On the Day of the Dead, this Tarascan island village comes to life. This is one of the prime places in Mexico to soak up the color and mystery of the centuries-old holiday.
The Day of the Dead blends Christian traditions with pre-Columbian beliefs about the afterlife. The flavors of this holiday vary throughout Mexico, reflecting regional differences in customs and beliefs.
The actual Dia de los Muertos is Nov. 2, a national holiday when everyone heads for the cemetery to place flowers on a loved one’s grave. But there are various observances in the preceding days. The most important, and certainly the most colorful, is the vigil that takes place in many cemeteries throughout the night of Nov. 1.
The graveyard in Janitzio glows in the light of hundreds of candles. In this otherworldly setting, it seems perfectly natural to wonder whether the spirits of the dead will indeed wander this night. Will they find their way by the candlelight? Will they taste the essence of the food set out for them?
Such questions don’t seem morbid or eerie here-perhaps because bands are playing along the waterfront and little boys are hawking necklaces with glow-in-the-dark skull pendants. Death is a fact of life, but it’s not altogether somber.
Janitzio rises out of Lake Patzcuaro in the verdant central Mexican state of Michoacan. The journey to this island leads first to the colonial lakeside city of Patzcuaro, the hub of the area’s Day of the Dead celebrations.
The main plaza in Patzcuaro turns into a huge marketplace for the days surrounding the holiday. On Nov. 1, Patzcuaro has a festive feel. Hundreds of visitors wander the plaza, which is awash with color.
Flower vendors do a brisk business as people prepare to visit nearby cemeteries. Golden-orange marigolds-known here as “the flower of the dead”-contrast with masses of purple, red, pink and white blossoms. Campesinos from the surrounding countryside plant fields of flowers during the summer to satisfy the demand.
Artisans sell pottery, toys, leather goods, candlesticks, carved crucifixes, ornate serving trays-a huge variety that covers all tastes and budgets. Distinctive Day of the Dead items-like grinning bride-and-groom skeletons-poke fun at death.
Special breads shaped like bones are sold during this holiday season. Some have irreverent messages written on them: “For my jealous old lady”-or worse.
The pier is an inexpensive taxi ride from the plaza, and boats leave for Janitzio as quickly as they fill up with passengers. The wooden motorboats make runs to the island throughout this long night. The trip across the water takes a little under an hour.
Janitzio, which has about 3,000 residents, gets thousands of visitors on the night of Nov. 1-most of them from other parts of Mexico, but some foreign tourists too. Last year the carnival atmosphere seemed complete when Mexican pop singer Juan Gabriel stepped off a boat he had chartered. (This would be equivalent to Michael Jackson dropping in unannounced at a county fair.) Despite the occasional crush of people along the waterfront, the trip here is worthwhile.
Built on the sides of a steep hill, Janitzio has no paved streets or cars; everything is within walking distance. Televisions are relatively rare, although the island has a tiny arcade with first-generation video games.
This is a poor place. Most residents have little furniture and no indoor plumbing. But people don’t scrimp on the Day of the Dead. They buy tall candles and bunches of flowers and decorate their houses with elaborate ofrendas, or offerings, for the dead.
Visitors can go from house to house to look at the colorful ofrendas. Many are crowned with towering arches of marigolds. In some houses, people set the table for a meal and ladle soup into bowls, as if expecting the spirits to sit down for a while. The fare is usually simple-bread, bananas, maybe a few tamales or some squash.
Pre-Columbian beliefs held that people who died bravely in battle or childbirth went directly to a place like paradise. Most everybody else, however, spent the first few years after death wandering through the darkness, looking for the place of rest. Since body and soul were not seen as separate, it was assumed that the dead would still suffer hunger and thirst.
On this night, the spirits are invited to have something to eat and drink and commune once again with their loved ones before returning to the darkness. Nobody expects the souls of the departed to literally eat the food; that is left for the living, when the holiday is over. But the idea is that the spirits will smell the food prepared for them and taste its essence.
“They may not be here with us physically or materially, but you can still sense them,” a schoolteacher named Bertina Gabriel explained to a visitor. Gabriel had been skeptical about this holiday until a few years ago, when she saw tracks of fingers in a plate of salt that had been set out for the dead. The table had never been left unattended, she said, and the finger tracks could only have been made by a spirit taking a taste.
It is expected that visitors will leave a few coins at the offerings; often a dish is there for that purpose. Some residents ask for donations from people who want to take photographs.
Down by the pier and along the steep path that leads to the cemetery, vendors sell things to eat-such as tacos made with tortillas hot off the griddle and deep-fried bunuelos-crispy fritters served with honey. Big iron pots hold a tasty hot punch made of guavas, tamarinds and other tropical fruits. The drink, which has been simmering for hours, is welcome against the chilly wind blowing off the lake.
In the late evening visitors can gather around the town basketball court for a show of dances and songs from around the region. For the most part the performances do not have a Day of the Dead theme, but they give visitors a taste of the region’s culture.
Outsiders know the Indians from this lake region as Tarascos-the name the first Spanish visitors gave them-but they call themselves the Purepecha people. (The word comes from the Purepecha word for “son-in-law.” It was a word the early Spaniards heard a lot, because they were taking Indian girls as their own.)
Dressed in colorful costumes, the dancers on the basketball court act out regional legends and customs. In the Dance of the Fish-a tribute to the wily whitefish in Lake Patzcuaro-several dancers maneuver a large net to try to catch the creature, who keeps slipping away from the fishermen.
At about 11 p.m.-nothing follows an exact schedule-the island puts on another show, this one on the lake. It is a parade of fishermen in dugout canoes. They are a beautiful sight, out on the black water-the fishermen, dressed in white, standing up in unison to open the lovely white butterfly nets traditional to Lake Patzcuaro. A small flame burns in a can on the front of each canoe, producing a flickering dance of lights on the lake.
After this, around midnight, everyone heads for the cemetery, where many of the villagers hold vigil until dawn. The tombstones here aren’t elaborate; some of the graves are marked with nothing more than a simple wooden cross.
The cemetery is a sea of candlelight and the air is thick with the weedy scent of marigolds. Thousands of flowers have been crushed, their orange petals making pathways the spirits can follow.
At one grave, an old, wrinkled woman may sit alone by a single candle, before her a plate of bread covered with an embroidered cloth. At another, a large family may spread out an expensive assortment of fruit and bottled water. One family last year hired singers for the occasion. Strumming guitars, one couple stood by the grave and sang, “If you are with God, flower of my soul, take my heart.”
It’s worth staying late into the night, after most of the outsiders and their flashing cameras have returned to Patzcuaro. By 1:30 or 2 a.m., the cemetery is a hushed, ceremonial place.
Outside the church at one end of the cemetery, a priest reflects on the “sacred mysteries” of life and death and says a mass. People walk up to take the sacrament, then return to their posts at the graves to welcome the souls wandering through darkness. Somehow, the confluence of the Christian and the pagan seems natural here, as matter-of-fact as death itself.
In the dead of night, some of those holding vigil take sips of locally made liquor to ward off the cold; others wrap themselves in shawls and drift off to sleep. Some just sit perfectly still, staring into the candlelight, watching, waiting.
Getting there and where to stay, eat
Whether you’re traveling by plane or car, the way to get to Patzcuaro and Janitzio is through Morelia, a thriving colonial city and the capital of Michoacan State.
Buses leave frequently from Morelia to Patzcuaro, a 40-mile trip that costs about $2.
Patzcuaro is the best place to stay on the night of Nov. 1, if you want to go to the vigil in Janitzio. A double room in a hotel on the plaza, such as the Posada San Rafael (telephone number 2-07-70) or the Hotel Mision San Manuel (2-13-13), will run $30-$50. Book well in advance, however, as this is a popular Day of the Dead destination.
The local tourism office in Patzcuaro can help direct you to any hotels that might still have vacancies. The number of that office is 2-12-14. To call Patzcuaro from the United States, dial 011-52-454 before the number.
If you don’t have any luck in Patzcuaro, it’s possible to get last-minute reservations in Morelia, a much larger city. The number of the state tourism office there is 3-26-54. (First dial 011-52-454.)
The tourism office offers package deals from Morelia to the Day of the Dead festivities in Patzcuaro. Vans leave late in the afternoon and return in the wee hours of the morning. A round-trip ticket, including dinner, costs $30-$40.
If you don’t have a package deal, keep in mind that Patzcuaro has more dinner possibilities than Janitzio. A restaurant called El Patio, on Patzcuaro’s main plaza, is one of several nice places to eat. Dinner for two costs $20-$30. (Skip the traditional whitefish from Lake Patzcuaro, though; it’s salty and overpriced.)
In Morelia, eat at the delightful Los Comensales, where the tables are set around an interior courtyard filled with birds and rosebushes. It’s a couple of blocks from the Plaza de Armas, at 148 Zaragoza St.
