Day of the Dead's roots exposed in music, art

by Abel Horwitz

Daily Lobo

For 10 years, Southern California native Michael Heralda has been reconnecting with his roots and, specifically, the Day of the Dead.

"The Day of the Dead has evolved and changed over the years due to the popularity of the tradition," Heralda said. "When it started, it was simply a ceremony rather than a tradition."

A decade ago, while rummaging through a yard sale, he came upon a fiction book about the Aztecs. Heralda plunged into the book, finding himself fascinated with the culture of these ancient peoples. Heralda, who has Mexican, Apache and Spanish ancestry, had never been satisfied with his education on the native tribes of Mexico, so he decided to do some research on his own.

The more research he did on the Aztecs, the more he realized how little people today are taught about this wonderful culture, he said. Heralda, a trained musician, began focusing on the folk traditions of the Aztecs, including their songs, poetry and stories. He began to tour North America, teaching and presenting these ancient traditions as well as writing books and making CDs about them.

On Sept. 23, Heralda will be at the South Broadway Cultural Center teaching about Aztec death ceremonies, which have evolved into what is now known as the Day of the Dead.

Along with his tour, Heralda is releasing his third CD, Miccailhuitl - The Journey to Mictlan. In the Aztec culture, Mictlan was the place of rest and transformation for the dead.

To help him with the creative side of his project, Heralda turned to artist Catalina Delgado-Trunk. Delgado-Trunk, who lives in Albuquerque, works in a medium known as papel picado, or punched paper. She carves intricate Mexican designs into specific types of paper.

"My ancestors used the obsidian knife for papel picado. I use Exacto (knives)," Delgado-Trunk said.

For the album cover, Delgado-Trunk created "Camino al Mictlan," which represents the Aztec beliefs in the journey that one's soul must take to reach Mictlan as well as showing the belief that life is a dream and death is an awakening to the true life.

Skeletons are prevalent in Delgado-Trunk's art, and while she understands people might consider the heavy use of skulls - especially in Day of the Dead celebrations - as morbid, she wants them to realize this symbol did not originate in Mexico, but in Europe.

"In the Middle Ages in Europe, because of the plague, skulls were in a lot of art," she said. "When the Spaniards came to the New World they brought this tradition with them. In many native Mexican families you'll never see a skull in Day of the Dead celebrations. The Aztecs believed that the skull is where the soul is and this tradition is still very prevalent."

Delgado-Trunk believes American culture has distanced itself from death.

"As time has gone on and we start to understand the causes of death more, we believe that we can control death," she said. "We think the more hygienic we become in the way that we treat death, the more we can ward it off."

Delgado-Trunk said the Day of the Dead as a positive holiday.

"It's about honoring your ancestors, about celebrating their lives and accepting their deaths," she said.

Heralda agreed.

"I hope that people will begin to understand the origins of a really wonderful ceremony and apply it to their lives."