November 1 and 2, when Mexican families build altars for their dead; older than the conquest in spirit, partly newer than the iPhone in form.
Documented
The altar tradition
The ofrenda, marigolds, sugar skulls, and graveside vigils on November 1 and 2 blend indigenous death ritual, including veneration of the Aztec death goddess Mictecacihuatl, with Catholic All Saints' and All Souls' days. Families pay tribute to lost loved ones at home altars, a practice with deep regional roots.
Assessment: Documented: the household and cemetery customs are centuries old and well recorded.
Stories
The Bond parade
Spectre's 2015 opening scene showed a vast Day of the Dead parade that Mexico City had never held. In October 2016 the government staged a real one, over a thousand dancers and floats, explicitly as a tourism campaign, using props from the film. Tens of thousands came.
Assessment: Documented: PBS and Mexican officials described the parade's celluloid birth.
Interesting claims
The syncretism fight
Scholars argue over how much of the festival is unbroken pre-Hispanic tradition and how much is post-conquest reconstruction, some noting that parts of the indigenous past were themselves curated for national identity in the 20th century. The argument is live and unresolved.
Assessment: Interesting claims: even the ancient half has an editor.
Sources and further reading
PBS NewsHour (October 30, 2016): Mexico City's first Day of the Dead parade, inspired by the 2015 film Spectre
Mexican government tourism officials on the 2016 parade as a campaign, using props from the Bond production
The Conversation (2021), Mathew Sandoval: Day of the Dead's roots in Mictecacihuatl veneration and Catholic All Souls' syncretism
Stanley Brandes, Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead (2006): the scholarly debate on pre-Hispanic continuity
Worth asking
A movie invented a parade and a country adopted it within a year; at what point does a staged tradition become a real one?