The celebration took place during the summer in the Aztec calendar, as it most likely did for most of the other native groups who had participated in similar celebrations for centuries before the establishment of the Aztec civilization. Friends and neighbors drop by with gifts of special loaves of bread in the shape of coffins and skulls as well as other typical items of this holiday season. M exicans' relationship with death is very different from that of Western European cultures and their use of death symbols is pervasive. In native understanding, death is merely a part of life, so it is possible to party not only with dead spirits, but also with death itself in the form of La Flaca, a feminine grim reaper. Through the use of the symbols of death in celebration may seem morbid or even ghoulish to outsiders, they are seen by Mexicans as aids to enhance contact with the spirits who are coming to visit.
Entire families come prepared to spend the night in celebration with the dead.
Hundreds of thousands of candles guide the spirits to the fiesta. In this environment of celebration and some tears, visitors can pass among the freshly painted tombs sharing stories and remembering the dead. In so doing, fanatics of this practice insist that for awhile they are able to so conjure up an image of their loved ones that is indistinguishable from an earthly visit. Even skeptics admit the therapeutic value of having a pre-assigned time to express and shed continuing grief. F ollowing the night in the cemetery, the people return to their homes for the Day of the Dead, November 2nd.