La vida es un sueno y la muerte el despertar?. Life is a dream and death is the awakening?
Voiceover: In many parts of Latin America, people celebrate El Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. It is believed that on November 1st each year, the dearly departed return to the realm of the living to be with their friends and family for a night of feasting and celebration!
Maria Hillmer, Dancer: "This is a very old religious type celebration which people believe that God allowed the souls to go and visit their relatives for two days. So, people put altars like the way you see and they put candles. Each candle represents a member of the family that passed away."
Mari Paz Vera, Event Organizer: "Well it's a celebration of the dead ones that come on that day and stay with us for that day so we like to have a feast. It's a party, we want to have all the things that this loved one loved when he was alive. We want to have it the day that he comes back?"
Voiceover: The Day of the Dead is a festival that moves in a 'circular' pattern. Each year on November 1st, the dead travel to the realm of the living to be with their loved ones. They then go back to their realm on November 2nd, and it takes them one whole year to come back again.
Many people in Latin America believe that death is not an end, but a continuation of life. So they look for ways to bridge life and death, such as by celebrating the Day of the Dead. Marigold flowers are a special example. Flowers are a symbol of life, but the colour yellow is a symbol of death. In the ancient Aztec language, marigolds were called "cempoaxochitl" which means, "flower of the dead". Here we can see how life and death are linked. Marigolds are a symbol of both life and death, and they are important flowers for the Day of the Dead.
In ancient times, the festival of the dead began in August and continued to the month of November. After the Europeans arrived in the New World, the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica continued their traditions masked under the Catholic Church festivals. In the Catholic tradition, November 1st is the night when all saints are remembered and November 2nd is the night when all souls are remembered. In the ancient tradition, November 2nd was the night when all adults who died were remembered. Today, the Day of the Dead takes place on these two days, and it is a time to honour all those who are no longer living in our realm of life.
In places like Canada, many Latin American peoples continue to celebrate the Day of the Dead today.
Mari Paz Vera, Event Organizer: "It's a little hard.You left your country and you left your family and maybe you left your friends and you have to come to this whole new country from completely different traditions. I think it is harder for people like me. You have your kids born here and they don't know anything about their roots or their traditions over there, so I think it's important to continue with that and teach the little ones our traditions."
Mercedes Baines, Creative Director, Public Dreams Society: The Parade of Lost Souls is an event that Public Dreams has been doing for, this is year 13, and it isn't a Day of the Dead celebration but that is part of its inspiration. It's a time to celebrate life, to celebrate death, to celebrate the cycle of life. The reason that we don't just say that it's a celebration of the Day of the Dead, or solely a celebration of that, is that we want it to be open to a number of cultures and also for people to bring their own individual meaning, to be welcoming to that idea of this time to celebrate life, to celebrate death, to think about that veil that is between life and death.