A MURAL BY DIEGO RIVERA.
"In Mexico the Day of the Dead, "el Día de los Difuntos," is, strictly speaking, All Souls Day, 2 November, but because graveside vigils commonly begin the night before, the festival is usually considered to include 1 November, All Saints Day, "el Día de Todos los Santos." The Day of the Dead is the day on which the souls of those dead may communicate with the living. The coincidence of an Aztec festival of offerings to the spirits of the dead with the Roman Catholic All Souls Day, on which those living may communicate with and pray for the souls of those in purgatory, gave rise to a colourful festival. In Morelos and other parts of Mexico the day is celebrated by candle-lit processions and all-night vigils at cemeteries, offerings of food and flowers for the departed ones, parades and dances with death-masks and skeletons and skulls, and ingeniously wrought chocolate and candy animals, skulls, skeletons, and funeral wagons."
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