Incredible Día De Los Muertos Photos Show Just How Weird And Wonderful The Celebration Is

It’s also worth remembering that while the Day of the Dead certainly comes from — and is most associated with — Mexico, it’s actually honored all over Latin America. And if you’ve ever thought about taking part, you should definitely get to know the lingo. So those ubiquitous multicolored skulls are called calaveras and the skeletons are called calacas. There are plenty of other important things you should know about the tradition, too.

The whole point of the Day of the Dead is to remember those who have passed in a celebratory way. That’s because pre-Hispanic civilizations such as the Aztec and the Toltec people thought that grieving for those who’d died was almost insulting. After all, they didn’t consider death as the end of life — only a natural part of it. They believed you’d see your loved ones again, too.

During the Day of the Dead, then, it’s believed the people who have passed on will once again walk the Earth. This means that those of us lucky enough to still be alive get the chance to see and celebrate our loved ones at this time every year. The dates of the event — November 1 and 2 — also fall on the days that the Catholic calendar records as All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, respectively.

One of the most important parts of the Day of the Dead is an altar — or ofrenda. You’ll find these in people’s houses as well as in cemeteries throughout Latin America. But these altars are not for praying at. During Día de los Muertos, people will pile the altars with gifts for those who have made the journey from the afterlife. These items essentially welcome the spirits home.

The offerings laid at each altar will differ from family to family, but there are some common themes for all. For example, they could include practical items such as water and food to help the spirits recover from their trips. A candle for each loved one who’s passed is essential, too. But personal items such as family photographs or well-loved toys for infants are also thoughtful contributions.

You might have seen marigolds in many photographs of the Day of the Dead festivities. This is because the flower is the most iconic symbol of the event — it’s even known as flor de muerto. Marigolds will adorn altars and then the petals will be used to mark trails from the altars to the loved ones’ graves. It’s believed this path will help to show the spirits the route back to their final resting places.

The other significant meaning of marigolds is as a reminder that life is fleeting and so should be cherished. And it’s no coincidence that these flowers are indigenous to the Americas. In fact, the pre-Hispanic culture of the Nahua thought marigolds were given to them by the Sun god “so that they might honor their dead.” They’ve been used in this way ever since. 

The altar normally has one other significant feature: copal incense. This is tree resin, and the smoke it gives off is thought to transfer the blessings of the living to the dead coming through. It also works to cleanse the air near the ofrenda to make for easier passage. But not everything about Día de los Muertos is quite so serious.

There was once a second meaning to calavera, you see. According to National Geographic magazine, a calavera in the late 1700s and early 1800s was a funny obituary that often made light of those still alive. The witty poems then got used in Day of the Dead ceremonies — and people are still making them today. And it was these bookish calaveras that actually led to the creation of the most omnipresent symbol of Día de los Muertos.

Even if you don’t know the name of calavera Catrina, you will certainly know the face. Catrina is the female skeleton that wears a big, beautiful hat that is usually colorfully adorned with flowers and ribbons. The design is normally attributed to the artist Diego Rivera, who featured Catrina in his mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.” But the inspiration behind Catrina can be traced back to the obituary calaveras of the 19th century.

National Geographic reported that Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada first drew the skeleton that inspired Catrina back in the early 1900s. Posada’s calavera was a man known as Garbancera who wore a French outfit. The figure was accompanied by the phrase, “We are all skeletons.” Its meaning, of course, was that people are all the same beneath the surface. Rivera apparently adapted Garbancera into Catrina for his famous 1947 mural.

People have since adopted Catrina as almost the face of the Day of the Dead. Many people will dress up as Catrina — or as similarly decorated skeletons — for Día de los Muertos and take their celebrations out into the streets. Some may even make as much noise as possible to either add to the party atmosphere or to symbolically awaken the spirits and allow them to join the festivities. 

The streets, public squares, and homes throughout Latin America will also find themselves decorated for the Day of the Dead. A common decoration is papel picado — or pierced paper — that you’ve no doubt seen in the incredible images of this event. The extraordinary adornments are created by piling up tissue paper and carving pictures out of the layers. The pierced paper has symbolic meaning, too: it demonstrates how frail life really is.

It’s possible, of course, to celebrate the Day of the Dead without being in Latin America. In New York, for example, the non-profit organization Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders makes a big deal out Día de los Muertos for those wishing to join the festivities without traveling to South America. Yet the biggest celebration of all really does take place in Mexico City.

If you want to enjoy the most iconic sight of the Day of the Dead each year, then, you have to get yourself a spot along the route of the grand parade in Mexico City. You’ll get to see all the colorful costumes you could possibly hope for as well as enjoy live music and other festivities besides. Yet not every community celebrates the event in the same way.

While there are neighborhoods all over Latin America that will come together for the Day of the Dead, there are different styles in each region. In Pátzcuaro, for example, residents will travel by canoe to host a night-long vigil in an island cemetery. And in Mixquic, people will spend the Day of the Dead washing and decorating the burial places of their deceased family members. 

If you travel to Tuxtepec, though, you’ll get a glimpse of the city’s famous sawdust rugs. Community members will create them in the streets, ready for a competition held during the Day of the Dead. And in Aguascalientes, the festivities continue for the best part of a week. The food and drink on offer at any one of these ceremonies will be personal, too. 

For example, some people will put the favorite food of their ancestors on their altars. This is so the spirits of their passed family members can enjoy a feast when they arrive back on Earth. Another common offering is pan de muerto — or bread of the dead. This sweet bread is garnished with skulls and skeletons and other personal touches.

Sugar skulls are often seen around this time, too. And the traditional drinks that people might enjoy include pulque, atole, and hot chocolate. Pulque is boozy, yet it’s made from agave — which is also responsible for mezcal. Atole, meanwhile, is hot and corn-based — perfect for the cold nights in November. But it’s clear that how you celebrate the Day of the Dead is not as important as why you celebrate.

The festivities around the Day of the Dead are even recognized by UNESCO. The organization includes the celebration in its Intangible Culture Heritage of Humanity listings. That means Día de los Muertos is as significant a cultural heritage as any monument appreciated by generations around the world. It is, after all, an event that dates back thousands of years — and it is still going strong today.

Mind you, it's not the only party to have monsters, ghouls, goblins, or devils on the guest list — and it's not the only gathering that is anything but ordinary. The otherworldly oddities at some other festivals attract guests from all over the world, too. Some look like a scarily good time, while others are just plain creepy. Could you bear to spend an entire day partying it up at one of these fright-fests?

The Kukeri are Bulgarian folk dancers who specialize in frightening away evil spirits. Indeed, one look at their creepy costumes would send most beings, discarnate or otherwise, fleeing terrified into the night. The Kukeri Festival takes place at the end of January in the city of Pernik, Bulgaria, and sees thousands of Kukeri congregate from across the country.

Leading up to Easter Sunday, Holy Week celebrations in Zamora, Spain, feature unnerving processions of penitents bearing flaming torches through dark city streets. Their white robes and ghostly conical hats, which have roots in medieval society, are intended to obscure the identities of the participants and symbolize their humility as sinners who must be redeemed.

They're weird, morbid, and proud of it — there may be no higher compliment for a Goth than “creepy.” Needless to say, the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Germany is a spectacular creep-fest that features some of the world’s best – and most extreme – dark art and music. It is attended by thousands over the Pentecostal weekend in Leipzig.

Celebrated with aplomb in Basel, Switzerland, Fasnacht – the world’s only Protestant carnival – veers between the magical and the grotesque with its wealth of colorful costumes and masks. Featuring everything from scary clowns to gruesome demons, the parade of outlandish characters is as weird, wonderful, and outright creepy as those of any other pre-Lent spectacle.

Indiana Jones wouldn't be a fan of this gathering. Snakes are reviled in Judeo-Christian teachings as harbingers of evil, but Hindus worship them during the festival of Nag Panchami. Taking place in the lunar month of Shravan (usually falling in July or August), the festival involves prayers and offerings to serpent deities, which participants believe will protect them from poisonous snake bites.

Don’t be fooled by the name; the Vegetarian Festival is actually a gruesome gala of blood, gore, and ritual self-mutilation. Most famously celebrated in Phuket in Thailand, the nine-day event – starting on the eve of the ninth lunar month – sees entranced Taoist devotees walking on hot coals, slashing their bodies with swords, and impaling themselves with spikes.

The gates to the Chinese underworld are flung open during the seventh lunar month, unleashing throngs of long-necked “Hungry Ghosts,” along with venerated ancestral spirits, into the realm of the living. In the Hungry Ghost Festival, on the 15th day of the month, Taoists and Buddhists placate the spirits by leaving food out for the hungry ghosts and burning paper, incense, and giant statues of deities.

Skol! Viking roars sound through the night during the festival of Up Helly Aa, a blazing celebration of destruction that culminates in the ritual torching of a replica longship. The festival, which has roots in the pre-Christian yuletide traditions, takes place in January in the town of Lerwick on Scotland’s Shetland Islands. If you go, don't forget your helmet!

The ghoulish masks of the Busós were enough to scare away the winter – or an invading force of Ottoman Turks – depending on which legend you subscribe to. Whatever the truth, though, the Busójárás festival is a national treasure of Hungary, celebrated each year at the end of Carnival in the town of Mohács.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November. The sky burns on bonfire night, a beloved British institution commemorating the foiling of a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The town of Lewes lays on one of the country’s most spectacular parades and firework displays while children burn effigies of the Catholic plot’s ring-leader, Guy Fawkes. Parading burning crosses, the people of the town simultaneously pay homage to a group of Protestant martyrs who were burnt to death in the 16th century because of their faith.

Recalling the historical struggles of African slaves, the festival of Devils and Congos takes place once every two years in the village of Portobelo on Panama’s Caribbean coast. The fearsome and elaborately costumed devils represent Spanish slave traders. Meanwhile, the Congos symbolize the villagers’ ancestors who rebelled against their masters, escaped from slavery, and formed their own communities.

Violent animal sacrifices were once part of the Satanic Black Mass at Lake Catemaco in Mexico, but these have been outlawed, leaving only burning pentagrams and murmured prayers to placate the Prince of Darkness. Taking place on the first Friday of March, the Mass is the opening rite in a three-day festival dedicated to sorcery.

The Namahage are grotesque knife-wielding demons portrayed by men in costume who travel from house to house demanding to know, “Are there any crybabies around? Any naughty children?” They descend upon the city of Oga, Japan, as part of New Year’s Eve festivities, and their main job is to caution citizens against laziness and to bring good luck for the approaching year.

Featuring a cavalcade of dancing monsters, Los Agüizotes is just one of many spirited fiestas that take place in Nicaragua’s cradle of folklore, the city of Masaya. Fusing a variety of indigenous and Spanish myths, its characters include headless men, ghosts, and weeping women. It takes place on the last Friday of October as part of a feast dedicated to Saint Jerome.

Beware the flamboyant “limping devils” who enjoy nothing more than attacking people during annual carnival celebrations in the city of La Vega, Dominican Republic. Oddly enough, their weapon of choice is an inflated animal’s bladder. Carnival represents the big blow-out before Lent, and its date, usually in February, changes with the Easter calendar.

Outsiders are often unnerved by some of the traditional rituals of the Muslim Day of Ashura, which include self-flagellation with chains and blades. Such violent practices are now forbidden in the likes of Iran and Lebanon, but they continue in parts of Burma, Bangladesh, and India. The festival commemorates the slaughter of the grandson of Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali.

Fear not the Devil, for this village has an arsenal of turnips and rutabagas. Piornal in Spain has a unique method for driving out evil. Each year on Saint Sebastian’s feast day in January, one “lucky” villager is chosen to play a demonic creature called Jarramplas, whose fate is to be pelted with thousands of root vegetables in the village square.

This funeral is for the living, not the dead. The procession of open caskets that sweeps through the town of Las Nieves in Spain each year on July 29 carries members of the community who have recently had brushes with death but are still alive and kicking. That’s why the festival is also known as the Fiesta of Near Death Experiences and is dedicated to the patron saint of death.

Nothing conjures the magic of Christmas like a horde of demonic goat creatures. Possibly of Viking origin, Krampus is the shadow of Saint Nicholas – a horned, hairy underworld monster who punishes bad children with crummy gifts of coal. And for some kids these days that’s surely a fate worse than death. Krampus Night is celebrated on December 5 in Austria and other central European countries.

If you're afraid of heights, you might want to go elsewhere. Adventurous folks from all over the world gather here with fellow "slackers" to spend their day suspended over the Dolomite Alps on a slackline. They walk on the slackline and set up their hammocks, where they chill with other adrenaline junkies and enjoy the breathtaking views.

If New Mexico is known for anything, its scorching temperatures and UFO sightings. Seriously, there seems to be an inordinate number of spaceships whizzing across the sky in Roswell, New Mexico. This is probably why they have a festival celebrating the little green visitors every year. There's an alien costume contest, a space-themed parade, and conventions held by UFO enthusiasts. Let's hope no one sees anything suspicious in the sky...

Ready to get a little dirty? This tradition originally started out as a marketing stunt produced by a make-up company to advertise the mineral mud used in their product. People in the area loved it so much that they made it into an annual event. It lasts two whole weeks, so there is plenty of mud to go around. It's not exactly a "scary" festival...until you're covered in mud, that is.

Got a light? The Yi Peng Lantern Festival is held annually in Thailand and the surrounding countries with strong Thai roots. Festival-goers light thousands of paper lanterns and release them into the sky, creating an otherwordly view. The ritual represents letting go of negative energy and making room for well-wishes and the positive energy to come.

A proud tradition for about 200 years, this festival features recreational folk art where artists dress up as tigers and hunters and perform a dance called the "Play of the Tigers." Traditionally, only men and children were permitted to join the dance, but recent editions have included women too. The Puli Kali Festival takes place during the Onam, an annual harvest festival celebrated in the Indian state of Kerala.

Since 1945, tens of thousands of participants have gathered in the streets to throw tomatoes at each other. For what reason? None at all. This annual event — dubbed the world's largest food fight — is held for pure entertainment. The tomato throwers leave the event covered in red juice, though apparently the acid from the food helps clean the city streets!

Believe it or not, this festival's name translates to "Baby Jumping." Every year in Castrillo de Murcia, Spain, in celebration of the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi, newborn babies are lined up and placed on mattresses. They are sprinkled with petals and confetti, and then men in yellow and red jump over them. It's said to cleanse the newborns from original sin.

Every spring, to mark the end of the bitter winter, communities distribute bright and colorful powders on the street, which people throw at one another. Though it seems like pure fun, the tradition represents the triumph of good over evil, thanks to the Hindu god, Krishna. She loved to play pranks and would splash water onto village girls.

Did you know that Golden Retrievers hail from the rolling hills of Scotland? Well, in the summer of 2006, hundreds of Golden Retrievers from all around traveled to their motherland to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Golden Retriever Club of Scotland. Owners loved this so much that they have since made it an annual gathering.

During the early spring, between the 13th and 15th of April, Thailand breaks out into a massive water fight. This tradition stems from a time when Thai people washed their homes to cleanse themselves from the past year's energy. Nowadays, it's more of a fun festival with lots of water balloons and super soakers — and a nice way to beat the heat.

Every year in Gloucester, people gather at a very steep incline known as Cooper's Hill. The whole point of the contest is to chase a cheese wheel down the massive hill. Whoever crosses the finish line first gets to keep said cheese wheel as a victory prize. The rest usually end up at the hospital.

The festival celebrates exactly what you think it does... moose excrement. The small village holds a festival to celebrate the moose by turning their fecal matter into trinkets, like jewelry, and dropping the stuff out of hot air balloons in an attempt to hit a target far below. It's a little gross, but at least the raw material they use is cheap!

Every November, villagers in the Lopburi Province lay food out for monkeys in the area to enjoy a free meal, and the primates come out in droves to the all-you-can-eat buffet. It is believed to have started as a way to honor the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman. The extra tourism that the festival brings is just an added bonus.

This massive gathering takes place annually on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice. The parade celebrates the start of summer and features all kinds of costumes, which are often nautical-themed and a bit risqué. Thousands of people participate in the parade each year, but only two lucky partygoers earn the crowns of King Neptune and Queen Mermaid.

The festival takes place over nine days in early October. The world's largest balloon festival, over 600 hot air balloons — in various colors and shaped like famous characters — annually take to the skies. That's a big boost from its first incarnation in 1972, which featured just 13 balloons going up, up, and away.

Though this annual celebration has only been around since 2006, it has already made its mark on the art world. Ágitagueda attracts thousands of creators and admirers to its lovely riverside city, which is decked out in all kinds of colorful designs. Of course, many think the highlight of the festival is when thousands of umbrellas are suspended above the city streets.

This one-of-a-kind event that celebrates the commemoration of Saint Joseph was added to the UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list several years back, and for good reason. Originally, each neighborhood in Valencia built small bonfires, but nowadays, they create fantastically decorated monuments that are eventually burned during the festivities. The towering flames light up the city's plazas at night.

This 200-year-old tradition takes place on December 28 each year to celebrate the Day of the Innocents. People take part in a mock battle between the married men, "Els Enfarinats," and the group trying to restore order, "La Oposicio." They fight by throwing flour and eggs at one another. At the end of the day, order is restored, and any money raised is donated to charity.

For centuries, the tradition of hanami — which means "watching blossoms" — has captivated the world, and there's nothing quite like the cherry blossom festivals in Japan. Since there's no set day or time when the blossoms will bloom, people travel from far and wide in hopes of catching them right as they flourish. If they do, then they celebrate beneath the beautiful flowers. Sakura — cherry blossom trees — have long held spiritual significance in Japan.