Ofrenda – the ‘offering’
2 November 2004
The ofrenda at the Casa de la Cultura in Tolimán, Querétaro has been painstakingly assembled on a simply decorated altar.
Candles planted in the flesh of organ pipe cacti infuse the atmosphere with the smoke of copal incense.
The dead come to eat tamales and to drink hot chocolate.
What they take is vapour, or steam, from the food.
They don’t digest it physically: they extract the goodness from what is provided.
At midday on 2 November the dead depart.
Those who have been well received go laden with fruit, mole and good things.
Filed in: Day of the Dead, Tolimán
