, panadería y bollería. The elaboration of pan de muerto in a bakery. The dough is enriched with butter, egg and orange blossom water.
2020-09-14 - Elaboración de papel picado en Puebla. A report on papel picado production in Puebla. Demand concentrates entirely into a few weeks each year.
2020-10-20 - Jose Guadalupe Posada Documental oficial. A documentary on José Guadalupe Posada. His broadsides circulated as cheap news sheets rather than as art.
2020-10-31 - Día de muertos 2020 Cempoalxóchitl. The Templo Mayor museum films cempoalxóchitl for the 2020 observance. The Nahuatl name of the marigold means twenty flowers and refers to the many petals on a single head.
2020-10-31 - Día de Muertos: "Una historia que contar" | Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca. The observance at Ocotlán de Morelos in Oaxaca. Oaxacan practice includes comparsas that move between houses through the night.
2020-11-01 - calaveritas literarias 2020 tradición muy mexicana. A reading of calaveritas literarias. The verses are published in newspapers and read aloud, and they traditionally mock politicians.
2020-11-02 - Origen y representación Cultural del Día de Muertos en México. TV UNAM examines the origin and cultural representation of the Day of the Dead. The university broadcaster treats the contested prehistory as an open scholarly question rather than settled fact.
2020-11-02 - Día de Muertos en Huaquechula, Puebla. The INAH centre in Puebla films the observance at Huaquechula. The town builds white multi-tiered altars for those who died in the preceding year, unlike the standard ofrenda.
2020-11-05 - Janal Pixan, la comida de las ánimas en la Península de Yucatán. INAH TV documents Janal Pixán, the food of the souls, in the Yucatán Peninsula. The Maya observance runs on its own calendar of offerings and differs markedly from the central Mexican altar.
2021-02-03 - Taller de alfeñique. An arts institute runs a workshop in alfeñique. Alfeñique is a sugar paste worked into figures, and Toluca holds the largest annual fair for it.
2021 - An embrace at the cemetery. A woman walking with a child in her arms near a graveyard during the festival. Puebla, 2021. Families keep vigil at the graves through the night of 1 to 2 November.
2021 - A butterfly on a stripped marigold. An insect on a cempasúchil flower pulled apart for its petals, photographed in a cemetery near the date. Mexico, 2021. Petals are scattered in a path from the gate to the grave.
2021-07-30 - Proceso de producción de la flor de cempasúchil (plántula y almarcigo). The production of cempasúchil from seedling to harvest. Growers time the crop so the flowers open in the last days of October.
2021-10-15 - Para morir hay que vivir, documental de Día de Muertos (Xantolo). A documentary on Xantolo in the Huasteca. Xantolo takes its name from a Nahuatl rendering of the Latin sanctorum.
2021-10-24 - Taller calaverita de alfeñique - Museo Casa del Risco. The Museo Casa del Risco runs a workshop making alfeñique skulls. Museums teach the craft because the number of working alfeñique makers has fallen.
2021-10-26 - Elaboración de Papel Picado. A Puebla broadcaster films papel picado being made. The perforated banner represents air, one of the four elements the altar is meant to hold.
2021-10-27 - Taller | Calaveras de azúcar. The Fundación Casa de México hosts a sugar skull workshop. The moulds are plaster and are handed down within families of makers.
2021-10-27 - Sacro y Profano - Muerte digna en la cultura mexicana (27/10/2021). Sacro y Profano considers dignified death in Mexican culture. Attitudes to mortality are the deeper subject the festival is usually taken to represent.
2021-10-28 - D Todo - Flor de Cempasúchil y Mano de León (28/10/2021). Canal Once's D Todo covers cempasúchil and mano de león. The marigold is grown to flower precisely at the end of October, which fixes the planting calendar.
2021-10-30 - Día de Muertos Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la Humanidad. A Pátzcuaro report on the heritage designation. Pátzcuaro and Janitzio are the sites most identified with the vigil.
2021-11-01 - Día de Muertos 2021: La ofrenda, la gran tradición mexicana. Azteca Noticias covers the ofrenda in 2021. The altar is the core of the observance regardless of what happens in the streets.
2021-11-01 - D Todo - Altar de día de muertos (01/11/2021). Canal Once's D Todo builds an altar for the dead. The levels of the altar, the water, the salt and the bread each carry an assigned meaning.
2021-11-02 - Día de Muertos desde Aguascalientes Festival de Calaveras. The Day of the Dead seen from the Aguascalientes skull festival. Regional festivals have multiplied since the observance gained heritage status.
2021-11-05 - 🌼Altar tradicional PURÉPECHA-¡Todo lo que debes saber! 💀🌼. A guide to the traditional Purépecha altar in Michoacán. The Purépecha arch of marigolds is a distinct regional form.
2021-11-10 - Posada y su Catrina. A museum programme on Posada and his Catrina. The figure was a satire of indigenous Mexicans affecting European dress, which is often forgotten.
2022-02-05 - 2021: Ofrenda Monumental en el Zócalo de la Ciudad de México.. The 2021 monumental ofrenda in the Zócalo. The installation changes theme each year and is designed by invited artists.
2022-04-18 - Tradicional Tapete de Aserrín de Huamantla Tlaxcala. A traditional sawdust carpet at Huamantla in Tlaxcala. The dyed sawdust designs are laid on the street and destroyed by the procession that follows.
2022 - Two skulls, clay and sugar. A boy holding a clay skull in one hand and a sugar one in the other, days before the celebration. Photographed 2022. Sugar skulls are moulded, dried and then decorated with coloured icing.
2022-10-16 - ¿Cómo se hace el COPAL? | Día de Muertos @SOYKIUBOLOBO23. An explanation of how copal is produced. The resin is tapped from Bursera trees and burned to carry prayers, a practice documented well before the conquest.
2022-10-18 - Día de Muertos | HANAL PIXAN | El PIB Maya 2025 (multilanguage subtitles). An explanation of Hanal Pixán, the Maya observance in Yucatán. The name means food of the souls in Yucatec Maya.
2022-10-21 - Elaboración de PAPEL PICADO en Huixcolotla.. The making of papel picado in Huixcolotla. Designs are cut through stacks of tissue paper with punches rather than drawn individually.
2022-10-22 - Cómo hacer un tapete artesanal de Aserrín Tapetes Fatima. How an artisanal sawdust carpet is made. Stencils and sieves are used to lay colour in fine detail.
2022-10-24 - Catrinas desfilan por Ciudad de México. Associated Press films catrinas parading through Mexico City. International agency coverage helped make the parade a global image within a few years of its 2016 invention.
2022-10-27 - D Todo - Calaveritas de azúcar (27/10/2022). Canal Once's D Todo visits the sugar skull makers. The moulded skulls carry names across the forehead and are given to the living as much as to the dead.
2022-10-28 - 🔊 Documental: México, Día de los Muertos 💀 Tradición 👇 | #mexico #unesco @gobiernodemexico. A documentary on Mexico and the Day of the Dead. The visual vocabulary of skulls and marigolds is now recognised worldwide.
2022-10-28 - Itinerario - Especial Huaquechula. Canal Once's Itinerario devotes a special to Huaquechula. The white altars there are built only for the recently dead and are dismantled after the year passes.
2022-10-30 - Día de Muertos, celebración que nos da identidad y debe preservarse. UNAM Global TV argues the celebration gives identity and must be preserved. Commercial pressure on the observance is a recurring theme in university commentary.
2022-10-31 - Velas y veladoras en la ofrenda de muertos. Radio INAH covers the candles on the altar for the dead. Light is placed to guide the returning soul, and the number and arrangement vary by region.
2022-11-01 - Las calavera de azucar en la ofrenda de muertos. Radio INAH explains the sugar skull on the altar. The alfeñique trade in sugar figures came from Spanish convent confectionery and was adapted locally.
2022-11-01 - Papel picado, visita al taller “Artesanías Roez” en San Salvador Huixcolotla. A visit to a papel picado workshop in San Salvador Huixcolotla. Workshops there supply altars across the whole country.
2022-11-02 - Monumental Ofrenda en el Zócalo 2022 CDMX 💀🇲🇽. The monumental ofrenda in the Zócalo in 2022. The main square hosts the largest single altar in the country.
2022-11-03 - D Todo - Día de muertos en la Huasteca Potosina "Xantolo" (03/11/2022). Canal Once's D Todo covers Xantolo in the Huasteca Potosina. Xantolo runs longer than the two-day national observance and involves masked dance troupes.
2022-11-03 - Día de Muertos es patrimonio cultural inmaterial de toda la humanidad. A report on the observance as intangible heritage of all humanity. The listing obliges the state to safeguard the practice.
2023-02-01 - Conmemoraciones - José Guadalupe Posada, más allá del mito (01/02/2023). Canal Once looks at José Guadalupe Posada beyond the myth. Posada made the Calavera Garbancera, which Diego Rivera later renamed and popularised as La Catrina.
2023 - A girl at the Coyoacán celebration. A child photographed during the annual procession on 2 November 2023. Coyoacán, Mexico City. Face painting as a calavera became widespread only in recent decades.
2023-10-14 - 7ª sesión del Seminario Permanente de Antropología de la Muerte, 2023. A session of the Permanent Seminar on the Anthropology of Death. Academic work on Mexican death practice runs well beyond the November festival.
2023-10-23 - Así fue el ESPECTACULAR DESFILE de CATRINAS en la Ciudad de MÉXICO 🇲🇽 (desfile completo). The 2023 catrina parade through the capital. Participants make their own costumes and the event is open rather than ticketed.
2023-10-27 - Video Oficial Festival Cultural de Calaveras 2023. The official 2023 Festival Cultural de Calaveras video. Aguascalientes claims Posada as its own and built the festival around him.
2023-10-27 - Itinerario - Especial Día de muertos y el terror (27/10/2023). Canal Once pairs the Day of the Dead with horror in a special. The two are distinct traditions and the programme keeps them separate.
2023-10-27 - Reportaje ONN I Día de Muertos. Once Niñas y Niños explains the Day of the Dead to a young audience. Teaching the observance is how its meanings pass to the next generation.
2023-10-27 - Así es la elaboración del tradicional “PAN DE MUERTO” echo en casa en horno de leña…exquisito. Traditional pan de muerto baked in a wood oven. Village bakeries fire ovens continuously through the season.
2023-10-28 - Papel picado artesanal, así lo elaboran en Huixcolotla, Puebla. El Universal films artisanal papel picado in Huixcolotla. The craft was recognised as cultural heritage of the state of Puebla.
2023-10-29 - 80 Millones - Festejando día de muertos (29/10/2023). Canal Once's 80 Millones devotes a long programme to celebrating the day. The broadcaster has covered the observance annually for decades.
2023-10-29 - Así es el FESTIVAL DE CALAVERAS en AGUASCALIENTES 2023!💀🌺. The 2023 Festival de Calaveras in Aguascalientes. The festival honours Posada, who was born in the city in 1852.
2023-10-31 - ¿Cómo y cuándo surgieron las calaveritas? - Sin conservadores. Cultura UNAM asks how and when the calaveritas arose. The verse form mocks the living by pretending they are already dead and dates to the nineteenth century press.
2023-11-01 - Día de Muertos: La tradicional limpia de huesos en Campeche. Milenio reports the traditional cleaning of bones in Campeche. In Pomuch the remains are lifted and the bones cleaned by relatives each year.
2023-11-03 - Huaquechula Puebla, día de muertos 2023.. The observance at Huaquechula in Puebla in 2023. Families open their houses so visitors may see the altar built for the newly dead.
2023-11-05 - Así fue el Gran DESFILE de DIA de MUERTOS 2023 en la Ciudad de México 🇲🇽 desfile completo ✅. The 2023 Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City. The route runs along Paseo de la Reforma into the Centro Histórico, as the first one did in 2016.
2024-02-10 - Día de muertos Xantolo 2023 Tampacán, San Luis Potosí, México 🇲🇽🎉🌿💀. A Xantolo comparsa at Tampacán in San Luis Potosí in 2023. The dance groups are organised by neighbourhood and rehearse for weeks.
2024 - Bouguereau's Day of the Dead, 1859. Two women in black at a grave, painted by William Bouguereau in 1859. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. The European All Souls observance is the other half of the argument about where the Mexican festival comes from.
2024 - The Paseo de las Ánimas. The procession on the night of 31 October, recreating the journey the dead make to visit their families. Mérida, Yucatán, 2024. In Yucatán the observance is called Hanal Pixán, the food of the souls.
2024-10-19 - Día de los Muertos - Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la Humanidad - UNESCO | CDMX - Golden Crown.. A short piece on the Day of the Dead as intangible cultural heritage. Recognition has increased both preservation funding and tourist pressure.
2024-10-26 - HUEHUENTONES: Una milenaria TRADICIÓN de DIA de MUERTOS en MEXICO | Documental. The huehuentones of the Oaxacan Mazatec region. The name means the old ones and the masked groups are understood to carry the returning dead.
2024-10-28 - Así se vivió el ESPECTACULAR DESFILE DE CATRINAS en la CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 2024 🇲🇽 (recorrido completo). The 2024 catrina parade in Mexico City. The figure derives from a Posada print of about 1910 rather than from folk tradition.
2024-10-30 - Conmemoraciones - Día de muertos, el regreso de las almas (30/10/2024). Canal Once marks the return of the souls in its Conmemoraciones series. The belief that the dead return for a night structures the whole observance.
2024-10-31 - Día de Muertos: patrimonio amenazado por comercio internacional. Azteca Noticias reports the tradition threatened by international commerce. Imported Halloween goods compete directly with the seasonal crafts.
2024-11-01 - Celebran ' Festival Cultural de Calaveras' por Día de Muertos en Aguascalientes. Milenio reports the Festival Cultural de Calaveras. The event runs for around two weeks each year.
2024-11-01 - La Embajada de México en China presenta una ofrenda tradicional del Día de Muertos. The Mexican embassy in China presents a traditional ofrenda. Embassies mount altars as cultural diplomacy.
2024-11-03 - ¡Así se vive el Día de Muertos en Xochimilco! DOCUMENTAL 🎃💀🎃. A documentary on the Day of the Dead in Xochimilco. The chinampa district keeps observances tied to its canals and its agricultural calendar.
2025-02-21 - ◖▲ CONACULTA 2004 (Día de Muertos, UNESCO). A 2004 CONACULTA spot marking the UNESCO recognition. State cultural promotion of the observance predates the parade by more than a decade.
2025 - The community cemetery. A burial ground on the path leading to the church. Photographed 2025. Village cemeteries in Mexico are usually walled and sit within sight of the parish church.
2025-10-03 - PAN de MUERTO Tradicional de OAXACA 💀🌼 | Receta y Significado. An account of Oaxacan pan de muerto and what it means. Regional breads differ enough that the shape identifies the state it came from.
2025-10-18 - Descubre la Ruta del Cempasúchil 2025 en Xochimilco - Día de Muertos en Trajinera. The 2025 cempasúchil route in Xochimilco. Xochimilco supplies a large share of the marigolds sold in the capital.
2025-10-21 - ✨ Así se hace una ofrenda tradicional mexicana (fácil y hermosa). A guide to assembling a traditional ofrenda. Water, salt, bread, light, flowers and the photograph of the dead are the standard elements.
2025-10-22 - CAMINO AL MICTLÁN - Día de Muertos - Documental. A documentary titled Camino al Mictlán. Mictlán is the underworld of Nahua belief, reached after a journey of several years.
2025-10-22 - Día de Muertos 2025. The capital's culture department presents its 2025 programme. The holiday is centuries old while the parade at its centre is a municipal invention of 2016.
2025-10-26 - Así se vivió el ESPECTACULAR DESFILE DE CATRINAS en la CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 2025 🇲🇽. A record of the 2025 catrina parade. The costume has become the festival's dominant visual export.
2025-10-27 - DESFILE DE CATRINAS en la CDMX 2025 🇲🇽 Completo ✅ ¡Es Increíble!. The complete 2025 catrina parade in Mexico City. The catrina procession is separate from the main Day of the Dead parade and runs on its own date.
2025-10-27 - Zócalo de CdMx se embellece con la ofrenda monumental de Día de Muertos 2025. Milenio films the Zócalo monumental ofrenda in 2025. The installation draws crowds for the fortnight it stands.
2025-10-27 - Así se vivió el ESPECTACULAR DESFILE DE CATRINAS en la CIUDAD DE MEXICO 2025 🇲🇽 (recorrido completo). The 2025 catrina parade filmed at length. Attendance has grown every year since the parades began.
2025-10-28 - Así LUCE la MEGA OFRENDA en el ZOCALO 2025. A long look at the mega ofrenda in the Zócalo in 2025. The scale is civic spectacle rather than domestic practice.
2025-10-28 - Rincones de México, aromas y tradiciones - Día de Muertos, un viaje a la eternidad (28/10/2025). Rincones de México covers the Day of the Dead through aromas and traditions. Copal smoke and marigold scent are as much markers of the season as the visual imagery.
2025-10-29 - Sacro y Profano - Día de muertos en la cultura mexicana (29/10/2025). Sacro y Profano examines the Day of the Dead in Mexican culture. The programme's title names exactly the tension scholars argue over.
2025-10-29 - Artesanos dan taller gratuito de cartonería para ofrenda de Día de Muertos en Xochimilco. Artisans give a free cartonería workshop for altar figures. Cartonería is the papier-mâché craft Pedro Linares worked in when he invented the alebrije in 1936.
2025-10-31 - DÍA DE MUERTOS 🇲🇽: La Tradición que Vence a la Muerte, Reconocida por la UNESCO | Historia y Origen. A treatment of the observance as a tradition that defeats death. The festival's reputation for treating death lightly is partly a twentieth century construction.
2025-11-02 - Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos 2025. The Mexico City culture department publishes the 2025 Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos. No such parade existed before the 2015 James Bond film Spectre opened on a fictional one, and the first real edition ran on 29 October 2016 with 250,000 people.
2025-11-05 - Así se elabora el tradicional PAN DE MUERTO DE YEMA 🤤 En horno de leña de Oaxaca. The making of pan de muerto de yema in Oaxaca. Oaxacan versions are enriched with egg yolk and often carry a painted ceramic face.
2025-11-06 - CHINELOS y DÍA DE MUERTOS: Así se Vive La Calavereada en Xochimilco 2025. Chinelos and the calavereada in Xochimilco. The chinelo is a masked dancer from Morelos whose costume mocks colonial Spanish dress.
2025-11-10 - Día de Muertos 2025. Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán.. The 2025 observance at Tzintzuntzan in Michoacán. Tzintzuntzan was the Purépecha capital and its cemetery vigil is among the oldest documented.
2025-11-10 - Día de Muertos en Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán 2025.. A short record of the Tzintzuntzan observance in 2025. The town sits beside the yácatas, the round stepped platforms of the Purépecha state.
2025-11-23 - Conocí las MUERTEADAS en OAXACA 🇲🇽 (Documental). A documentary on the muerteadas of Oaxaca. The muerteada is a masked night procession with music that continues until dawn.
2026-03-20 - Del Taller A Tu Fiesta: Papel picado de Huixcolotla, Puebla "La cuna del papel picado". A Huixcolotla workshop presents its papel picado. The town's product is sold nationally under its own name.
2026 - The church and burial ground at Guadalupe. The temple and its camposanto. Photographed 2026. A camposanto is a walled churchyard, consecrated ground, distinct from the later civil cemeteries.
2026 - Marigold skulls on Reforma. A section of the parade made of cempasúchil skulls on the main avenue. Mexico City, 2017. The whole event exists because a film crew staged one that did not exist.
2026 - The Feria del Alfeñique. A woman choosing sweets during the sugar fair in Toluca. State of Mexico, 2026. The Toluca fair runs through October and fills the portales with sugar skulls and lambs.
2026-09-04 - Así se hace el papel picado en México: de lo artesanal a lo industrial. A study of how papel picado is made, from handcraft to industrial production. Machine cutting has taken much of the volume market from the hand cutters.