hello, dollies

Last Saturday, I mentioned in the valley of death that I was a bit disappointed that our tourist-magnet Barra de Navidad Day of the Dead display failed to provide the promised giant skeletons. Instead, we were treated to plyboard skeleton heads advertising local businesses. 

My friend Christine Yoast sent me a helpful email the next day informing me that the skeletons had appeared on the malecon the night after I was there. And they would be there a couple more days.

She was correct. Skeletons there were. But not exactly what I had expected.

Mexico has become very creative with its skeletal presentations. In Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, giant skeletons appear to be rising from the grave through the street asphalt. Murals with amazing 3-D effects celebrate similar scenes.

Nothing of that sort was on our malecon. Instead, there was a small chorus line of tall catrinas (or las Calaveras Catrinas to give them their formal name). But nary a catrin was on display. It was ladies' night.

Years ago, Rooster's had a large catrina in front of the restaurant. An acquaintance asked me at breakfast whether I thought it was appropriate to display it other than during the Day of the Dead.

She thought the catrinas were similar to nativity scenes at Christmas. Someone had told her that the catrina pre-dated the Spanish conquest and that the tribes displayed them in cemeteries.

I suspect someone had been pulling her leg. But who knows? There are plenty of false historical anecdotes told in these parts as if they had the blessing of Clio herself.

The silly stories about the origin of gringo being the most prevalent example. Even though it is well-known that the term has been used in Spain and Portugal since the 1700s to describe a "foreigner," the tales persist that Mexican peasants, using perfect English, derided American soldiers in either the Mexican-American War or the Pershing incursion or the Veracruz invasion (you take your pick) with "green go." As internally inconsistent as the tale is, it persists.

Some of that is true with the catrinas, as well. They are not a pre-conquest Mesoamerican tradition. In fact, they are a relatively recent creation. Nor was the catrina originally created for Day of the Dead.

A catrina and that annoying English sign

José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar was one of Mexico's best satirical cartoonists. Like all political cartoonists, he had his favorite symbols. For him, it was bones and skeletons to depict social and political corruption. In the early 1910s, he took aim at the Mexican aristocracy's adoption of European fashion. What better way to satirize women who thought they were beautiful than to show them as bony specters outfitted in Paris haute couture?

The catrina became a Mexican cultural symbol when Diego Rivera made her the centerpiece of his 1947 mural "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon along Central Alameda" -- Rivera's satirical anti-European work satirizing George Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of  La Grande Jatte."

That is a lot of irony for one bony lady to bear. But she thrived. From the mural, she ended up as copies in art houses and tourist souvenir stands, and became the very essence of death in Mexico. The last step to being the star of Day of the Dead was simple.

So, she is a relatively new addition to the public celebration of Day of the Dead. Even though its roots are pre-Hispanic, a lot of forces have managed to modify and modernize Day of the Dead's image. First, it was the Catholic Church that unified the regional celebrations and then lightly modified them. Then the Mexican government in the 1960s decided it should not merely be a regional celebration, but a national cultural heritage. Even the Bond film Spectre inspired chamber-of-commerce types into sponsoring a Day of the Dead parade that owed far more to Rio de Janeiro than to Pátzcuaro.

That is why the asphalt-defying skeletons are so fascinating. They represent a traditional figure in a new guise. Just like the arrival of the catrina as a tradition that is no older than I am.

So, I did get to see my giant skeletons -- even though they were not what I expected to see. And they were quite amusing.

Two Catrinas and a Steve

And the moral of this essay? Check with Christine next year before going to press. In Mexico, if you wait long enough, what you expect will probably occur.

Or maybe even something better.