FRESNO, Calif. – Dia de los Muertos – also known as Day of the Dead – is much more than the commercialized imagery that many of us see featuring colorful sugar skulls and skeletons adorned with flowers.
The traditional Mexican holiday honors deceased loved ones by inviting them back into our homes and giving them provisions to help them on their journey to the afterlife.
It’s a deep fusion of indigenous mythology and symbolism along with Catholic Christian rituals associated with All Souls’ Day.
And although everyone celebrates a little differently, three key ingredients are needed to honor the occasion: the sweet bread known as pan de muerto; the cempasuchil, or bright orange marigold; and the altar that anyone can make called an ofrenda.
All of these are essential parts to celebrating a good Dia de los Muertos. KVPR set out to hear the story of how each one serves a purpose for the occasion. Note: Some words in this story are kept in Spanish.
Pan de muerto offers a sweet treat for the dead
Rosi Garcia starts every day the same way: with a hot drink and a Mexican pastry.
Garcia, who runs a Clovis bakery called Panaderia Cafe Oaxaca, sometimes helps herself to a concha or cuernito – sweet bread in the shape of a seashell or horn – but this time of year, she has a clear favorite: pan de muerto.
This delicacy, which translates to “bread of the dead,” is one of her cafe’s specialties for Dia de los Muertos. The most common pan de muerto is a small loaf of sweet dough enriched with egg yolks, criss-crossed with strips of dough and sprinkled with sugar or seeds.
“There's so many meanings behind it,” she said. “The round pan de muertos, which are the more traditional pan de muertos, signify the cycle of life. The little figuritas that we put on top are bones. And then there's a little ball on top of it, and that's like our brain or our heart.”
Inside the bakery, the air is warm and sweet with the scents of sugar, butter and anise.
This tradition began with her grandfather, who first opened a bakery in Oaxaca, and it’s now stretched here in the U.S. across decades and generations. Garcia now works alongside both her parents and her two brothers.
Customers buy pan de muerto to eat, but also to place in their home altars known as ofrendas.
“Every bread that's shaped like a human is meant to signify a loved one that you have that's already passed away. And so you buy that bread and you put it in your ofrenda and be like, ‘I'm so thankful that you were here in my life and this one's for you.’ [0:14]
But, she warns, any food on your ofrenda is off-limits until the holiday is over.
That's why, before placing the bread on the altar, she recommends breaking off a piece for yourself first.
– Reporting by Israel Cardona Hernandez in Clovis, Calif.
The cempasuchil’s strong fragrance calls the dead back home
In a field in the southwest part of the city, southwest Fresno, hundreds of thousands of bright orange petals glow as if they hold their own light.
This is a field of marigolds, and it’s owned by Rogelio Sierra. He says the flower reminds him of his childhood. He remembers how much he enjoyed the flowers’ aroma inside his parents’ home in the small town of San Miguel Cuevas in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Today, everywhere you look, families, couples, and even young children are strolling through his fields, some carefully picking the stems one by one.
But they’re not just here because the flowers are pretty. As Dia de los Muertos approaches, the flowers take on a deep significance.
“They’re called flowers of the dead,” he said. “People remember their family and the loved ones they lost, and these flowers help bring them back briefly.”
The flowers, called cempasuchil, are placed on ofrendas.
Many believe the fragrance of the cempasuchil can lead those souls back to their family homes to spend one more day in spirit with the living.
The flowers help Sierra honor his past, too – particularly the memory of his father, whom he lost 27 years ago.
Rogelio started this business around eight years ago with just a handful of plants. Now, he estimates 90,000 marigolds stretch across his three acres of land, creating a blanket of golden petals.
He sells the flowers from August through November. People can pick them, buy them in bouquets, and, of course, take lots of photos.
“I hear ‘wow’ the most,” he said, laughing. “People are excited to be able to buy the flowers so fresh.”
And that makes him proud.
“It feels good to do good – for the living and the dead,” he said.
– Reporting by Samantha Rangel in Fresno, Calif.
Ofrendas honor the lives of lost loved ones
Monique Mowad has been setting out an ofrenda every October for decades. The second-grade teacher honors her parents, grandparents and other relatives she’s lost over the years.
“Tradition says that if you don't have an ofrenda, if you don't honor your ancestors, either they're going to come back and haunt you, or, some way or another, your family gets cursed,” she said.
Her living room ofrenda features trinkets to represent her loved ones – like a model airplane to honor her father, who used to work for Continental Airlines – pan de muerto, cempasuchil, and candles.
“The candles represent one of the four elements, which is fire,” she said. “It also helps light the way to lead the dead back to my ofrenda because I want them to come visit.”
Mowad also includes some traditional Aztec items, like rattles, bracelets and coins – all of which are said to ward off evil spirits or help the dead on their journey to the afterlife – as well as hand-made sugar skulls and decorative calaveras, or skeletons.
“This particular one, she has a big 1900s style hat, she's got her mascara on,” she said. “She always has the high cheek bones, but the style of the face is so different than American, western style skeletons. It's very beautiful. Like, I think she looks very happy. She doesn't look scary. She doesn't look dead.”
The thought of death can be scary, Mowad acknowledges. But she said she finds comfort in the mythology around the holiday.
“This kind of reminds us that death is not, like, you die and that's it and you're gone. Your spirit still lives. It’s just, your body dies. The soul lives forever. It just goes to another dimension,” she said. “I've experienced the death of both my mom and dad, and it still bothers me that they're gone, but I always lean back to this day knowing that they're going to be back with me.”
– Reporting by Rachel Livinal in Los Banos, Calif.
