Go era the Spaniards conquered Mexico and simply blended the Catholic religion with
these Aztecs.
That's all they did.
Let me say this, anytime Catholics went to conquer anywhere, they simply compromised
and blended their beliefs.
It all began with the Celts, a people whose culture had spread across Europe more
than 2,000 years ago.
October 31st was the day they celebrated the end of the harvest season in a festival called
Samhain.
But as the Catholic Church's influence grew in Europe, it frowned on the pagan rituals
like Samhain.
In the 7th century, the Vatican began to merge it with a church-sanctioned holiday.
So November 1st was designated All Saints Day to honor martyrs and the deceased faithful.
When they conquered the Aztecs, all they did was simply change the name, Day of the
Dead.
And what is it?
On November 1st, they honor, it's called the Day of Innocence.
It's a day where they honor and worship the death of children.
And then on November 2nd, it's the rest of the soul.
Skeletons, painted faces and lots of sweet treats.
No, it's not Halloween, it's Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in Mexico and some parts of Latin America that
honors and commemorates death.
It combines indigenous rituals with the Catholic holidays of all souls and all saints' death.
So it's basically the same thing.
Why is that?
Because it's the same devil.
It's the same satanic rituals.
And he can't come up with anything original, so he picks and chooses what he wants from
different cultures and applies it to that era right there.
Day of the Dead, as well, is something to show us how the colonizations and the changes
in the history of our country may include the new things, but preserving tradition.
What we're really talking about is what you see in a lot of cultures, which is material
culture or images and ideas being transferred through time, obviously evolving as they come
into contact with other cultures.
So Mexican culture is very much a mix of the different pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures
that existed before the Spanish colon quest, and all of the influence that came from Europe,
which wasn't just from Spain.
The Day of the Dead is a festival, and in that sense, it's very much a celebration.
And I suppose that is something that appeals to European and North American people, because
that's not the way that we understand death.
Death is, for us, a sad moment.
We do remember our dead, but we remember them in times of solemnity.
I can't look at the sales ad without seeing altars, without seeing Day of the Dead bread,
without seeing a bunch of pagan things.
Use this for your deceased.
Use this for your altars.
Use these marigold flowers.
Use this bread and these sugar skulls and all this pagan worship, and people are just
buying this by the droves.
This is a present thing.
This is not just 3,000 years ago with the Aztecs.
It's present today.