Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday celebrated worldwide. The multi-day event centers around family and friends gathering to pay respect to loved ones who have passed on.
While some scholars insist the tradition has pre-Columbian roots, others attribute the festival entirely to Medieval European allegories of life and death such as Danse Macabre and Catholic observances including All-Saints Day.
Día de los Muertos is, very likely, an amalgam — a manifestation of syncretism, which represents elements of Indigenous, Mestizo and European cultures, much in the same way Haitian voodoo uses Catholic saints as vehicles for the many deities carried to the Americas by enslaved Africans.
In San Antonio, Día de los Muertos is celebrated all over town including Muertos Fest at Hemisfair Park, which will take place this Saturday and Sunday.
Lauded as one of the nation’s largest such festivals, Muertos Fest features a combination of ofrendas, or altars — including the largest open altar exhibition in San Antonio — and a procession that includes alebrijes (skeleton puppetry), people-powered floats, mobile altars, live poetry and music.
On the musical end of things, this year’s gathering will include acts including Girl in a Coma, La Santa Cecilia, Son Rompe Pera, Santiago Jimenez Jr., Erick y Su Grupo Massore, Eddie & the Valliants, Piñata Protest and more spread across five stages. An online schedule offers all the details.
Día de los Muertos celebrates the bridge between the living and the departed in a vivid, ethereal celebration of life that is a thrill to behold — or join.
Free, 12 p.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, and 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, Hemisfair Park, 630 Nueva St., muertosfest.com.
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This article appears in Oct 16-29, 2024.