It is man's conquest of death when fear disappears in the grin of a dancing paper-mache skeleton. Skeletons rise from sugar coffins in marzipan graves. This is the survival of an ancient Indian belief that the mortal soul of the deceased still craves for human comforts. Cemeteries have more visitors than any other day of the year. They look more like campsites because people actually camp there.
People stay overnight and lay the favorite dishes of the deceased on the tombs.
The expectation is for the dead to come and eat. Meanwhile, the relatives drink and pray. It is only after the dead have eaten that they join in picnicking by the gravestone. All through the pre-Colombian era there was a strong cult of the dead. A cult that honored death, not for death's sake, but as a counterpart to life, as seen in the dual beliefs of the pre-Hispanic mined.