The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Judika Illes
image 1"/> August 1st, also known as Lammas and Lughnasa
Pagan festivals and holy days correspond to each of the Cross Quarter Days. In addition, in various parts of Europe—notably Scotland and Ireland—the Quarter Days were when rents fell due to the landlord, perhaps necessitating the need for some extra magic.
Dias de Los Muertos/Mexican Days of the Dead
See also Festivals of the Dead, Halloween, and Samhain.
The Days of the Dead refers to a three-day festival that fuses pre-Columbian indigenous celebrations with those of Roman Catholicism. Because the Roman Catholic feast day that honors the deceased also incorporates a tremendous amount of older pagan spirituality and tradition, the modern Mexican Days of the Dead is a tremendously complex celebration.One must specify Mexican Days of the Dead because virtually every Latin American community throughout South and Central America also has some sort of commemorative feast, as do many communities elsewhere. Although the purpose is identical, traditions vary greatly. Aspects of the Mexican Days of the Dead have become increasingly influential over Neo-Pagan spirituality.
November Eve and the days immediately before and after are internationally considered the time when the dead visit the living. Depending upon perspectives toward the nature of the dead, some cultures find this a scary time. In other words, if the revenant dead can only be up to no good, then the time when they return is a time of great danger.
In traditional Mexican culture, however, the dead are welcomed, feasted, propitiated, and then sent safely on their way. This is the natural order: it is natural for the dead to appear at this time and it is natural for them to depart afterwards. The dead who are not propitiated and treated with respect, love, and honor are those who may linger and become troublesome ghosts. It is in the community’s interest for this not to occur, and the Days of the Dead are celebrated by individuals and families but also by communities at large. To witness Days of the Dead celebrations in Mexican villages is to understand how festivals like Beltane, Midsummer’s or Samhain must once have been an entire community’s affair.
Extremely similar festivals honoring the dead were once held at this time of year throughout Italy, most especially in Salerno. The practice was banned by the Church in the fifteenth century.
There isn’t just one fixed way to celebrate the Dias de los Muertos. Traditions vary depending on location and region, however some themes and traditions remain consistent. Each day of the three-day festival is dedicated to a different community of the deceased. The dead are envisioned as a parade of spirits, arriving in scheduled hosts arranged according to age and manner of death.
The Mexican Days of the Dead is a celebratory festival, combining humor with devotion, a lust for life with an acceptance of death. Traditional Aztec culture didn’t fear death. Death was understood as a period of deep sleep or true reality, while life (or lives) was the dreams experienced during this sleep/death. Modern Mexican culture revels in humorous, grotesque, defiant artistic celebrations of death, which simultaneously celebrate life, too. Death isn’t a topic to be avoided but instead it is defied and mocked while simultaneously respected and revered.
An ofrenda, translated into English as an “offering table” or altar, is set up in the home. The ofrenda serves as the magnet that guides and welcomes the spirits of the deceased. A table is beautifully decorated and laden with the feast to be shared by the living and the dead.
Technically the festivities begin the eve of October 31st in conjunction with the Roman Catholic festival of All Hallows Eve, however, depending upon region or village, it may begin as early as October 27th. Commemorations prior to the 31st are more openly pagan in orientation than the official three-day period, which is technically a Roman Catholic feast.
What follows is a standard calendar for the Days of the Dead. However be advised that this is subject to variation.
In both these cases, food and drink is placed outside, not inside the home. The intention is to prevent the phenomenon of destructive, malicious, “hungry ghosts,” not to have the ghosts become so comfortable that they decide to move in.
Up until this point, any food offered is not shared by the living. Once given, it is left outside.
The night of October 31st may be dedicated to dead children while November 1st is for deceased adults. In some communities, however, November 1st is the Dia de los Angelitos (the Day of the Little Angels). Children’s graves are given special attention and ofrendas devoted to children are erected.