Exhibits from El Día de Muertos: How the Peabody Museum Caters to the Dead and the Living

The Day of the Dead exhibit at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology can be considered a “living artifact” of Mexican historical and present culture. The exhibit exists as a representation of a holiday initially celebrated in Mexico which combines Spanish Catholic and indigenous commemorative traditions as a form of cultural and religious syncretism. Despite the fact that it has come to symbolize Mexican culture as a product of European imperialism and Mesoamerican customs, the Day of the Dead did not become a national celebration until the late twentieth century. It is an invented tradition, developed in the sixties and enforced in order to foster unity among the divided regions of Mexico.

The exhibit at the Peabody leaves these details out and instead focuses on syncretism. It consists of a large rectangular box against a wall, with glass covering the open side facing the viewers, and colorfully painted panels on either side of the box. Through the glass, and around the locked metal gate in front of it, viewers can see colorful cartons stacked in ascending rows, lit by overhead electrical candles and topped with memorabilia ranging from candles and crosses, to bottles of wine and replicas of fruit, and photos of deceased loved ones in picture frames. This display presents the Day of the Dead as a celebration combining Old World and New World traditions. It highlights practices performed during the Day of the Dead as rituals formerly performed by indigenous peoples, such as the construction of familial altars dedicated to the dead, and the offerings of incense and food to the images and spirits of dead ancestors. Similarly, it shows clearly the holiday’s associations with Catholicism through the candles, figurines of the Virgin Mary, and crosses. Lighting, specifically that which comes from the electrical candles, stems from an old Roman Catholic tradition used to symbolize the presence of benevolent spirits and angels and remind them that they are being acknowledged. Additionally, the prevalence of religious paraphernalia dedicated to the Virgin Mary represents her position as intercessor of souls in Catholicism, and emphasizes her power to bring souls out of purgatory and raise them into heaven. Despite the pervasiveness of Christian symbols, they are clearly overshadowed by Mesoamerican tradition. The panels on either side of the box show no indication of Christian beliefs, instead portraying squares of painted depictions of skeletons and indigenous peoples. For viewers standing before the exhibit, the panels are an added source of education, conveying an artistic style consistent with the celebration of the Day of the Dead that cannot be seen on top of or around the altars. Thus, the exhibit as a whole also demonstrates an aim to educate its viewers, who are assumed to be estranged from the exhibit’s subject—the deceased loved ones honored at the altars—and as a result, can be seen as “intruding” upon the sanctity of the space. The glass covering the front of the box and the metal gates locked in front of it protect the sanctity of the altars from the viewers, alienating the viewers and emphasizing their position as outsiders. It becomes a preservation of the invented tradition, in order to serve an educational purpose for its viewers instead of attempting to connect with them personally.

However, all of this changes on November 1^st. The Peabody Museum hosts a Day of the Dead festival every year on this date, welcoming Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, their children, and other Boston and Cambridge residents to partake in festivity. The floor turns into a kind of cultural party, filled with stations for arts and crafts, food, and face painting, dancers dressed in traditional Mexican clothing, and art installments designed by children attending the local Spanish immersion school. The exhibit’s gates are unlocked and opened, and the glass behind them is removed. Unshielded, and in such an active environment, the altars become the object of celebration and personal identification, tied to the present. Instead of standing as a fixed representation of invented tradition, they appropriately change into lieux de memoire, as a result of the interactive and interpersonal associations they develop and the ever-evolving nature they take on in this setting. Thus, because the exhibit serves a purpose as a ceremonial construction during the Peabody Museum’s Day of the Dead celebration, it becomes subject to change and reinterpretation.

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology’s Day of the Dead exhibit shows the versatile and multifaceted ways with which American museums keep cultural artifacts and traditions alive. It reveals the impact of cultural diffusion in two manners: primarily through the combination of Spanish Catholic and Mesoamerican indigenous influences that make the exhibit an invented tradition in Mexico, and secondarily through the presence of Mexicans in the United States as proponents of the holiday, allowing it to become their lieu de memoire in foreign countries for generations to come. As the Day of the Dead was developed as a lively source of unity among Mexicans in the twentieth century, so does its exhibit exist as a living artifact that unites people across national borders and changes significance in defiance of cross-cultural constrictions.