The altar is called an ofrenda, and the word is literal: something offered, placed for a divinity or in memory of someone.1 Not a display. An offering, with a recipient.
That is the key to the whole thing. Every object on it is there to do a job for a guest who is arriving tired, and once you know which job, the altar reads like a set table instead of a decoration.
Everything belongs to one of four elements
The organizing logic most families use is elemental. Nothing is on there because it looked good.
| Element | Object | The job it does |
|---|---|---|
| water | el agua | the journey is long and the guest arrives thirsty |
| wind | el papel picado | it moves, so you can see the air is stirring |
| earth | la comida, seeds, fruit | what the ground gave, given back |
| fire | las veladoras | light to find the house by |
UNESCO inscribed the festivity on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008, describing it across Nahua, Maya, Zapotec and Mixtec communities as, above all, the return of the souls of the dead.23
Return is the operative word. You are not commemorating an absence. You are receiving somebody.
The nine objects and what each one is for
| Object | Spanish | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| photograph | la foto | names the guest; without it the altar is for nobody in particular |
| water | el agua | thirst after the journey |
| salt | la sal | purification, and it keeps the body from corrupting on the way back |
| candles | las veladoras | light to navigate by |
| copal | el copal | scent that clears the space |
| marigolds | el cempasúchil | color and smell that mark the path |
| cut paper | el papel picado | wind made visible |
| bread | el pan de muerto | food, and a shape that is not accidental |
| sugar skulls | las calaveritas | the guest, named, in sugar |
Three of these have more going on than the list suggests.
Copal is a resin from trees of the Burseraceae family, burned to perfume a space with an intense aroma — and the dictionary sense points specifically at temples.4 It is not incense in the general sense. It is the pre-Hispanic ceremonial smoke, still doing the same job on a kitchen table in Iztapalapa.
Veladora is not a synonym for vela. A veladora is a thick, low candle lit in homage, on altars.5 The word already contains the purpose. Calling them velas is not wrong, exactly, it is just the birthday-cake word.
And under all of it there is often a petate, a mat woven from palm or tule — the thing people traditionally sleep on.6 Food goes on the petate because the guest has come a long way and is going to rest.
Why some altars have steps
The number of levels is not decoration either, and it varies by family and region.
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two levels Cielo y tierra Sky and earth The simplest and most common in a home. The photograph goes up, the food goes down.
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three levels Cielo, tierra e inframundo Sky, earth and underworld The pre-Hispanic three-part cosmos, which in many households is also read through a Catholic lens.
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seven levels Los siete niveles The seven levels The full version, read as the stages a soul passes on the way to Mictlán. You will see these in public and community altars more than in kitchens.
If you are shown a two-level altar in someone’s apartment, that is not a small or lesser version. Most family ofrendas are exactly that, and the seven-level ones you see photographed are usually institutional.
Being shown one
An ofrenda in a home is a private thing that you are being let into, which is a different situation from the ones in museums and plazas.
Fine
- Asking who each photograph is. This is the point of the altar.
- Asking ¿y a él qué le gustaba? about the food chosen.
- Saying you are sorry for their loss, plainly.
- Asking before you photograph anything.
Not fine
- Moving an object to get a better shot.
- Eating anything on it before the family does.
- Calling it spooky, or comparing it to Halloween.
- Treating a stranger's altar as a photo backdrop.
The food on an ofrenda is not out for guests. It is set for a specific dead person, chosen because it was theirs, and it usually gets eaten by the family afterwards — the belief being that the essence has already been taken. Helping yourself to a pan de muerto off an altar is the single most common foreign mistake and the one people remember.
The bread, the sugar skulls and the sentences to say while standing in front of an altar each have their own logic, and each gets its own page here through the season.
Nine objects, four elements, one guest. That is the entire grammar of it, and it is the same in a museum installation and on a shelf in a one-room apartment.
Hero photo by RubeHM, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
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Diccionario del español de México, ofrenda - El Colegio de México ↩
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UNESCO, las fiestas indígenas dedicadas a los muertos - Lista Representativa del Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la Humanidad, 2008 ↩
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INALI, Día de Muertos, Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la Humanidad - Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas ↩
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Diccionario del español de México, copal - El Colegio de México ↩
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Diccionario del español de México, veladora - El Colegio de México ↩
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Diccionario del español de México, petate - El Colegio de México ↩
Test yourself
Tap an answer.
¿Cómo se llama el altar de Día de Muertos en México?
¿Por qué siempre hay agua en la ofrenda?
¿Qué representa el papel picado?
Difícil: ¿por qué se pone la comida favorita del difunto?
Más difícil: ¿puedes fotografiar la ofrenda de alguien?
