Yes. Remember. I landed in Oaxaca completely shaken up by delays and jet-lags and what-if-scares. On top of a general exhaustion from being a PhD student. It wasn’t the best of circumstances. Especially to enter straight into the Día de los Muertos celebrations in Oaxaca.
There are individuals on the internet who claim that Oaxaca is the place to be for Día de los Muertos. I have no way of corroborating this claim, since I’ve only ever been to Oaxaca, but this I can say: They seem to have spared no expenses for this celebration. There was a carnival-like atmosphere in the old city center, with live concerts, dance performances, exhibitions. People everywhere with faces painted like skulls. Flowers and piñatas hanging from windows, and mezcal, mezcal everywhere!
And it was exciting, yes. But also, while I was standing there in the square by the Santo Domingo temple, I got this uneasy feeling in my chest, like someone was squeezing me a little bit too tight. Two papier-mâché giants were dancing to the tunes of a small brass orchestra, with the late afternoon sun making all the costume-clad children look like fairy-tale silhouettes. But. Although the dancers and musicians and children amounted to a fair number of people, I think the amount of people around, watching, with cameras and I’m-not-from-here written all over their outfits, were twice as many. This was a spectacle, and it made me want to just get out of there.
It isn’t that I disapprove of the celebration as such. Not at all. I find this way of celebrating the memory of the dead really nice, actually. I do not believe in forgetting and I also do not see death as something to be afraid of. We should acknowledge death, and the memories of the people we have loved, but lost. I was brought up with a similar tradition, the Swedish All Saint’s Eve, when we always went to light candles on the grave of my great grandmother, and later grandparents. The Mexican altars that people set up in their homes, with flowers, photos, and the favorite foods and drinks of the dead, is a similar way of honoring the memories. As is the lively picnics that people have next to the graves of their dead loved ones.
What I think upset me about these first days in Oaxaca, was how this profound, deeply emotional celebration had been hijacked by flocks of backpackers looking for an exotic and exciting party. It made me feel dirty, somehow. Like I was part of soiling something sacred. Tour companies sold package deals where you could combine mezcal tastings with tours of the cemeteries at night, where people would party until dawn. The thought of it made me feel queasy.
Now, I know that tourism is a very important income for many people in Oaxaca. During the days of the Día de los Muertos celebrations, every single hotel, hostel and AirBnB is fully booked. Restaurants are bursting with people. Hosting this festival is definitely a cash cow for the city of Oaxaca. And all the local people I spoke to only expressed excitement and approval of outsiders coming and experiencing their local traditions (all these people made a living from the tourists, however, so I do not know how representative they are of Oaxacans in general).
And maybe my feeling of “dirtying” of something is a misplaced value judgment of what is “genuine”, a sentiment if acted on forcing “the other” to “conserve” their exotic traditions for the benefit of my experience. Like what is sometimes said about “conserving” policies towards indigenous groups in western countries, where their traditions are romanticised and not allowed to evolve according to the needs and preferences of the groups themselves. I don’t know. Of course people have a right to make a living. And of course people have a right to experience exciting, exotic things. I myself am a big believer in traveling as a way to become a more understanding, conscious world citizen. And if lots of people find the same things exciting, well, then you will get a lot of tourists attracted to the same places. No helping that.
This combination, though. Flocks of tourists and the sacredness of honoring the dead. To me, it just felt wrong. Not in an universal sense, I do not claim to have the right to judge anyone in this. I do not even fully understand where my own feelings regarding this come from. What should have been an exciting experience, just made me incredibly uneasy.
Or maybe it was just the exhaustion from arriving in Oaxaca. The last night of the celebrations, I painted half of my face. A small challenge of my own feelings. It felt OK.
Katja Malmborg 