by Sarah Marroquín Kolat
Today marks the end of Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month, and as we look forward to opening GHOST STORIES on November 6, we wanted to look at a different kind of ghost story. Across Latin America, Indigenous traditions have long celebrated, respected, and maintained relationships between the living and the dead. These traditions are deeply rooted in Indigenous culture throughout Latin America, and celebrate and welcome the dead, rather than fear them.
Readers are likely familiar with the most famous example, Mexico’s Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), which features ofrendas to welcome back ancestors, decorated with photographs, candles, cempasúchil (marigolds), and offerings of food and drink. These offerings invite the dead to return and celebrate with their descendants. The Indigenous traditions and beliefs underlying these practices long predate Spanish conquest. In the Mexica calendar, multiple feasts honored the dead, including Miccailhuitontli for deceased children and Huey Miccailhuitl for adults and warriors. These occurred in the late summer/early autumn.
With the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century came attempts to suppress Indigenous religious practices, but these traditions persisted and were eventually tolerated and accepted within Catholic observance. The beliefs and reverence for the dead did not change, and are an example of cultural belief systems and rituals so strong that colonialism could not break them. These celebrations and rituals spanned the calendar, but within the Catholic framework, they are now celebrated on or around All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2).
Indigenous rituals across Latin America follow this pattern, with distinct rituals surrounding death and relationships with ancestors, celebrated on and around All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Here are a few traditions celebrated throughout Latin America that may be new to you!
In the Yucatán Peninsula, the Maya celebrate Hanal Pixán (Food of the Souls), focusing on food and preparing altars for deceased relatives to return. This three-day observance includes dedicated altars to children, adults, and all souls, including attendance at Mass. The traditional food prepared is a Mucbipollo—a large tamal cooked underground in banana leaves.
In Huasteca, the Nahua and Teenek/Huastec celebrate Xantolo (Feast of the Saints). Families create familial altars, but Xantolo features music and dance to accompany the return of the dead, including Huechues, or masked dances.
These three celebrations—Día de Muertos, Hanal Pixán, and Xantolo are a wonderful example of how different Indigenous traditions exist and persist within modern-day lines on a map.
Further south in Guatemala, the Maya communities celebrate Todos Santos (All Saints’), with celebrations varying amongst the twenty-two linguistic communities of Maya in Guatemala. These include cemetery visits, decorating of gravesites, and communal gatherings. One of the most colorful traditions is from the Kaqchikel Maya communities in Santiago Sacatepéquez and Sumpango: Festival de Barriletes Gigantes (Giant Kite Festival). In Kaqchikel Maya tradition, the kites are seen as a bridge between the living and the dead, opening a path to communicate with ancestors during Todos Santos. Barriletes gigantes are enormous, intricately designed kites and communal art, which groups of barrileteros (kite makers) design and construct over months. On bamboo frames, thousands of brightly colored tissue pieces depict community identity, the environment, human rights, and social issues, and serve as much a living art form as a path to the ancestors. This intergenerational, communal art-making practice and festival take place on Todos Santos and, in 2024, was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Todos Santos in Bolivia and Peru includes traditions of the Aymara and Quechua cultures, whose ancestral homelands cross the modern border between the two countries.
Throughout the pre-Hispanic Andes, physical interaction with ancestral remains formed part of some traditions surrounding the dead. During the Inca period in present-day Peru, Aya Marcay Quilla was a month dedicated to the dead, when mummified ancestors could be brought from chullpas (family tombs) and dressed, fed, and honored with songs and dance.
Under Spanish colonial rule, the Catholic Church prohibited these practices. The ritual evolved by force: rather than the physical retun of ancestral remains, the ajayu (spirit) returns and is welcomed with offerings that include tantawawa, a human-shaped bread that connects the living and the dead.
And despite attempts to suppress traditions, the physical connection to the dead has presisted. Ñatitas—human skulls that are cared for, decorated, and venerated—are celebrated on Día de las Ñatitas (Day of the Skulls) on November 8. This practice was largely hidden until the late 20th Century and remains a source of tension with the Catholic Church.
The traditions celebrated throughout Latin America in the coming weeks are rooted in the diverse Indigenous communities spanning this vast region. These rituals vary and include offerings, community gatherings, food, drink, gifts, dance, music, and art. However, a common thread links them all: the dead are not to be feared; they are to be remembered, revered, celebrated, and honored.
As Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month comes to a close, we hope you’ll carry this different kind of ghost story with you into November.
GHOST STORIES opens November 6 at McCaw Hall—just two days before Bolivia’s Día de las Ñatitas. We hope you’ll join us as we welcome a few ghosts of our own.
