Día de Muertos in Oaxaca

Life on the Streets

Page Outline

• Cute Little Kids
• Funny-Looking Adults
• Street Dancing

Cute Little Kids

For a while I entertained the hypothesis that little boys got black eye sockets and little girls got red ones, but I found enough exceptions that I decided to call that a “tendency” rather than a “rule.”

There is a large anthropological literature on cultural rules, but little on cultural tendencies. When I was in graduate school, there was a tendency for the rule people to feel superior to the tendency people. As a rule, I tended to avoid such discussions.

It turns out that you can in fact get little kids to sit still if you promise that you can make them look like dead people that way.

Miguel (from “Coco”)

Miguel & Ernesto (from “Coco”)

The (brilliant) Pixar movie “Coco” has definitely affected the understanding of Día de Muertos, at least in Oaxaca. Fortunately, the film crew spent a lot of time here and based a lot of it on Oaxaca.

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One should always be cautious about friends who tell you to “just do it.”

Funny-Looking Adults

People with painted faces are mostly happy to have their pictures taken. Interestingly, many of the adults are not Mexicans, but visiting tourists. Unlike locals, tourists seem to think the point of the thing is to take selfies.

(Tourists get their comeuppance, however, when they try to remove the greasepaint with hotel soap. Or maybe it is the hotel laundry staff that get a comeuppance.)

I told these British guys I’d take their picture, but they needed a better background. They picked the pavement. Brits are weird.

Church Ladies (Mostly Spectral)

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Street Dancing

Unlike cemeteries, where you either sit quietly by the family grave or go outside the walls to eat, shop, or play arcade games, or you just mill around enjoying the press of the crowd, the city streets are for marching around in the daytime and dancing at night. At night the costumes become more bizarre, with lots of devils, so it is easy to end up dancing with a devil. Think about that.

Even if you are a specter, it’s probably hard to concentrate on your drumming when you are surrounded by devils.

Daytime music comes from brass bands marching with school classes, but at night there are strikingly medieval troubadours as well.

Cute Little Kid

Cute Little Kid

Weird Brit Tourist

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Background Design: Artisanal Paper, Francisco Toledo