It’s after dark when I get to the casita. They sit around the dining room table in their altar room, eating fruit and nuts, playing card games, sipping mezcal and keeping their dead loved ones company. Next, I visit to say hello to the Chavez Santiago family. She has house guests visiting from the United States for the week, so she asked each of them to bring a family photo to add to the altar, which each of them participated in building. Then, I get back to Teotitlan, make a stop to visit Michelle. This is a traditional savory mole that is made the same way as mole negro except without the chocolate, so it doesn’t have the thick chocolate sweetness. I have another mezcal, a hot chocolate and bread, and Epifanio brings me mole chichilo. He also is recognized by the town for his traditional altar. Some of my vintage glass mezcal bottles come from him. Epifanio has an antique business on Calle 5 de Mayo. I go back with Arturo to his house where I share a meal with his family and then make a visit to Epifanio Ruiz in the center of town. We sit a while, talk about the politics of historic preservation and what it means for Mitla now that the town is a Pueblo Magico. He also points to the coarse traditional tortilla, black from the comal, that asks us to remember to honor indigenous corn that sustains the people. The concrete altar with its arch base is a colonial design imported along with bread, Gilardo says. Altars were always constructed on the ground before the conquest.

Also on the floor is the candle, jug of mezcal, a squash gourd, beans, fruit and flowers - symbols of the harvest and bounty. A woven mat, the traditional sleeping mattress called a petate, is on the floor where the dead come to rest. Gilardo’s altar is a ritual vision of serenity that combines pre- and post-Hispanic traditions. Perhaps you are invited to taste the mole negro with guajolote. You are offered hot chocolate and a piece of sweet egg bread. There is always a candle burning in front of the altar and a fresh one guarantees the light will never extinguish during the 24-hour visit of the dead. Family and close friends go to each other’s home with flowers, a candle, perhaps bread and chocolate. With an offering of a loaf of Pan de Muertos and a bottle of mezcal for the altar, Arturo and I set out to pay our respects. Everyone leaves their doors open so that the spirits of loved ones can find their way home, following the scent of marigold, copal incense and the lure of their favorite foods or even a cigarette and shot of mezcal.Īt the Mitla cemetery I met Gildardo Hernandez Quero who has a very traditional altar and is known for his in-depth historical knowledge of Mitla and the ways of practicing Day of the Dead from pre-Hispanic times. This is a family, home-based tradition, says Arturo. There is no sitting around the tombs here, like there is in other Oaxaca cemeteries. Then, they immediately return home to wait for the disfundos (the deceased) to return and join them for the afternoon meal. By one o’clock, the cemetery is empty. The firecrackers go off as the signal to finish. Here, he explained, the people come to the cemetery early in the morning, clean the sites of their loved ones, place fresh flowers, light copal incense and finish by noon. The practice in Mitla is different from Teotitlan del Valle, and likely different for each of the Zapotec villages throughout Oaxaca. Mitla was just named a Pueblo Magico so it’s likely that in future years there will be many more tourists there for Muertos.Īrturo took me to the cemetery with him to place flowers on his mother’s grave.

Mitla, or originally Mictlan, is an ancient Zapotec town at the valley terminus with Mixtec influences carved into its archeological ruins. Here in Mitla it is always celebrated on November 1.

I was invited to San Pablo Villa de Mitla by friends Arturo Hernandez and Epifanio Ruiz Perez to visit for Day of the Dead. After a night spent in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan cemetery on October 31 for Dia de los Muertos in Oaxaca, Mexico, I headed back to the Tlacolula Valley on Sunday morning.

Dia de los muertos altar oaxaca