What does an ofrenda need?
First of all, nowadays Día de Muertos is both a prehispanic and catholic combination that ended up as a tradition. So almost everything has two meanings, a prehispanic one and a catholic one.
I’ll try to be more on the prehispanic side, and on the most common too.
1) You have to decide how many levels your altar will have:
2: earth and sky (the goods in the earth like the fruit and the goods in the sky like the rain)
3: either heaven, earth and underworld; or the holy trynity
7: is the most common, it represents the 7 levels a soul had to travel to the spiritual peace, the 7 kinds of dead acordinly to the aztecs or the 7 capital sins.
For the aztecs there’s 8 test (one on each level) in the Mictlán (underworld for the ones who died of natural decease) until you arrive to the 9th level of Mictlán and you met the Death Gods Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacíhuatl to achieve the eternal rest. Xolos help the souls to complete the 8 tests of the Mictlán, that’s why you never have to hurt a dog ;)
2) Water. For the souls that are thirsty and that want to clean themselves, it’s also common to left some personal cleanliness objects with that purpose.
The Mayans had the belief that the cenotes, which were considered sacred, were a gateway to the underworld. In many representations of altars we usually place a tableware with water, symbolizing a cenote and the entrance to the underworld.
3) Candles, to light up their way and to warm their souls. In some places, each candle represents a deceased, that is, the number of candles that the altar will have will depend on the souls that the family wants to receive, and don’t forget to dedicate one to an ánima sola. Purple candles represent mourning, and the white ones purity. Before the Spaniards brought the wax to make candles, Ocote wood sticks were used.
4) Copal, or incense. This attraccs the souls because of the smell and it also purifies, some people put and ash cross too. All of this have the purpose of keep bad spirits far away and to help the souls of our beloved ones to end with their pendent worries. The ash cross also helps a soul to leave the purgatory, in case it’s there.
5)The salt serves so that the soul does not get corrupted on its round trip for the following year.
6) Arc of flowers, that goes at the top representing the entrance of the land of the dead and as a representation of the 8th level of the Mictlán. Its usually made of palm and marigolds
There’s a legend of the marigolds. There was a girl named Xóchitl and a boy named Huitzilin, they always carry flowers to a hill and offered them to Tonatiuh, the God of the Sun. They both felt in love and promised to always be together. When the war came Huitzilin had to go to fight, and died. So Xóchitl went to the hill and asked Tonatiuh for his help to be reunited again with her beloved one. One of the sunrays of Tonatiuh touched Xóchitl and she became a beautiful flower with the color of the sun. Then a hummingbird came and possed on the center of the flower, so the flower opened in 20 petals and a delightful fragance. Warriors rebirth as hummingbirds, which was the case of Huitzilin, so when his love touched the flower it bloomed. Tonatiuh said that as long as there are marigolds and hummingbirds in the world, the love of Xóchitl and Huitzilin will last.
Xóchilt means flower in náhuatl
Huitzilin means hummingbird in náhuatl
Cempoalxóchitl (or Zempoalxóchitl) means 20-flower, or 20 petals flower in náhuatl, in Spanish this is written as cempasúchil, that it’s the marigold, a native flower of México.
Marigolds bloom at fall, when everything is dying, as in the legend when it bloomed after the lovers died. Its nahuátl name Cempoalxóchitl that is usually translated into 20 petals flower, literally means 20-flower. The Aztec calendar worked with 18 months of 20 days each one. Every month starts with an alligator and ends with a flower, meaning the endind of a cicle, the “death” of that month and of course of the year, a cicle that is now complete just like the life of our beloved ones.
Those are some of the reasons because marigolds are also related to the dead. And it’s because of its beauty, intense and mysterious fragance, curative properties and relation with the light of the sun that it’s used in the altars to guide the souls.
You can also use other flowers like baby’s breath flower if the ofrenda is for a kid, since they represent inocence and purity. Celosia cristata and the spikenard flower are pretty common too.
8)Earth goods. To represent the goods of the earth, it’s common to put seeds and fruits on the ofrenda. A common fruit in the ofrenda is the sugar cane because it looks like human bones. Seeds like corn and cacao, and sawdust too are usually used to decorate as in the photo.
9) Papel picado. The precious colorful paper sheets that we use in many celebrations all the year, these ones represent the wind that will carry the scent of the flowers and copal to the souls.
Aztecs used Amatl paper, nowadays know as Amate paper and used it to paint there their deities, some codex in amate paper still survive in the museums. But once the Spaniars arrived, this changed to the tissue paper.
For a Día de Muertos altar, the papel picado has the skulls and skelleton drawings as in the style of José Guadalupe Posada (the man who created the Calavera Garbancera now also known as La Catrina) the colors of the paper had different meanings:
White: purity, for the kids
Purple: mourning color for catholics
Orange: mourning color for aztecs
Blue: for the ones who died for water related decease
Red: for the warriors and women who died at giving birth
Black: some people say it’s for the adults (as white is for the kids), others say it represents the purgatory and the underworld, but others believe you are calling for the death to come for you (so, yeah, I don’t use it).
But we usually use almost every color, either because it looks cute and (low key) because since we are accepting ánimas solas, forgotten and helpless ones.
In México where one can eat, two can. And if two can, three can…
Now you get why we make big celebration parties…
10) A Cross for the cardinal points, so the soul does not get lost. It’s usually made of lime (the one you use with cement) or candles.
There’s still another part!!
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