Day of the dead flowers

what is day of the dead

What is Day of the Dead, and what is the Day of the Dead: the same Mexican observance, Día de Muertos, kept on 1 and 2 November. Families build ofrendas — home altars — and visit graves. The days sit on the Catholic calendar as All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. The Mexican keeping of them mixes those dates with older indigenous practice. UNESCO lists the indigenous festivity of Day of the Dead as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

November 1 is often the day for children who have died; November 2 for adults. Some regions start earlier in late October. The civil dates do not slide to a Monday. If 2 November is a Sunday, it is Sunday. In Mexico the dates are widely kept. In the United States they are cultural dates, not a federal holiday. A U.S. office that stays open on 1 November is not making a theological claim. It is following the federal calendar.

People type “what is day of the dead” and “what is the day of the dead” as if the article changed the feast. It does not. The extra “the” is English. The dates stay 1 and 2 November.

Why the marigold is on the altar

Cempasúchil is Tagetes erecta, the Mexican marigold. The Nahuatl name is commonly explained as “twenty flowers” or a flower of many petals. Markets sell whole stems, cut heads, and loose petals from mid-October. On the ofrenda the flower is colour and scent. Tradition holds that the bright orange and the strong smell help guide the dead home for the visit. Petals may be laid as a path from the door to the altar or around a grave.

The flower is not the only object. Water, salt, candles, copal incense, pan de muerto, sugar skulls, photographs, and the favourite food of the person being remembered also appear. A bouquet without an ofrenda is still a bouquet. An ofrenda without marigolds can still be an ofrenda. The marigold is the flower people search because it is the visual mark of the season in Mexican streets and cemeteries.

Name the dates: 1 and 2 November. Name the flower: cempasúchil, the Mexican marigold. Name the job: colour and scent on altars and graves, not a second civic holiday. Leave Halloween on 31 October. Face paint and a marigold can share a week without sharing a meaning.

Orange petals in November are a path, not a party favour. If you only wanted a centrepiece, say so to the stall.

Buying the flower without borrowing the feast

If you are keeping the days, buy the marigolds for the people you are naming, and put their names on the table. If you are decorating a shop window in a country that does not keep Día de Muertos as a public rite, you are using a motif. Motifs travel. They do not automatically become remembrance. Do not treat a plastic skull and a grocery-store marigold as a substitute for a grave visit you did not make.

Yellow Flower Day in March or September is a living gift in another season. These marigolds are for the dead in early November. Mixing the two searches is how a hope bouquet ends up on an ofrenda it does not belong to. Keep the months apart. Keep the names on the photographs if you build an altar. The flower is a tool of that table, not a brand.