Mexico City - Death causes devastation across Mexico every day, but once a year it turns into a festival onDia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, when cemeteries are taken over by a party feeling and Mexicans laugh at death with funny jokes. In line with tradition, Monday marked the end of the two-day celebration which drew families together to clean up the graves of their dead, and to honour them with food, tequila and music.
Newspapers and radio stations devoted "calaveras," or satirical death-related verses, to personalities in politics, sport and music.
Many names are used in Mexico to refer to death fondly, without its terrible and dark connotations. One representation is a skull- faced female figure, with elegant hats and a smile that is both naughty and sarcastic.
Children are given sugar "calaveras" or skulls - in this case, the objects reflect the word's more widespread meaning - which are also placed on colourful altars to the dead.
Such fun is striking in a country where drug violence has already claimed over 5,500 lives this year.
Finance Minister Agustin Carstens was the subject of a mocking verse which described him as having eaten himself to death in the wake of a controversial tax hike.
The tradition of the Day of the Dead has endured since pre- Hispanic times. In 2003, Mexico's Dia de Muertos was designated by UNESCO a part of the World's Cultural Heritage.
The living gather to light candles to illuminate the return to Earth of bygone souls. On November 1 the country celebrates dead infants, while the main celebration November 2 welcomes the souls of dead adults. Families eat together, and the souls of the dead then leave again. So tradition says.
Orange cempasuchil flowers of the Mexican marigold and purple "velvet" (celosia cristata) flowers embellish graves and home altars.
"We bring our bread, our milk to have breakfast here," one woman said Monday as she arrived in the Panteon de Dolores cemetery in Mexico City.
Tomasa Torres, 39, told the German Press Agency
