Dia de Muertos

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

From When I Was a Girl in Mexico by Mercedes Godoy, 1919.

"Dia de Muertos" (All Souls' Day) is greatly observed in Mexico City by persons visiting the cemeteries and decorating the graves of departed relatives or friends with beautiful wreaths and flowers. The resting-places of the dead are crowded, all the tramways that lead to the different cemeteries are full of passengers all day long, coming and going. During the day preceding and the day after, as well as "Dia de Muertos," booths are erected, sometimes near the Zocalo or Alameda, where peculiar toys and sweet-meats are sold in shapes of skulls, tombs, etc., all of funereal aspect, but which strange to say do not frighten the children, who buy these queer toys and take home to play with them. A bread is also sold called "pan de muerto” (dead man's bread), made into these weird shapes.

At every theatre the drama, “Don Juan Tenorio," is given for a few days around All Souls' Day and also on that particular day. The play is in verse and written by Zorrilla, a well-known Spanish author. It is a weird and allegorical play, describing a young man whose great reputation for his numerous successful love affairs and duels was known everywhere. Suddenly he falls really in love with Dona Ines. This girl is sent to a convent, to become a nun, by her father, so that Don Juan cannot pursue her, but the insistent lover manages to send her letters full of his great devotion and finally carries her off, even though a nun, to a castle by the sea. He has duels with her father, brother, and others, killing them all, and from grief Dona Ines dies. He visits her tomb, and there while praying for her and God's forgiveness, the ghosts of all those he killed appear and demand his condemnation. The spirit of Dona Ines prays for his pardon and they are reunited finally in heaven and Paradise. The verses are beautiful in sweetness and originality.

This play is given every year in nearly every Latin-American country and Spain during "Dia de Muertos," so that it is considered one of the most popular and well-known plays in Spanish-speaking cities. Perhaps ''Don Juan Tenorio'' has been given more than any other play in the world. In these countries the name "Tenorio " is greatly used, being often applied to the men who have many love affairs.

Godoy, Mercedes. When I Was a Girl in Mexico. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1919.

Mercedes Godoy

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