“What Do Mexicans Celebrate On The Day Of The Dead?” According to Ricardo J. Salvador, Associate Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, Día de Los Muertos “is an ancient festivity that has been much transformed through the years, but which was intended in prehispanic Mexico to celebrate children and the dead. The best way to describe this Mexican holiday,” continues Salvador, “is to say that it is a time when Mexican families remember their dead, and the continuity of life.” Salvador notes two important aspects of the festival:

1. It is a holiday with a complex history, and therefore its observance varies quite a bit by region and by degree of urbanization.
2. It is not a morbid occasion, but rather a festive time.

“The original celebration,” Salvador writes, “can be traced to many Mesoamerican native traditions, such as the festivities held during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli, ritually presided by the "Lady of the Dead" (Mictecacihuatl), and dedicated to children and the dead. In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August, but in the post-conquest era it was moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve (in Spanish: "Día de Todos Santos. The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer. But,” Salvador reminds us, “remember the dead they still do, and the modern festivity is characterized by the traditional Mexican blend of ancient aboriginal and introduced Christian features.”

Salvador further explains in his article “broadly, the holiday's activities consist of families (1) welcoming their dead back into their homes, and (2) visiting the graves of their close kin. At the cemetery, family members engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic, and interacting socially with other family and community members who gather there. Families remember the departed by telling stories about them. The meals prepared for these picnics are sumptuous, usually featuring meat dishes in spicy sauces, chocolate beverages, cookies, sugary confections in a variety of animal or skull shapes, and a special egg-batter bread ("pan de muerto," or bread of the dead). Gravesites and family altars are profusely decorated with flowers and adorned with religious amulets and with offerings of food, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company, this commemoration of the dead has pleasant overtones for the observers, whose festive interaction with both the living and the dead in an important social ritual is a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human existence.”