As mentioned in the previous post, the Day of the Dead is a celebration that dates back to pre-Columbian times.
With the arrival of the Spaniards it began to change, but how did it all begin? Here is the answer.
Actually, the current Day of the Dead, or better said, All Saints Day, is almost nothing like the pre-Hispanic Day of the Dead. In the cultures of ancient Mexico, a Day of the Dead was not really celebrated, but rather a certain cult of the dead was held and if they wanted to visit, an offering was made to the gods so they would come.
Another thing that the ancient inhabitants did was to offer the dead, things to ask for something, for example, good crops.
Something they worried about is that their relatives arrived well to the mictlán (afterlife), but they didn’t worry about the time of their death. An example is las guerras floridas, wars of the Aztecs, in which the winner died and his death was a reward. This shows us that we shouldn’t fear death and that the Day of the Dead is a devotion of gratitude to the memory of the dead.