El dia de los muertos, or Day of the Dead, has been celebrated throughout Mexico and parts of Central America since pre columbian times. Originally an Aztec celebration, the November 1 and 2 holiday has become infused with Catholic symbolism and faith.
“Our relations with death are intimate”, Octavio Paz wrote in Labrynth of Solitude, “more intimate perhaps than those of any other people.”
He further described the celebration as an escape from the difficulties of every day existence – not only the poverty, but also a kind of blackness in the soul which perhaps has its roots in the joining of two antagonistic groups, the Indian and the Spanish.
Series by Pulitzer nominated photographer Mike Hutmacher ( Skippy Sanchez)
