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Aztec Descendants: 'Take the Dollar Out of the Day of the Dead'

Cecily Hilleary

   WASHINGTON - Americans will celebrate Halloween on October 31, a
   tradition that dates to an ancient Celtic festival in which it was
   believed the dead would return to haunt the living. Chances are, many
   of today's trick-or-treaters will paint their faces like skulls,
   borrowing from an ancient Aztec tradition falling at the same time: Dia
   de los Muertos -- the Day of the Dead.

   Once little-known in the U.S., it has spread from Mexico and Central
   America, inserting itself into Halloween. It has become big business in
   America: retail chains sell Day of the Dead costumes, sugar skulls and
   decorative items -- even keychains and ashtrays. The U.S. toymaker
   Mattel recently launched a Day of the Dead Barbie doll; Nike has
   unveiled a Day of the Dead-themed athletic shoe, an update of the
   so-called "Cortez" model, ironically named for the very conquistador
   who brought down the Aztec Empire, Hernan Cortes.

     "Mattel Is Releasing a Day of the Dead Barbie Doll"
     ð¤·''ï¸
     Cultural appropriation? Helping to understand different cultures?
     Cheap, money-maker? Opening up a dialogue about death? Do the same
     people complaining about it own sugar skull handbags from 2010?
     [1]https://t.co/u1zmaBWUpS
     -- Carla Valentine (@ChickAndTheDead) [2]September 26, 2019

   "Mainstream culture, they think the Day of the Dead is just about sugar
   skulls and marigolds," said Ixtlixochitl Salinas-White Hawk, a member
   of Mexico's largest indigenous group, the Nahua-Mexika (Aztec), who now
   lives in Seattle, Washington.

   She takes exception to the fact that big business and non-indigenous
   people have appropriated the celebration.

   "They try to pull the look without really understanding the
   significance and the medicine and the spirituality behind it," she
   said. "They need to take the dollar sign out of it."

   Melding of religions

   Festivals honoring the dead date back at least to the Aztecs, who
   devoted a month at the end of the growing season to festivals honoring
   Mictecacihuatl, the "Lady of the Dead," who with her husband
   Miclantecuhtl, guarded the underworld. In a series of festivals, Aztecs
   reenacted religious myths and made offerings of food, drink and flowers
   to the dead. Often, these celebrations involved human sacrifices, to
   the horror of Spanish conquistadors and the Catholic Church.

References

   1. https://t.co/u1zmaBWUpS
   2. https://twitter.com/ChickAndTheDead/status/1177033311757189121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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