The Skeleton at the Feast: The Day of the Dead in Mexico

by Elizabeth Carmichael and Chloe Sayer

Book Overview

All over Mexico, early in November, families gather to welcome the souls of the dead on their annual visit home. The smells of burning copal incense and pungent cempas?chil (marigolds) mingle with the aromas of fresh bread, new clothing, sweets, and candles. One of Mexico's most important festivals since prehispanic times, the Day of the Dead is an occasion for celebrating and feasting, cleaning and decorating graves, dancing and making music. In...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292776586
• ISBN13: 9780292776586
• Release Date: March 1992
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

Very informative.

The best book I've seen on the subject!

The Skeleton at the Feast

I bought this book several years ago at the Museum of Mankind, in London. It was the book for the exhibition, which featured incredible paper sculptures of skeletons and demons.I read every word of the book, and enjoyed the culture, history, and personal stories of these Mexican artists.Buy it!

a comprehensive look at a bizarre custom

As an anthropologist who teaches classes on Mexico, I use this book often. The "day of the dead" in Mexico exemplifies, for me, the difference between the U.S. culture and that of Mexico. Just as other cultures might find our U.S. Halloween celebrations strangely at odds with normally conservative Judeo-Christian religious observance, this book illustrates clearly the almost unfathomable blending of pre-Columbian cults of death and sacrifice with Spanish-Catholic traditions. Starting with its origins in Mexico's ancient civilizations, the book discusses and illustrates this observance through modern times, and takes the reader vicariously to the areas of Mexico in which it is most enthusiastically observed. Sit down with a cup of chocolate' and some "pan de los muertos" (bread of the dead), and enjoy a book whose topic you might have thought too morbid for your taste, but which you will probably end up finding much more compelling than repulsive. Unfortunately for me (but better for the publishing company!), I am about to order my 3rd copy of "Skeleton at the Feast"--apparently the students to whom I loan it find it too interesting to return!