Although the two days of Day of the Dead, November 1^st, and 2^nd, correspond to the church holidays, All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day, the way it is celebrated in Mexico is its own rare hybrid of European and Aztec traditions.  The art and pageantry that have sprung from it have spread to other countries as well.  Day of the Dead is almost a state holiday in parts of California. 

Having already spent time at the parade, the Zocalo, and Garibaldi Square, I was looking for a unique way to celebrate the last day of it, and hoped that the Museum of Anthropology would be open.  Before I set out for the subway, I drew a stone from my bag of runes and came up with Eihwaz.  I took it with me, hoping to find an appropriate location for a picture.

The Museum of Anthropology is in Chapultepec Park, not far from the parade route of a few days ago.  On the subway traveling there, I passed the same blend of ancient and modern street art that characterizes so much of Mexico.  Great escalators passed from floor to floor.  On the wall were idols made of jewel, robotic ancestors of man, seemingly carved from rock, yet fluid, a line of conquistadors, ready to rampage in style, immaculately pressed, their helmets gleaming.  When I reached the museum, I took a picture of Eihwaz, sitting on the fountain in front of it. 

There was a long wait to get in, over an hour.  My feet were already hurting.  It must’ve been the shoes, designed to look like flexible mesh, instead little instruments of torture, Iron Maidens to slip on your feet.  While I stood waiting, a troupe of Mexican Voladores, or pole flyers, were getting ready for a performance.  The ceremony they were about to perform goes back 450 years, and though there are different interpretations of it, the hundred-foot-pole is the tree of the world, and the flyers are birds in their colorful costumes.

One of the Voladores remained on the ground, dancing and playing the flute, while the other four ascended to the top and attached themselves to a rope.  The pole began to spin and they let themselves over the sides, upside down, spinning in longer and longer circles until they finally reached the ground.  I’ve seen the demonstration countless times, and will run to watch it each time it’s performed.  These were the original stuntmen, risking their lives to appease the rain god.

I’ve been to the Museum of Anthropology three times by now, and knew that the wait to get into it was well worth it.  It has one of the most complete and imaginatively displayed collections of Pre-Columbian art in the world, as well as vivid exhibits on the folk-art and religious practices of the various regions in Mexico.  Some of the wings of the museum include the Preclassic Central Highlands, Teotihuacan, the Toltec, the Maya, Oaxaca, the Gulf Coast, and Northern Mexico.

Once inside the museum, I passed through the Umbrella Courtyard where water spills to the floor from a giant inverted fountain.  I passed through a section on the origins of man, visited a display of folk altars, passed displays of mannequins, recreating village life or ceremonies, took pictures of masks and instruments.  There were ofrendas and dancers, frozen in the midst of colorful festivals. 

Downstairs it was mostly about stone, great Olmec heads, Mayan calendars, blocks from the temple walls, figures carved from rock and sculpted from clay, spreading their arms, sitting hands on knees, mouths wide open, thrusting out their genitals, eyes wide open, yet fathomless. 

When I got back outside, the Voladores were getting ready to go another round, but there was also an Aztec dance troupe performing.  The lead dancer had an elaborate jaguar headdress, crowned with pheasant and eagle feathers, along with bangles on his elbows and knees, a breast plate of bone, a codpiece with a skull, and stacks of shells around his legs.  He started off kneeling in front of a small fire and then began blowing into a conch shell.  Behind him was a circle of marigold flowers and another dancer playing the drums. 

The trip had already been everything I could’ve hoped for if the plan had been to immerse myself in the culture of the Day of the Dead, and it was just beginning.

The zoo was nearby, and though my feet were nearly too pinched to bear, I wandered over and saw that the flow of traffic through it had been limited by COVID restrictions.  You could now only go one in one direction and had to stay on the designated path.  There were too many people packed in, doing anything they could to get the animals’ attention. 

One monkey appeared to be having a nervous breakdown.  A jaguar lay in a stupor against the wall.  The parrots had lost their spark, and looked frazzled and bleached out.   In one empty cage a zoo worker was doing maintenance work.  That was certainly the most curious animal of all, busting his ass like that while everyone else just gaped and waved.  One would hope he’d get some privacy on his lunch break.