Simple Dia de Muertos Altars

Pachuco 3000 has an interesting post about feeling a bit burned out with Dia de Muertos, wondering if the practice here is “fading away and being replaced more with trinket collecting and sales.” Certainly commercialization is taking place, that’s the sad fact of all cultural practice today. Or as Mr. Jalopy aptly put it: “Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.” (He was referring to car culture but damned if that isn’t the most succinct expression of what the market does to all human experience.) That might explain this well intentioned but not well defined connection between Dia de Muertos and “Erotica.” So it goes. It doesn’t help that the practice in LA is becoming the exclusive domain of art galleries and professionals when it should primarily be about the personal and familial.

I just got back from an inspiring trip to Mexico, where I got to see a bunch of altars, from the elaborate to the threadbare. I do like the fancy ones, they’re very pretty, but I enjoyed the simpler ones the most. Click ahead for a mini-tour.

By simple I don’t mean small. But if you notice, most of the decorations are just flowers, fruits, or food items. These last two pics were done by students at the Santo Domingo school in Oaxaca.

This one was in the Zocalo, done by one of the local Indigenous groups. I love the bananas and roasted chickens hanging in front.

This simple cane and fruit ofrenda was in the building at the Zocalo where the government did their official event. The hated governor Ruiz even made an appearance. Most everyone was fixated on the ugly, gigantic Frida sculpture on the main floor.

A large public altar in Parque Juarez, complete with saran wrapped bowls of mole and tortillas. I read in the local paper that the price of cempasuchil and other typical ofrenda items was very high, one woman even complained that only the merchants were going to enjoy the festivals.

A small altar. It’s not the size that counts.

At a store window. I like the use of arches made by tying sugar canes together and attaching flowers, you don’t see much of that here in LA.

This is possibly my favorite as it was made by people I care about. A very simple altar at the family home where I was staying, made with no pretense of a public outing. (Oops, I think I just did that!)

I hope these pics of simple altars inspire others to make their own amateur versions at home, for the purpose of celebrating the muertitos you still love. It’s not a decorating contest, nor one of those Super Mexican competitions Chicanos are so prone to unwittingly create; it’s just a damn table with flowers, relax a little compa.

(More pics from the trip coming soon, including some cool mixing of halloween and Dia de Muertos traditions!)