Presentation Information
[SY-18-03]The concept of death among Mexicans.
*Sergio Javier Villaseñor Bayardo (Universidad de Guadalajara.(Mexico))
Keywords:
Death,Concept,Mexican
In order to fully understand the current conception of death among Mexicans, one must go back in time at least 500 years. In Pre-Hispanic times, the Nahua peoples stood out for their sophisticated view of life and death, which led them to integrate exceptionally well with the flow of the universe around them. The Nahua cosmology sees man as the center around which everything revolves and which gives meaning to it all. Man, together with the deities of death, is responsible for the permanence of the universe itself.For ancient Mexicans, death was not a cause of anxiety or fear. There was no reason to run away from it: it must be faced standing up, with equanimity. It was something that, even though it was not pleasant, was accepted calmly. Life is short. Their poets – known as cuicanime – were well aware of that and expressed it often: “Just a short time here…” The afterlife they expected was not a place of cruelty, damnation, pain, or suffering, so there was no reason to fear it. What really mattered was how they died, for their transcendence and continuity depended on it. It was not the same to die of natural causes than to die a death chosen by the gods. Nor was it the same to die as an adult or as a child. No death was more glorious than dying in the xochiyaoyotl or Flower War, dying on the techcatl, the stone of sacrifice, or dying during childbirth.The annual visit to the dead in Mexico is not an occasion of mourning but the motive to have a great party. Perhaps an explanation may be found in the Codex Matritense: “The elders said he who has died has become a god. They said that he became a god, that is, he died”.It is not an easy task to describe the many Mexican traditions that celebrate the Day of the Dead. We may wonder if, more than celebrating the dead, the creators of offerings to the dead, also called “altars to the dead”, are actually celebrating life. Could these rituals be an intense prolongation of life in the proximity of death?