Tú me traes un poco loco, un poquitititito loco 🎶

Hi there~

Día de Muertos will be the next week! Aren’t you excited?

Well, in the Coco fandom some cocolocos are starting with the setting for their Ofrendas. And here are some tips for how many days, what to put in the ofrenda and why:

October 28: you light up the first  candle and you put a white flower to invite the “ánima sola”, the lonely souls.

October 29: you light up another candle and put a glass of water for the forgotten and helpless.

October 30: you light up another candle, put another glass of  water and put a piece of white bread for the ones that left without eating and for the ones that left because of an accident.

October 31: you light up another candle, put another another glass of water, another piece of white bread and fruit. This is for the deceased ones of our deceased, in other words, for our great grandparents and great-great grandparents.

November 1st: In this day you put all the food in the ofrenda, this is the day for the kids.

November 2nd: this day you put the marigold petals way to the ofrenda, you burn copal to purify and to attract the rest of the deceased, mostly adults since kids came on November 1st.

November 3rd: you ligth up one last candle, you burn copal and you say your goodbyes to your family inviting all of them to come again on the next year. You clean everything until next year. Many people usually ate the food (fruit, pan de muerto, the dishes you prepared…).

….

First of all, nowadays Día de Muertos is both a prehispanic and catholic combination that ended up as a tradition. So almost everything has two meanings, a prehispanic one and a catholic one.

I’ll try to be more on the prehispanic side, and on the most common too.

1) You have to decide how many levels your altar will have:

2: earth and sky (the goods in the earth like the fruit and the goods in the sky like the rain)

3: either heaven, earth and underworld; or the holy trynity

7: is the most common, it represents the 7 levels a soul had to travel to the spiritual peace, the 7 kinds of dead acordinly to the aztecs or the 7 capital sins.

For the aztecs there’s 8 test (one on each level) in the Mictlán (underworld for the ones who died of natural decease) until you arrive to the 9th level of Mictlán and you met the Death Gods Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacíhuatl to achieve the eternal rest. Xolos help the souls to complete the 8 tests of the Mictlán, that’s why you never have to hurt a dog ;)

2) Water. For the souls that are thirsty and that want to clean themselves, it’s also common to left some personal cleanliness objects with that purpose.

The Mayans had the belief that the cenotes, which were considered sacred, were a gateway to the underworld. In many representations of altars we usually place a tableware with water, symbolizing a cenote and the entrance to the underworld.

3) Candles, to light up their way and to warm their souls. In some places, each candle represents a deceased, that is, the number of candles that the altar will have will depend on the souls that the family wants to receive, and don’t forget to dedicate one to an ánima sola. Purple candles represent  mourning, and the white ones purity. Before the Spaniards brought the wax to make candles, Ocote wood sticks were used.

4) Copal, or incense. This attraccs the souls because of the smell and it also purifies, some people put and ash cross too. All of this have the purpose of keep bad spirits far away and to help the souls of our beloved ones to end with their pendent worries. The ash cross also helps a soul to leave the purgatory, in case it’s there.

5)The salt serves so that the soul does not get corrupted on its round trip for the following year.  

6) Arc of flowers, that goes at the top representing the entrance of the land of the dead and as a representation of the 8th level of the Mictlán. Its usually made of palm and marigolds

7) Flowers.

There’s a legend of the marigolds. There was a girl named Xóchitl and a boy named Huitzilin, they always carry flowers to a hill and offered them to Tonatiuh, the God of the Sun. They both felt in love and promised to always be together. When the war came Huitzilin had to go to fight, and died. So Xóchitl went to the hill and asked Tonatiuh for his help to be reunited again with her beloved one. One of the sunrays of Tonatiuh touched Xóchitl and she became a beautiful flower with the color of the sun. Then a hummingbird came and possed on the center of the flower, so the flower opened in 20 petals and a delightful fragance. Warriors rebirth as hummingbirds, which was the case of Huitzilin, so when his love touched the flower it bloomed. Tonatiuh said that as long as there are marigolds and hummingbirds in the world, the love of Xóchitl and Huitzilin will last.

Xóchilt means  flower in náhuatl

Huitzilin means hummingbird in náhuatl

Cempoalxóchitl (or Zempoalxóchitl) means 20-flower, or 20 petals flower  in náhuatl, in Spanish this is written as cempasúchil, that it’s the marigold, a native flower of México.

Marigolds bloom at fall, when everything is dying, as in the legend when it bloomed after the lovers died. Its nahuátl name Cempoalxóchitl that is usually translated into 20 petals flower, literally means 20-flower. The Aztec calendar worked with 18 months of 20 days each one. Every month starts with an alligator and ends with a flower, meaning the endind of a cicle, the “death” of that month and of course of the year, a cicle that is now complete just like the life of our beloved ones. 

Those are some of the reasons because marigolds are also related to the dead. And it’s because of its beauty, intense and mysterious fragance, curative properties and relation with the light of the sun that it’s used in the altars to guide the souls.

You can also use other flowers like baby’s breath flower if the ofrenda is for a kid, since they represent inocence and purity. Celosia cristata and the spikenard flower are pretty common too.

8)Earth goods. To represent the goods of the earth, it’s common to put seeds and fruits on the ofrenda. A common fruit in the ofrenda is the sugar cane because it looks like human bones. Seeds like corn and cacao, and sawdust too are usually used to decorate as in the photo.

9) Papel picado. The precious colorful paper sheets that we use in many celebrations all the year, these ones represent the wind that will carry the scent of the flowers and copal to the souls.

Aztecs used Amatl paper, nowadays know as Amate paper and used it to paint there their deities, some codex in amate paper still survive in the museums. But once the Spaniars arrived, this changed to the tissue paper. 

For a Día de Muertos altar, the papel picado has the skulls and skelleton drawings as in the style of José Guadalupe Posada (the man who created the Calavera Garbancera now also known as La Catrina) the colors of the paper had different meanings:

White: purity, for the kids

Purple: mourning color for catholics

Orange: mourning color for aztecs

Blue: for the ones who died for water related decease

Red: for the warriors and women who died at giving birth

Yellow: for the elders

Green: for the young

Black: some people say it’s for the adults (as white is for the kids), others say it represents the purgatory and the underworld, but others believe you are calling for the death to come for you (so, yeah, I don’t use it).

But we usually use almost every color, either because it looks cute and (low key) because since we are accepting ánimas solas, forgotten and helpless ones.

In México where one can eat, two can. And if two can, three can…

Now you get why we make big celebration parties…

10) A Cross for the cardinal points, so the soul does not get lost. It’s usually made of lime (the one you use with cement) or candles.

….

If you have seen in the offerings some prehispanic dogs made of clay, those are the izcuintles or itzcuintli. They are a must in the altars dedicated to children, since they are a toy so that the souls of the little ones are happy to arrive at the banquet. 

Itzcuintli means dog, and xolo means weird, so xoloitzcuintli, xoloescuincle in spanish, means weird dog. Xolo also refers to Xólotl, the twin brother of god Quetzalcóatl. Representing the duality, day and night, life and death, and xolo dogs are also refered as the dogs of the God Xólotl.

When people died they were usually buried with their xolo dogs so the dog could help the souls to cross the Chiconauhuapan River, one of the test of the Mictlán. So, if the person didn’t had a xolo dog when was alive, putting an itzcuintli figure is believed to give them some help to pass this test.

12) Food

A fan of tacos, mole, enchiladas, or even pizza? You have to put the favorite food of your beloved ones, both food and drinks.

13) Dulces

Specially if the Ofrenda is for a kid, even is you can put some of the favorite candies of the visitors, it’s really common to put lots of traditional candies os sugar, amaranth, pumpkin, coconut, etc

14) Pan de Muerto

The Pan de Muerto, bread of the dead, is one of the most precious elements on the altar, it  symbolizes a fraternal offering to the souls. As part of the celebration, loved ones eat pan de muerto as well as the relative’s favorite foods.  The bones represent the deceased one (difuntos or difuntas) and there is normally a baked tear drop on the bread to represent goddess Chimalma’s tears for the living. The bones are represented in a circle to portray the circle of life. The bread is topped with sugar. 

The classic recipe for pan de muerto is a simple sweet bread recipe, often with the addition of anise seeds, and other times flavored with orange flower water or orange zest.

15) Calaveritas de azúcar

Or sugar skulls, they are a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made (usually by hand) from either sugar, chocolate, amaranth, clay, maché papier, etc.

In pre-Columbian times the images of skulls and skeletons were shown often in paintings, pottery, etc. representing rebirth into the next stage of life. During the 20th century a political caricaturist named José Guadalupe Posada became famous for making Calaveras as vain skeletons dressed in the clothing of the wealthy. The most famous one was Catrina, wearing a feathery hat, fancy shoes and a long dress. Catrina is considered to be the personification of The Day of the Dead. These skeletons are created from many materials such as wood, sugar paste varieties, types of nuts, chocolate, etc. When used as offerings, the name of the deceased is written across the forehead of the skull on colored foil.

On November 1st, to celebrate the kids, miniature sugar calaveritas are placed on altares to represent the deceased children. On November 2nd, the are replaced with larger versions to honor older deceased relatives.

16) Gollete and sugar canes

The gollete is a piece of sweet bread similar to a donnut usually covered with pink sugar, its round shape simbolices the cicle of a life. And the sugar canes are used to hang up the golletes.

They have two meanings: the succeful pass from life to death and also the victory over the enemies, since the golletes also represents lifes, similar to the sugar skulls. The enemies skulls where usually put on sticks in many mesoamerican cultures. 

17) Photos

Photographs or portraits of your loved ones. Usually are for them to know they’re are welcome. and to dedicate to them all the offerings.

If you don’t have a photo or a portrait you can write their name on a candle or on a sugar skull.

18) Toys

Specially for the kids, traditional wood ones are the most common, like yoyos, baleros, trompos, dolls, tablitas…

19) Personal belongings

Did that person used to smoke? put some cigarettes; was a musician? their favorite instrument. Now you get the idea. Think of the things that person would love to see again. Or even a little gift you know they will love.

20) Calaveritas literarias

Poetry written for the día de muertos are known as literary calaveras, and are intended to humorously criticize the living while reminding them of their mortality.Literary calaveras appeared during the second half of the 19th century, when drawings critical of important politicians began to be published in the press. Living personalities were depicted as skeletons exhibiting recognizable traits, making them easily identifiable. Additionally, drawings of dead personalities often contained text elements providing details of the deaths of various individuals.

Sometimes we write some for the people we are dedicating our ofrenda to.

21) Skeleton ornaments

We use them either to represent the death or our beloved deceased person. At schools is common to ask the kids (as a homework or as a school project) to decorate and wear some paper skeletons.

So, this is it. But I KNOW you have a question.

Can I have a Coco Ofrenda? Can I use the coco characters for my Ofrenda???

You can have a Coco Ofrenda as long is not the same you are planning to put the photos of your family.

I mean, you can make an Ofrenda for your family AND a “decoration Ofrenda of Coco”.

Just have some respect for your family and have them separately.

And yes, if you have a Coco or Book of Life or whatever glass for the water or plate for the food, it’s ok, Coco candles too? Yes! It’s ok, as long they are just decorations as any other skeleton, not to have them in the main lights of your family Ofrenda.

Remember the Ofrenda Is your the deceased ones, not for you.

And they deserve love and respect.

So here are they

This are the common use for seeds and sawdust

These are the golletes and sugar canes

Sugar and Chocolate Calaveritas

Some ofrendas using photos, portraits or candles

Skeleton ornaments

A Ofrenda dedicated to Coco (this is from last year in Coyoacán, México)

Pixar Popcorn | Official Trailer. It’ll stream exclusively on Disney+ on January 22, 2021.

After hearing the posibility that Parasite could get a remake, I heard that it wasn’t necessary -and ultimately, useless- because the director wanted to show how, despite the localization and the theme of the story everyone could resonate with the story and its themes. I saw it and yes, despite that the working-class family eats ramedon while I do wonders with tortillas to survive, the struggles of making ends met whatever it takes are mostly the same. And I don’t want a Parasite mexican remake either, as they did a years ago with indian movie 3 idiots. The movie is perfect on their location and you just need some empathy to understand what the other is feeling or living, even if your language or uprising wasn’t the same. 

A while ago I did a post explaining the feeling of exclusion in the fandom of Coco. Despite that it’s a movie that occurs in some part of Mexico, the mexican creators were displaced by people that just had the movie and some cartoons like Mucha Lucha or El Tigre as a reference for our culture. We tried to reach to “the other side of the bridge” by translating songs, fanfiction, comics and whatever we made, out lof love and excitement for sharing our culture for the first time masively on this media. I even translated historical documents and cursing words. And it was fun and interesting to see people engaged on our culture… only to soon be displaced or unheard of. Come to think about it some time later, it was cultural appropiation. It was “woke” at the moment to say you liked Coco, it was a way to say “oh, yes I like diversity” but  the actual people represented on that story were massively ignored (I wonder if in less divisive time for inmigration it would be as beloved as it was). I like the story… but whatever the people that live that culture explain about it, I don’t care.  I’ll take for example Rossanna Pansino (Nerdy Numies) with her Pan de Muerto. She said that the decoration of the bread is a marigold flower, which isn’t true (It’s boooooone! -read this in Captain Holt’s voice, please-). The recipe was mostly correct (Orange blossom water isn’t that easy to find, I know, plus it’s expensive), but that part made me lost any interest on her channel forever (haven’t seen her channel since). Rossanna could had done a research, see photos of the bread, watch other channels on Youtube (there’s a recipe on english on youtube), whatever. Yet she disrespected a beloved tradition and dish. No, we don’t do different versions of it. It has bones on top. End of the story. You don’t move ANYTHING from it, period, because it’s symbolic of the legend of the creation of the men, the four cardinal points and our own mortality as human beings, and it’s one of the most important elements on the Altar.  (Also I’m a baker’s daughter and if you recall how strict the Rivera’s are about their traditions, that’s how strict we are with recipes -the only ones allowed to move something from them are other mexicans and it’s only to make it tastier, like the shrimp pozole, not whatever Barefoot Contessa did to it).

The fandom felt… colonialist. The questions, which I answered with all the love and patience first, got more and more tiredsome to answer because people wanted reasons and ways to adapt the story to occur on their country or on a situation that doesn’t happen here… despite that seeing another culture was what supposedly made them fall in love with the story. One of those was wanting the lake on Santa Cecilia to freeze. While certainly it snows on the north states of Mexico, if we take in account some hints of the location, Santa Cecilia is nowhere near the north. And even when it has snowed on Guadalajara -where I live-, it’s not cold enough to freeze the Santiago River or the Chapala lake. But for some reason fuck geography (and if the lake freezes then we’ll be damned because that’s how bad global warming is to give a such a cold winter to a valleythat’sabove 25 grades Celsius almost all the year).  We explained over and over how some social situations aren’t the same, how incomes on certain profesions doesn’t translate. It’s more frustrating as an EFL teacher to see that I can perfectly explain social situations to my students and they get it, yet I explained over and over and over and my time investigating, translating and answering those same questions about my culture was basically, ignored or glossed over like “yes yes, you live it, you were born into it, buuuuut my idea of how your society and culture works is better”. IT’S NOT. It’s just different. I won’t try to mexicanize something from an american -or in my time as a hardcore otaku, japanese- culture. I won’t make, IDK, Chihiro from Spirited Away to serve Pozole to Kaonashi just because it’s easier for me to do so. (And also that’s why I hate lots Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it shits over martial arts… and I tried hard to see the story as a parody but no). That’s also why I left the Rock AU incomplete and most of my fics are untranslated (and why a lot of mexicans ran away from the social media created around the movie). Why translate it, why continue it if the apparent love for my country and its music and traditions didn’t translated when I took time to craft a story that shows more about the modern musical scene here (along with other social issues). Why keep helping people that asked and yet ignored what I said or tried to make me justify stuff that DOES NOT (AT ALL) happen or happened here. Why even bother if someone who isn’t even from my country is the one that they prefer to get the information, as wrong as it can be. 

It’s amazing also that I got silenced and dismissed over my last rant about this feeling. It’s not jealousy, it’s a wake up call to fandoms in general. You can’t call yourself woke or culturally aware or whatever if you consume media from or based on foreing cultures and silence the people who live it or try to adapt it into your culture just because it’s easier or if you like characters that are people of color. Fandom it’s not absent of colonialism or racism, even on this kind of works. And we should be aware and learn of the mistakes we made along the way, because it’s disheartening for future media creators from other cultures (me included) to see that while we’re trying to adapt our culture and what we love -and hate- the most of it (even if it’s a fantasy counterpart, like it’s the case of the novel I’m working on), it’s going to be ignored over or tried to got converted over to whatever they want (creative fan freedom has a limit and that’s the societal and geographic rules of the setting). Because that’s the actual point of diversity in narrative, not trying to make everything more uniform like most american/european series that have a two-three whites and two-three people of color (if feeling lucky) but they’re barely different from each other in culture (except if there’s an asian on the cast, most of the time). The point of stories like Coco or parasite to show how despite the differences, we all can live similar situations, we all love and laugh and lose and keep going, in our own unique way, even if we’re miles away.

Most of the Mexican members of the fandom left this place because of that.

Anyone throw some Spanish words in fanfiction "hey you can ask some of us" said the Mexican and Latin American fandom, but "no thanks, I prefer to ask this friend that took a Spanish course as a freshman than asking you fellow Mexican".

Some people asked things about ANY situation, I can't even count how many times I stayed awake like 2-3 am to explain anything only to read the fanfiction and see absolutely zero of what I explained and just some USA general version of it.

Little by little, people got enough of this and we left. And when watching Coco now we see how the greatest opportunity became just another "look at me! I'm WOKE~" while disrespecting the people, culture, history, geography, language.

Hi there~

Día de Muertos will be the next week! Aren’t you excited?

Well, in the Coco fandom some cocolocos are starting with the setting for their Ofrendas. And here are some tips for how many days, what to put in the ofrenda and why:

October 28: you light up the first  candle and you put a white flower to invite the “ánima sola”, the lonely souls.

October 29: you light up another candle and put a glass of water for the forgotten and helpless.

October 30: you light up another candle, put another glass of  water and put a piece of white bread for the ones that left without eating and for the ones that left because of an accident.

October 31: you light up another candle, put another another glass of water, another piece of white bread and fruit. This is for the deceased ones of our deceased, in other words, for our great grandparents and great-great grandparents.

November 1st: In this day you put all the food in the ofrenda, this is the day for the kids.

November 2nd: this day you put the marigold petals way to the ofrenda, you burn copal to purify and to attract the rest of the deceased, mostly adults since kids came on November 1st.

November 3rd: you ligth up one last candle, you burn copal and you say your goodbyes to your family inviting all of them to come again on the next year. You clean everything until next year. Many people usually ate the food (fruit, pan de muerto, the dishes you prepared…).

….

First of all, nowadays Día de Muertos is both a prehispanic and catholic combination that ended up as a tradition. So almost everything has two meanings, a prehispanic one and a catholic one.

I’ll try to be more on the prehispanic side, and on the most common too.

1) You have to decide how many levels your altar will have:

2: earth and sky (the goods in the earth like the fruit and the goods in the sky like the rain)

3: either heaven, earth and underworld; or the holy trynity

7: is the most common, it represents the 7 levels a soul had to travel to the spiritual peace, the 7 kinds of dead acordinly to the aztecs or the 7 capital sins.

For the aztecs there’s 8 test (one on each level) in the Mictlán (underworld for the ones who died of natural decease) until you arrive to the 9th level of Mictlán and you met the Death Gods Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacíhuatl to achieve the eternal rest. Xolos help the souls to complete the 8 tests of the Mictlán, that’s why you never have to hurt a dog ;)

2) Water. For the souls that are thirsty and that want to clean themselves, it’s also common to left some personal cleanliness objects with that purpose.

The Mayans had the belief that the cenotes, which were considered sacred, were a gateway to the underworld. In many representations of altars we usually place a tableware with water, symbolizing a cenote and the entrance to the underworld.

3) Candles, to light up their way and to warm their souls. In some places, each candle represents a deceased, that is, the number of candles that the altar will have will depend on the souls that the family wants to receive, and don’t forget to dedicate one to an ánima sola. Purple candles represent  mourning, and the white ones purity. Before the Spaniards brought the wax to make candles, Ocote wood sticks were used.

4) Copal, or incense. This attraccs the souls because of the smell and it also purifies, some people put and ash cross too. All of this have the purpose of keep bad spirits far away and to help the souls of our beloved ones to end with their pendent worries. The ash cross also helps a soul to leave the purgatory, in case it’s there.

5)The salt serves so that the soul does not get corrupted on its round trip for the following year.  

6) Arc of flowers, that goes at the top representing the entrance of the land of the dead and as a representation of the 8th level of the Mictlán. Its usually made of palm and marigolds

7) Flowers.

There’s a legend of the marigolds. There was a girl named Xóchitl and a boy named Huitzilin, they always carry flowers to a hill and offered them to Tonatiuh, the God of the Sun. They both felt in love and promised to always be together. When the war came Huitzilin had to go to fight, and died. So Xóchitl went to the hill and asked Tonatiuh for his help to be reunited again with her beloved one. One of the sunrays of Tonatiuh touched Xóchitl and she became a beautiful flower with the color of the sun. Then a hummingbird came and possed on the center of the flower, so the flower opened in 20 petals and a delightful fragance. Warriors rebirth as hummingbirds, which was the case of Huitzilin, so when his love touched the flower it bloomed. Tonatiuh said that as long as there are marigolds and hummingbirds in the world, the love of Xóchitl and Huitzilin will last.

Xóchilt means  flower in náhuatl

Huitzilin means hummingbird in náhuatl

Cempoalxóchitl (or Zempoalxóchitl) means 20-flower, or 20 petals flower  in náhuatl, in Spanish this is written as cempasúchil, that it’s the marigold, a native flower of México.

Marigolds bloom at fall, when everything is dying, as in the legend when it bloomed after the lovers died. Its nahuátl name Cempoalxóchitl that is usually translated into 20 petals flower, literally means 20-flower. The Aztec calendar worked with 18 months of 20 days each one. Every month starts with an alligator and ends with a flower, meaning the endind of a cicle, the “death” of that month and of course of the year, a cicle that is now complete just like the life of our beloved ones. 

Those are some of the reasons because marigolds are also related to the dead. And it’s because of its beauty, intense and mysterious fragance, curative properties and relation with the light of the sun that it’s used in the altars to guide the souls.

You can also use other flowers like baby’s breath flower if the ofrenda is for a kid, since they represent inocence and purity. Celosia cristata and the spikenard flower are pretty common too.

8)Earth goods. To represent the goods of the earth, it’s common to put seeds and fruits on the ofrenda. A common fruit in the ofrenda is the sugar cane because it looks like human bones. Seeds like corn and cacao, and sawdust too are usually used to decorate as in the photo.

9) Papel picado. The precious colorful paper sheets that we use in many celebrations all the year, these ones represent the wind that will carry the scent of the flowers and copal to the souls.

Aztecs used Amatl paper, nowadays know as Amate paper and used it to paint there their deities, some codex in amate paper still survive in the museums. But once the Spaniars arrived, this changed to the tissue paper. 

For a Día de Muertos altar, the papel picado has the skulls and skelleton drawings as in the style of José Guadalupe Posada (the man who created the Calavera Garbancera now also known as La Catrina) the colors of the paper had different meanings:

White: purity, for the kids

Purple: mourning color for catholics

Orange: mourning color for aztecs

Blue: for the ones who died for water related decease

Red: for the warriors and women who died at giving birth

Yellow: for the elders

Green: for the young

Black: some people say it’s for the adults (as white is for the kids), others say it represents the purgatory and the underworld, but others believe you are calling for the death to come for you (so, yeah, I don’t use it).

But we usually use almost every color, either because it looks cute and (low key) because since we are accepting ánimas solas, forgotten and helpless ones.

In México where one can eat, two can. And if two can, three can…

Now you get why we make big celebration parties…

10) A Cross for the cardinal points, so the soul does not get lost. It’s usually made of lime (the one you use with cement) or candles.

….

If you have seen in the offerings some prehispanic dogs made of clay, those are the izcuintles or itzcuintli. They are a must in the altars dedicated to children, since they are a toy so that the souls of the little ones are happy to arrive at the banquet. 

Itzcuintli means dog, and xolo means weird, so xoloitzcuintli, xoloescuincle in spanish, means weird dog. Xolo also refers to Xólotl, the twin brother of god Quetzalcóatl. Representing the duality, day and night, life and death, and xolo dogs are also refered as the dogs of the God Xólotl.

When people died they were usually buried with their xolo dogs so the dog could help the souls to cross the Chiconauhuapan River, one of the test of the Mictlán. So, if the person didn’t had a xolo dog when was alive, putting an itzcuintli figure is believed to give them some help to pass this test.

12) Food

A fan of tacos, mole, enchiladas, or even pizza? You have to put the favorite food of your beloved ones, both food and drinks.

13) Dulces

Specially if the Ofrenda is for a kid, even is you can put some of the favorite candies of the visitors, it’s really common to put lots of traditional candies os sugar, amaranth, pumpkin, coconut, etc

14) Pan de Muerto

The Pan de Muerto, bread of the dead, is one of the most precious elements on the altar, it  symbolizes a fraternal offering to the souls. As part of the celebration, loved ones eat pan de muerto as well as the relative’s favorite foods.  The bones represent the deceased one (difuntos or difuntas) and there is normally a baked tear drop on the bread to represent goddess Chimalma’s tears for the living. The bones are represented in a circle to portray the circle of life. The bread is topped with sugar. 

The classic recipe for pan de muerto is a simple sweet bread recipe, often with the addition of anise seeds, and other times flavored with orange flower water or orange zest.

15) Calaveritas de azúcar

Or sugar skulls, they are a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made (usually by hand) from either sugar, chocolate, amaranth, clay, maché papier, etc.

In pre-Columbian times the images of skulls and skeletons were shown often in paintings, pottery, etc. representing rebirth into the next stage of life. During the 20th century a political caricaturist named José Guadalupe Posada became famous for making Calaveras as vain skeletons dressed in the clothing of the wealthy. The most famous one was Catrina, wearing a feathery hat, fancy shoes and a long dress. Catrina is considered to be the personification of The Day of the Dead. These skeletons are created from many materials such as wood, sugar paste varieties, types of nuts, chocolate, etc. When used as offerings, the name of the deceased is written across the forehead of the skull on colored foil.

On November 1st, to celebrate the kids, miniature sugar calaveritas are placed on altares to represent the deceased children. On November 2nd, the are replaced with larger versions to honor older deceased relatives.

16) Gollete and sugar canes

The gollete is a piece of sweet bread similar to a donnut usually covered with pink sugar, its round shape simbolices the cicle of a life. And the sugar canes are used to hang up the golletes.

They have two meanings: the succeful pass from life to death and also the victory over the enemies, since the golletes also represents lifes, similar to the sugar skulls. The enemies skulls where usually put on sticks in many mesoamerican cultures. 

17) Photos

Photographs or portraits of your loved ones. Usually are for them to know they’re are welcome. and to dedicate to them all the offerings.

If you don’t have a photo or a portrait you can write their name on a candle or on a sugar skull.

18) Toys

Specially for the kids, traditional wood ones are the most common, like yoyos, baleros, trompos, dolls, tablitas…

19) Personal belongings

Did that person used to smoke? put some cigarettes; was a musician? their favorite instrument. Now you get the idea. Think of the things that person would love to see again. Or even a little gift you know they will love.

20) Calaveritas literarias

Poetry written for the día de muertos are known as literary calaveras, and are intended to humorously criticize the living while reminding them of their mortality.Literary calaveras appeared during the second half of the 19th century, when drawings critical of important politicians began to be published in the press. Living personalities were depicted as skeletons exhibiting recognizable traits, making them easily identifiable. Additionally, drawings of dead personalities often contained text elements providing details of the deaths of various individuals.

Sometimes we write some for the people we are dedicating our ofrenda to.

21) Skeleton ornaments

We use them either to represent the death or our beloved deceased person. At schools is common to ask the kids (as a homework or as a school project) to decorate and wear some paper skeletons.

So, this is it. But I KNOW you have a question.

Can I have a Coco Ofrenda? Can I use the coco characters for my Ofrenda???

You can have a Coco Ofrenda as long is not the same you are planning to put the photos of your family.

I mean, you can make an Ofrenda for your family AND a “decoration Ofrenda of Coco”.

Just have some respect for your family and have them separately.

And yes, if you have a Coco or Book of Life or whatever glass for the water or plate for the food, it’s ok, Coco candles too? Yes! It’s ok, as long they are just decorations as any other skeleton, not to have them in the main lights of your family Ofrenda.

Remember the Ofrenda Is your the deceased ones, not for you.

And they deserve love and respect.

So here are they

This are the common use for seeds and sawdust

These are the golletes and sugar canes

Sugar and Chocolate Calaveritas

Some ofrendas using photos, portraits or candles

Skeleton ornaments

A Ofrenda dedicated to Coco (this is from last year in Coyoacán, México)

Chavela Vargas, Eugenia León, Susana Harp and many others have their own versions of the song.

Coco (2017) dir. Lee Unkrich & Adrian Molina

La Leyenda de Finado y Moribunda is confirmed by Videocine Distribution to come on 2019-2020 (and also other mexican animated movies, yey~)

We have the sixth movie of Las Leyendas saga confirmed!!