Halloween caught on quickly in the 19th century in Mexico, and for good reason--it means Day of the Dead festivities can start a few days early. And even better for children, it means trick-or-treating can go on for three days in a row. On the day of Halloween, my mom and I found ourselves in Taxco, where not only did children wander the central park trick or treating on the 31st, the 1st and the 2nd, but they hit all the bakeries in town. Wandering into a bakery in the evening to get my daily requisite pan dulce, I was suddenly surrounded by 15 children chanting this:
La Calavera tiene hambre
no hay un huesito por ahí
no se lo coman todo
déjenos la mitad.
La calavera quiere cenar
Cinco de dulce,
Cinco de sal.
(Loose translation: The skull is hungry, isn't there a little bone there? Don't eat everything, leave us half. The skull wants to have dinner--five sweet ones, five salty ones.)
I thought surely the baker lady would send them all packing with a quick scold for disrupting business. Instead, she pulled out the tongs, and gave each trick-or-treater a nice sized pan de muerto. Most of the costumes I saw warranted pounds of candy. In Taxco, an entire high school class dressed as various dead characters, creating a living ofrenda.
And in Coyoacan (Mexico, D.F.), children dressed as horror movie characters
or aliens
and waited patiently for passers by to take their pictures, and give then some sweets for their trouble.
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