Article suitable for older students

Day of the Dead (3): La Catrina

9th Oct 2021

Mexicolore contributor Carlos Leonardo Baresh

We are sincerely grateful to our good friend Karel Baresh for writing specially for us this historical profile of the now iconic figure at the heart of Mexican Days of the Dead celebrations, La Catrina. After retiring as a producer of educational documentaries, Mr. Baresh and his wife established a homestead in the Sierra Madre Oriental. Aside from growing coffee and keeping sheep, Mr. Baresh also writes books based on the stories and legends he has collected during his travels through Mexico and Canada.

La Catrina - the elegant, sensual, extravagant, often funny skeletal woman that is now a prominent icon of the modern celebrations of the Día de Muertos. Most of us know her; most of us like her. And not only in Mexico. The boisterous parades of the Catrinas and Catrines (the male counterparts to Catrina) are to be seen on November 1st and 2nd all over the world. La Catrina, and the Día de Muertos, have become the most popular Mexican cultural export in recent years. Thus, many cross-cultural writers describe Catrina as “the traditional Mexican image of benevolent Death.” Is that so? And how traditional really is La Catrina?

Let’s take a trip down history lane and discover some surprising facts about La Catrina. But, how far should we go? Some historians suggest her ties to the Aztec goddess of Death, Mictecacihuatl, Lady of the Underworld. They say that the graphic artist, José Guadalupe Posada (1852 – 1913), was inspired by the image of Mictecacihuatl, and that based on that imagery he drew the prototype of La Catrina.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Only Posada himself could answer that. However, one thing is certain. La Catrina wasn’t the first skeleton Posada drew.

His famous skeletal caricatures (calaveras) were seen as early as the 1980s. Here, the word calavera doesn’t mean the skull (as per direct translation). In Mexican slang, it also means the skeleton. Not in the anatomical sense (that would be el esqueleto) but in the figurative sense, as we would say, “He has skeletons in his closet.” The word also has another meaning: emptiness or shallowness, particularly when it comes to people.

And here we come to the real roots of La Catrina. We come to the short, satirical poems that were usually composed for the Día de Muertos. These poems were (and still are) called Calavera Literaria (Literary Skeleton).
The requirements for these poems are simple:
• they are written as a satire about a living person (politician or a known figure),
• they reveal some of the person’s “hidden skeletons,”
• they parody an epitaph on a tombstone.

Here is an example of such a Calavera poem. It may have been written about a municipal president who liked his drink too much:-
Don Pedro
Our dear Don Pedrito,
a valiant and righteous man,
skinny as a mosquito
he drinks all he can.
Beer, whiskey, brandy
our Don was a real Dandy
until one early morning,
when without warning,
a barrel of gin fell on his head.
And now … our dear Don Pedro
is entirely and fully dead.
R.I.P.

The satirical poems, Calavera Literaria, came into fashion in the 18th century in the Mexican city of Puebla. From there, they spread like wildfire across most of the country. The collections of the short Calaveras were printed on a single sheet of paper as flyers. These were secretly distributed among the interested population. Why secretly? You guessed it. The poems’ satire of the wealthy and powerful was a thorn in the eye to the ruling class. The oldest surviving copy of these satirical poems is from the 1879 Día de Muertos issue of El Socialista newspaper in Guadalajara.

So, where does our Catrina fit into this? The talented and incredibly industrious José Guadalupe Posada (in his lifetime Posada produced over 20,000 engravings) focused on drawing caricatures of the calaveras (scenes with skeletons) as a social critique of the prominent people and of the controversial events of his time. His skeletal graphics usually accompanied the satirical poems, the Literary Calaveras. And here I see the connection — the poetic satires called Calaveras and Posada’s caricature drawings of the skeletons, also called Calaveras. The circle seems complete.

But it wasn’t until 1910, some thirty years after his first drawings of the calaveras, that he made the headshot engraving of the now-famous figure, La Catrina. At that time, Posada called the lady skeleton La Calavera Garbancera (The Chickpea Skeleton). The drawing, and the name, were a direct satire on the pretentious indigenous group of people who masqueraded as the new European bourgeoisie during the last days of the decaying empire of president Porfirio Díaz. These people were often seen selling roasted chickpeas (garbanzos) on the street corners of wealthy districts.

They were called garbanceros, and hence the name of Posada’s lady skeleton La Calavera Garbancera. He says about her, “…en los huesos pero con sombrero francés con sus plumas de avestruz” (…in bones but with her French hat with ostrich feathers). Here, in bones means poor, shallow; that is, these people were hollow inside (calaveras) but dressed to the nines in imitation of the luxurious French fashion, the style of the time.

But when did the Garbancera become La Catrina? And when did she become popular? This has to do with another famous Mexican artist, Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957). Rivera, a socialist at heart, admired Posada’s avant-garde work and sympathized with his socially-critical approach. Then, in 1947, Rivera paid Posada a tribute in his 50 ft. mural, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.
The mural in itself is a political satire on the corrupt Mexican society. The park is filled with caricatures of prominent people of Mexico’s political life.

In front of the crowd struts a skeletal woman, dressed in French fashion - La Catrina. On her left, arm in arm, walks José Guadalupe Posada. On her right, holding her hand, is a little boy, Diego Rivera himself. Some interpret this image as Diego’s auto-proclamation of being the intellectual son of La Catrina and Guadalupe Posada.
In this scene, Rivera gave Posada’s Garbancera a whole body, and he called her La Catrina. The name reflects the change of times. The garbanceros fell out of fashion by then, and the new over-elegant, pretentious people were now called catrines. Thus, La Catrina. Even after thirty-seven years, she continued to embody the social critique of the time.

Then, something unexpected happened. Instead of seeing La Catrina as a caricature, the Mexican public started to associate her with the representation of Death. Up to this point, their Death had a sombre, frightening face - often called La Huesuda (The Bony One) or La Prieta (The Dark One). And yet, Mexicans never feared Her completely. In Mexican folklore, ordinary people challenge Her, laugh at Her, wrestle with Her for the lives of their loved ones. It’s no surprise then, that the somewhat funny image of La Catrina became the more accessible image of Death. A figure you could argue with, a figure you could challenge, a figure who may sympathize with your life troubles.

Over time, La Catrina took on a life of her own. Her image became the intellectual and emotional property of the Mexican people... their symbol of the approachable Death who comes out to celebrate with them on the Día de Muertos.

And there you have it. A complete cultural transformation, Mexican style. From the humble, socio-political caricature of the Calavera Garbancera, to the nationally celebrated image of the benevolent, often laughable Death, to the international pop-culture star that highlights the modern festivities of the Día de Muertos around the globe... La Catrina marches on.
¡VIVA LA CATRINA!

Picture sources:-
• Pix 5, 9 & 13: image/photos by, courtesy of and thanks to Karel Baresh
• All other images/photos sourced from public domain websites by the author - URLs available on request.

A limerick - Our ode to Catrina...
The lady we call La Catrina
Can be Madam or humble house cleaner;
As Death she’s a leveller,
Yet she acts like a reveller,
But alive no-one claims to have seen ‘er.

Visit the author’s website, which includes a colourful photo gallery of {italicCatrinas} HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for further reading: {italicThe Day of the Dead: A Visual Compendium} by Chloë Sayer and Julia Rothenstein

Comments (1)

Jedidiah

28th Apr 2024

Did the Aztecs believe in ghosts? Did ghosts ever try to communicate or haunt people in Aztec culture?

Mexicolore

Not ghosts as we think of them, but they had their fair share of ‘bad spirits’ that could spook you, particularly at night. Check out our ‘Superstitious?’ entries in our ‘Aztec Life’ section (particularly numbers 3 and 6), the feature ‘Goddesses of the Month: Tzitzimime’ in the Aztec Gods section, and our feature on ‘Notes on the three souls, spirits, animistic entities’ (also in ‘Aztec Life’).

Mexicolore contributor Carlos Leonardo Baresh