Missoula Festival of the Dead

Día de los Muertos Returns to Missoula

By Chris La Tray, 10-23-06

I get irritated when people call it “the Halloween parade.”

The Day of the Dead is a celebration of the memory of deceased ancestors, a tradition still observed as a national holiday in Mexico, a public holiday in Brazil, and a significant event in many Mexican-American communities in the United States. Technically a holiday as well, Halloween has become just another exercise in commercial excess, second only to Christmas in its bonanza to retailers (depending on whom you ask, it could actually be anywhere between 2nd and 6th, but you get the idea). The ancient traditions Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve/Samhain crossed the ocean to America with have been lost in a tide of inflatable grim reapers and garish lawn ornaments for all but the most desperate of observers. The Day of the Dead, however, still retains much of its dark, earthy beauty, and deserves to be recognized apart from its trashy cousin.

Celebrated on All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2), Día de los Muertos takes on regional flavor depending on where in Mexico you find yourself. Year-long planning culminates over several days during the holiday; towns are decorated and entire communities travel to the local cemeteries to visit their ancestors. Graves are decorated with Flor de Muerto, Spanish for marigolds, known as the “flower of the dead”. Offerings, called ofrendas, are left on the graves as well. These offerings can be baubles the deceased enjoyed while living, toys for children, or perhaps some tequila for adults.

Shrines are everywhere. People make shrines in their homes, complete with blankets and pillows left out to allow the spirits of the dead to rest after their long journey. Candies, such as skulls made of sugar with the name of the deceased etched into the forehead, are offered as nourishment, as are various breads and sweet treats. Art is crucial to Mexican culture, and it is crucial to Día de los Muertos, whether it is poetry, painting, or performance art like dance and theater.

So how does a holiday so beloved in Mexico find its way to Missoula, MT? Its genesis can be traced to the early 90s, when local artist Mike deMeng found himself in Oaxaca, Mexico, during Día de los Muertos. The Mexican perspective on death and dying, that death is not an end, but rather a beginning to a new stage in life, impressed deMeng. In particular, the use of expressive art and ritual in its joyful approach to death was intriguing. Inspired, deMeng returned to Missoula with an idea to make Day of the Dead a tradition in his home town as well. Bev Glueckert, another artist and UM teacher, teamed up with deMeng to see if they could make it happen. Turns out, they could.

“I think the timing for trying to launch something like this was perfect for us,” deMeng says in retrospect. “At the time, interest in Mexico in our area was really on the rise, and other organizations that dealt with death and grief, like the Missoula Demonstration Project, were just getting started as well. Maybe it would not have worked out so well in other cities in Montana, but in Missoula it did.”

Bev Glueckert agrees. “Missoula is such a great, creative community, and very interested in the culture of mortality. The Festival ties in with the ways we are trying to deal with these issues, both from a serious perspective and a whimsical one. Teachers like it because it gives them an opportunity to talk to their students about how cultures deal with death, which is something that has really been taken away from Halloween.”

Missoula’s take on the Day of the Dead does not come without some skepticism from those who may question its traditional authenticity. Missoula is not home to a large community of Mexican people common to other cities where the holiday is celebrated. How is it possible that authenticity can exist in a locale whose culture is so far removed from the event’s traditional source?

“It was a question raised, certainly,” says Glueckert. “Is this event legitimate? Is it authentic? The best we can do is take the beauty of the idea and try and make it our own. From the beginning we always tried to be respectful of the cultural traditions of the festival, even though we didn’t have a large Mexican community to draw from. What we have also tried to do is encourage other people to bring their cultural traditions to the event, and make it a celebration that honors everyone. In that way we have been successful.”

This year’s festival coordinator, Rachel Winick, is a history teacher at Hellgate High School. Her experience with the festival began in Missoula when she moved here from Chicago five years ago. “I came here to shake up my life,” she says. “My mother had just died, and I was still working through the grief of that. I had only been here about two months when I was walking down Higgins and came across a dedication in chalk on the sidewalk where people had written the names of people they wanted to honor. I picked up the chalk and added my mother’s name to the list, then hung around downtown to walk in the procession. It had a very profound impact on me.”

My experience with the Day of the Dead is also profound, if for different reasons. In my conversations with Bev and Mike, and with Rachel, a common theme is the impact that marching in this wild throng of people can have; I consider it one of the more primal experiences I have shared. There is something about the darkness, and the way the flickering candles and torches play across the decorated faces and shrines of the participants, that strikes a chord deep within. It is almost as if the participants move somewhere else beyond the pavement and streetlights. That, and the constant throb of drums and festive mood of the event, is something that must be experienced to understand.

It may seem perverse, but the first time I participated in a Day of the Dead parade, in Tucson, AZ, was as much erotic as anything else. It was so big, and so overwhelming, that it was difficult to absorb. Here I was in this unfamiliar city, caught up in this otherworldly culture, and there were half-clad forms dancing in and out of my vision, some seemingly on fire. My girlfriend, whom I had not seen in a couple months, was in full bellydance costume with her troupe. They were gyrating up and down the streets to the big drums, and skeletons and devils and who-knows-whats were weaving in and out among them. It was breathtaking, and damn sexy. And why shouldn’t it be? Birth and death, the acts of creating life and taking life away, are mirrors. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones of a mind for getting It on when the whole thing wrapped up.

This time around is different, however, and I didn’t realize it until I spent time talking about the Day of the Dead and what it all means. Like many people, my family is spread out all over the place – we don’t have close ties to the land, to the community, together as a family or as part of a culture. I have not had anyone particularly close to me die, so I have never had to deal with mourning beyond that for a beloved pet. The literal aspect of the Day of the Dead that deals with honoring our ancestors has been something of a visceral concept for me. Whose picture would I carry? Whose name would I etch in chalk on a sidewalk?

My father was given 6 months to live two years ago. His mortality has been front and center for some time, but it has only been the last few months that it has really seemed real to me. Previously his recovery from the initial illness was so profound that it seemed he had become the bulletproof guy I sparred with growing up. Now his health ebbs and flows daily. Every moment I have with him, every cranky, hilarious, irritating, wistful one, could be the last. We don’t talk about it; he is in denial I think that it even looms over him. Last time I asked how he was feeling, he said he was “sick of people asking how I fuckin’ feel.” I just shrug; it's his prerogative to go out the way he wants, and the best thing I can do for him is to let him go down ornery. At least I know that when it finally happens, I won’t feel like he did when his father died. Sitting at a bar in Plains, MT, a pitstop we took while the funeral procession was making its way to the cemetery, he told me he wasn’t upset at all at the old man’s passing. “The son-of-a-bitch never cared a damn thing for me, so why should I care now?” I really didn’t know the guy, my grandfather, so I had to admit it really wasn’t that big of a deal to me either. Dad always says the thing he learned most from his father was how not to be a dad. Sid La Tray may not be the greatest dad ever, but goddamnit if he isn’t the only one I have, and I don’t look forward to seeing him go.

I can’t help but tense every time the phone rings and I see it is from my folks. That is typical for our culture, though. As Americans we are uptight with death. Few choose to acknowledge its inevitability; we want to live forever. A funeral is an uncomfortable, solemn event, and certainly not one that should be accompanied by ecstatic dancing that leads to ecstatic screwing. Now, in this time of war, we are not allowed to see images of our own dead being unloaded from cargo planes in flag-draped boxes. The dead of those we would “liberate” are merely numbers to be argued over; men, women, children – families – become “civilian casualties” or, worse, “collateral damage.” At what point does a number become human? 1000 dead? 2000? 100,000? How have I arrived nearly 40 years deep in life without knowing who my grandparents were, where we come from, and how we wound up here? As Americans, how do we abide these young men and women, supposedly dying for our freedom, to pass barely noticed to the culture at large? We get more angry if the cable goes out during a football game than we do at the notion that our government won’t allow us to really see our dead coming home. Is this the tradition we want to build for our children? Do I want my son to merely shrug when my father, the man whose name he shares, passes away? Reflecting on such questions can fuel our passions to participate in an event like Day of the Dead, and our culture in particular could use some reflection.

These were the thoughts I began to have as I concluded my conversation with Rachel. We had spoken about how she came to be involved with the festival and the difficulties she faced as coordinator, about the wrangling for funding, the logistics of setting and removing barricades, and what ideas she might like to implement for the future to make Missoula’s Day of the Dead Festival even better. I realized that ultimately it comes down to the very thing that brought Bev and Mike, and now Rachel, to even care enough to try and make this thing work: Community. A community that can come together to honor our collective sources in the myriad ways that fate has brought us together. A festival, like this great Mexican folk festival, is defined by the participation of the people involved. Our Festival of the Dead will only be as good as we make it. It is wonderful to see how this festival has grown, and how our community comes together around a common, ancient theme, even if it has its roots somewhere so different from us. I expect to be moved by what I will see, the ways people will honor those who have passed on. I expect to see plenty of folks echoing my concerns about how we can abide so much death being dealt in our names while we blissfully turn away from it. And I know for me, this year, it will truly be a celebration. Another year with my dad around to drive me nuts, another year to celebrate the continued health of the rest of my family, and another year to paint myself up and dance in the streets with my girl.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.