Noche de las Ánimas at Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. November 1 into November 2, 2016. Photographs by Robear Alcantar.
La Otra Lado is one night at Lake Pátzcuaro, where the families of Arocutin keep watch with their dead, and the fifteen days around it. I went to be present, and to show respect to a community that still fills that churchyard every November, and to the ancestors they are calling home.
We came as guests. The families set the tone, and we kept it with them.
For the families of Arocutin this is a religious night, not a festival. There was little music and little drink. We kept our voices down with theirs.
Each one is dug into the earth and ringed with stones. We kept to the paths between them, like everyone else.
Before every portrait, I asked. A nod was a yes. When the answer was no, I put the camera down and stayed.
The families kept it until morning. We sat where we were welcome, for as long as we could.
Dug into the ground and ringed with stones.
Wood and cane, dressed in cempasúchil.
Tall white candles, dozens to a grave.
Marigold and magenta cockscomb.
Bread and fruit in a basket, under an embroidered cloth.
A photograph, or a sign lettered by hand.
Relatives agree on the design, and a senior relative usually proposes it. On October 31 the village raises an arch of tree trunks and marigolds at the cemetery gate, the doorway the souls come through, and rings the church bell to call them home. By dark the whole churchyard is orange.
Arocutin, the night of November 1 into November 2. Five photographs. Press Listen for what I said about each when I showed them, ten years on.
Los niños. The kids.
“Día de los Muertos is two days, November 1st and 2nd. So these people and these families come out, and they are there all night. They bring stuff for fires, and they are out there, enjoying and being with their ancestors.”
Las cruces. The crosses.
“But all these emotions of life and death and love and loss, and how you deal with it, and how you see the joy in it, and the beauty in it. And it is essential to feel all parts of that.”
La abuela. The grandmother.
“Slowing down, and seeing people in their reflections and their moments of reflection. It was very special to me.”
El sombrero. The hat.
“You know, sometimes loss is heavy, and it needs time to breathe.”
La lumbre. The fire.
“In the foreground, you have this older woman who's tending to the fire. And again, very serious, and taking in the moment, and understanding all these different feelings that come with loving and loss and remembering. And you see in the background all the families there with her.”
The night was Arocutin. The days on either side were Pátzcuaro, the old capital, the copper town, and the island.
Lake Pátzcuaro from the yácatas of Tzintzuntzan, October 30.
The hub. We stayed here and worked outward. Flower trucks came in at first light on October 31. The walls are white over deep red, and the signs are painted by hand: black letters, the first letter of each word in red.
Photographed on film. In Pátzcuaro it is now --:--.
The old P'urhépecha capital, on a hillside above the lake. Five rounded pyramids, the yácatas, face the water. There was a power to the design, a circular energy that radiated out of it.
October 30.
The copper town, south of Pátzcuaro. We were here at midday on November 1, hours before the vigil. This vase carries monarchs, the butterflies that fly from the north to Michoacán each fall. I am from Michigan. Seeing the other end of that migration was powerful to me.
A P'urhépecha village of about seven hundred people, thirty minutes west of Pátzcuaro. The cemetery sits inside the churchyard of Nuestra Señora de la Natividad, and every grave is dug straight into the earth. We arrived close to midnight.
The island, the next afternoon. You take a ferry over, and fishermen come up to the boat. The town builds straight up from the water, stairs all the way, and near the top a ledge looks out over the whole valley. A cloudy day, with the sun bursting through.
The towns around the lake each keep their own traditions for Día de los Muertos. A little different, and the same in so many ways.
Twenty-five cemeteries kept the vigil in 2015. A year later, we stood in one.
Tap a town.
An invitation, not a ticket.
We left quietly, before morning, with every candle still burning. Ten years on, I have not been back. I am still carrying the light.
