Paper short abstract:

This proposal approaches the celebration of the Death in Mexico City and in Ahuacatlán. Through this festivity we can discern conceptions about this commemoration, the existence, the body and the person as well as see the multiple relationships among alive and death in private and public spaces.

Paper long abstract:

In the last days (31 October-2 November) was celebrated the celebration of Día de Muertos in Mexico. The festivities occupy multiples areas sometimes in a simultaneous way, taking place both in familiar, cultural and cultural spaces, that is to say private and public spaces. Some of the manifestations like skeletons, sugar skulls and Catrina's likeness, have become transnational images of this celebration but also of Mexican identity and a global. However this festivity does not have the same purpose or symbolic in different ethnic groups in the country.

Therefore, this proposal would like to reveal some aspects of these celebration realized at first in Mexico City and secondly in the Sierra Norte de Puebla at the administrative centre of Ahuacatlán's municipality. In this one the indigenous groups are Nahuas and Totonacs. Among this groups, Todos Santos or All Saints day, is considered as the time of year during which the dead return to their home with their family, they are traditionally received by an offering in the domestic altar to which they are guided through a way of flowers and the light of candles.

I propose in this sense, to expose what does this celebration reveals: first about the celebration as an institutional construction of a cultural heritage; then the indigenous conceptions about existence, the body and the person; finally the multiple and complex relations that occur between living and dead. This particular context made this celebration dynamic and in evolution hence the importance of studying it.