Flowers for the Dead

Looking at your reflection in the mirror of western Mexico’s Lake Pátzcuaro can have an eerie effect on one particular night of the year, when candles and spirits of the dead surround you.

While most cities and villages in Mexico celebrate El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, the unique candlelit boat procession to the island of Janítzio slows the pace between the worlds of the living and dead. There’s no jarring travel—no speedy taxi ride through brightly lit streets, or brisk walk past cafés and discos. The idea of crossing water to reach the otherworld is familiar to many ancient cultures. After piling into a small launch with several Mexican families in the lakeside town of Pátzcuaro and noticing the hush that blankets the somber group as the island approaches, this voyage takes on a mythic air. They take the journey to commune with the dead in a way little changed for centuries.

Some say the Day of the Dead has its origins in ancient Aztec feasts honoring the deceased. After death, warriors and innocents became hummingbirds and butterflies. Others were sent to a land of eternal spring. Everyone else went to Mictlán, the land of the dead, ruled by the god Mictlantecuhtli. When the Spanish invaded Mexico, these feast days evolved as a combination of Aztec tradition and the Catholic days of All Souls and All Saints. Celebrated throughout Mexico, El Día de los Muertos is the country’s biggest holiday. Death is regarded as a part of life, not as an end to be feared, and the annual reunion with the dead is observed with both respectful memorials in cemeteries and playful tributes of music and dance.

• Sugar skulls and marigold flowers are meant to be gifts to those who have gone before us.
• Glen's Pics

Festival Atmosphere

On the afternoon of Nov. 1 in Pátzcuaro, I had marveled at mountains of sun-gold and lipstick-magenta flowers, and the women who walked away from the market with human-sized stacks of blooms strapped to their backs. Pyramids of sparkling sugar skulls with sequined eyes and bright frosting smiles glittered on tables under the shady arcades that bordered the Plaza Principal. In the center of the plaza, chatty vendors sold clay skeletons depicted as musicians, policemen, cowboys and brides. Heavy garlands of cempasúchil (yellow marigolds) dripped from hotel balconies. Music blared from folk dance exhibitions in the local auditorium, while cars and trucks drove in endless circles around the plaza, searching for parking.

In an attempt to beat the crowds to Janítzio, I bought a ticket for the boat ride to the island well before dinner. The pier in Pátzcuaro was a festival all to itself, with musicians, dancers and children hawking everything from toys to paper cones full of fried fish. Early or not, I didn’t escape the crowds. My boat was packed with people. As we motored closer to Janítzio, the colossal statue commemorating Mexican independence leader José Morelos glowed in the fading light and seemed to crown the island like a Christmas angel tree-topper.

• Janítzio is a small island in the middle of Lake Pátzcuaro.
• pixteca

Flowers for the Dead

A crackling voice addressed me from behind a monstrous cardboard skeleton hung from an arch at the end of the dock.

“Have you come to walk with the dead?”

The compact woman looked up at me, eyes squinting toward the sunset. Her rough hands gripped baskets of fruit, sugary bread and steaming hot tamales. A giant’s armload of marigolds was tied with white string onto her back.

Speechless, I nodded in response. She smiled a grandmotherly smile, closed lips stretched over her teeth, her entire face twinkling. Suddenly, her right hand shot up into the air, pulled a flower from the tangled mass on her back, and stuck it under my nose.

“Then you should take this with you. The dead love flowers.”

Before I could thank her, she turned and disappeared into the crowd that streamed through the hilly labyrinth of streets on Janítzio. With no signs that I could see, I found myself paying closer attention to detail on the buildings; they served as the breadcrumbs I used to orient myself. My mindfulness turned into good fortune. Walking slowly, I took time to peek down narrow paths and peer into doorways, discovering treasures that I would have otherwise missed. Next to the candlelit altar at the end of a well-hidden hallway were stacks of shoes, perhaps awaiting the beloved dead to come dancing.