All Saints Day (Día de Todos Los Santos), with is celebrated November 1st, is a time of celebration and joy to remember the saints and loved ones who have died. The day is full of traditions and a mixture of Mayan and Catholic influences throughout Guatemala. Families spend the day at the cemeteries where family members and friends are buried to honor and remember them.
The day is spent restoring and decorating the graves in the cemeteries, eating, drinking and spending time with family. In the cemeteries in Guatemala the families with more money have larger tombs for the deceased and the families with less money burry their loved one's in the ground. A mound of dirt is then placed over the graves in the ground so people can identify where the people are buried. Each year when families gather in the cemeteries they cover the graves with a hard white coat so they will last throughout the colder months and then they cover them with flowers and greens. Unlike the States the cemeteries are bursting with color--the tombs are painted with vibrant colors of pink, green, blue and orange and the smaller graves are adorned with flowers and candles.
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The graves are all covered with a hard white layer and
then adorned with flowers and candles. |
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| A family sitting around the grave of a loved one. |
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| Looking out over the cemetery. |
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| Flying kites in the cemetery. |
Another tradition on All Saints Day is the making and flying of kites (which we did here at
NPH on Saturday) at the cemeteries. The tradition started years ago to ward off all bad spirits, supposedly the bad spirits would disturb the good spirits and cause them to leave the graves where there families were celebrating. The original purpose of the kites was to be flown over the graves of the dead to keep away all of the bad spirits, yet over the years the tradition has grown and become much more commercial. There are now big festivals held throughout Guatemala, where people make huge kites out of tissue paper and bamboo sticks and put them on display. Some of the creators that we talked to had been working on their kites for over six months--they were all so colorful and intricate. Yet right next to the kite festival was a cemetery where families were continuing to pay tribute to the deceased in the traditional ways. When we walked through the cemetery I looked back over the colorful graves and the families were full of joy and the kites flew overhead amongst the clouds in the sky... this is a tradition I could get used to.
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| One of the biggest kites in the festival. |
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| Building the kites out of tissue paper and bamboo. |
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One of the most intricate kites--each part with a
different design. |
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| Looking back at the festival--wow. |
The day is spent restoring and decorating the graves in the cemeteries, eating, drinking and spending time with family. In the cemeteries in Guatemala the families with more money have larger tombs for the deceased and the families with less money burry their loved one's in the ground. A mound of dirt is then placed over the graves in the ground so people can identify where the people are buried. Each year when families gather in the cemeteries they cover the graves with a hard white coat so they will last throughout the colder months and then they cover them with flowers and greens. Unlike the States the cemeteries are bursting with color--the tombs are painted with vibrant colors of pink, green, blue and orange and the smaller graves are adorned with flowers and candles. 
Another tradition on All Saints Day is the making and flying of kites (which we did here at NPH on Saturday) at the cemeteries. The tradition started years ago to ward off all bad spirits, supposedly the bad spirits would disturb the good spirits and cause them to leave the graves where there families were celebrating. The original purpose of the kites was to be flown over the graves of the dead to keep away all of the bad spirits, yet over the years the tradition has grown and become much more commercial. There are now big festivals held throughout Guatemala, where people make huge kites out of tissue paper and bamboo sticks and put them on display. Some of the creators that we talked to had been working on their kites for over six months--they were all so colorful and intricate. Yet right next to the kite festival was a cemetery where families were continuing to pay tribute to the deceased in the traditional ways. When we walked through the cemetery I looked back over the colorful graves and the families were full of joy and the kites flew overhead amongst the clouds in the sky... this is a tradition I could get used to. 
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