'Part of our identity'

The Mexico City government organizes activities for the festival, which in 2003 was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

This year, the festival began with a massive parade of "Calavera Catrinas"-the iconic cartoon skeleton wearing a European-style hat-and ended with an offering at the Chapultepec Forest.

Catrina, who was created by cartoonist Jose Guadalupe Posada in 1910, was a satirical dig at indigenous people who tried to mimic colonial culture.

She has since been adopted as the embodiment of the Day of the Dead.

"Mexico views death as something normal and makes the most of it," said Yamile Nino, a 15-year-old student whose face was painted like Catrina. "It's part of our identity."

In his book The Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexican author Octavio Paz, who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in literature, wrote: "The Mexican is familiar with death, jokes with it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it."

For sociologist Jonathan Juarez, the Day of the Dead is "in itself an expression of Mexican multiculturalism".

"All cultures are modifiable," said Juarez, an academic from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

"On the other hand, life and death are highly striking phenomena for humans and produce great fervor," he said, noting that communities in other countries also share the Mexican view of death.

Susana Rodriguez, a 44-year-old housewife, has fond childhood memories of the celebration and is passing on that enthusiasm to her children.

"The dead wake up from their eternal dream to share life with us," she said.

Xinhua