Join Denver’s oldest Dia de los Muertos

NORTH DENVER — This is Denver’s oldest celebration long before it became mainstream.  Share the history and join us as we honor our ancestors.

Procession step-off and march at 5:30 PM, at La Raza Park, West 38th & Navajo St. proceeding to a blessing at Troy Chavez Peace Garden 3825 Shoshone St., and community dinner at Escuela Tlatelolco, 2949 N. Federal Blvd.  Performance by Escuela Tlatelolco choir, Unity in Unison.  Grupo Tlaloc will lead the procession and offer the blessing. 

Over 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now central Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. The ritual is known today as Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. 

Dia de los Muertos is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States, including metro Denver. Although the ritual has since been merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls. Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls also are placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend, according to Mary J. Adrade, who has written three books on Dia de los Muertos.

The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth.  The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during the month-long ritual.

Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake. 

“The pre-Hispanic people honored duality as being dynamic,” said Christina Gonzalez, senior lecturer on Hispanic issues at Arizona State University. “They didn’t separate death from pain, wealth from poverty like they did in Western cultures.”  However, the Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious. They perceived the indigenous people to be barbaric and pagan. In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards tried to kill the ritual. But like the old Aztec spirits, the ritual refused to die.

For more information about Escuela Tlatelolco’s approach to education, please log onto the website at www.escuelatlatelolco.com.

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