Marigold: Flower of November

Many observers mention the bright yellow flower used as an offering on graves on altars and graves in Mexico on Day of the Dead. Sometimes it is called a marigold, the Tzeltals call it tusus and Brenner writes about the pungent, yellow cempoalxochitl. As with bird names, flower names are often difficult to translate, so it’s possible all three of these are the same flower.

Marigolds have confusing names. Tagetes erecta is the most common variety, and is known as the African marigold, though it is not native to Africa. Tagetes patula is called the French marigold, though it’s not native to France. Tagetes lucida is known in Mexico as Pericon. It is used to make a sweet, licorice-flavored tea.

It also appears under the names of Spanish tarragon and Mexican mint marigold. Then there’s tagetes minuta, also known as Mexican marigold, which, according to Wikipedia, is an important culinary herb with a flavor like a mixture of sweet basil, tarragon, mint and citrus.

Tagetes patula (French marigold)

In Europe, the flower was named in honor of the Virgin Mary: Mary’s gold. (The calendula is also called a marigold, or sometimes, a pot marigold.) Although the genus name, tagetes, is often derived from an Etruscan prophet, Tages, that seems unlikely. This is a New World plant which first appears in 16th century European herbals under the name, tagetes, which may derive from tanacetum, as it has the same strong odor as tansy.

The marigold—one species is called tagetes azteca–was brought to Europe by Portugese explorers who found it growing wild in Brazil in the sixteenth century. The flower was sacred to the Aztecs who used it to decorate shrines and temples. It was sometimes used as a symbol of the Spanish conquest, the red stains on the yellow blossoms representing the blood shed by the Spanish. It was also called flor de muerto, the flower of death.

Friar Duran writing about the Aztec culture described a festival called Farewell to Flowers, celebrated before the first frost:

Among the most solemn feasts was the one called Farewell to the Flowers, which meant that frost was coming and flowers would wither and dry up. A solemn festivity, filled with rejoicing and merrymaking, was held to bid them farewell. On that same day they commemorated a goddess named Xochiquetzalli, which means “Flowery Plumage.”

On this day they were as happy as could be, the same happiness and delight they feel today on smelling any kind of flower, whether it have an agreeable or a displeasing scent, as long as it is a flower. They become the happiest people in the world smelling them, for these natives in general are most sensuous and pleasure-loving. They find gladness and joy in spending the entire day smelling a little flower or a bouquet made of different kinds of flowers; their gifts are accompanied by them; they relieve the tediousness of journeys with flowers. To sum up, they find the smelling of flowers so comforting that they even stave off and manage to survive hunger by smelling them. Thus they passed their lives among flowers in such blindness and darkness, since they had been deceived and persuaded by the devil, who had observed their love for blossoms and flowers. . .

On this day their persons, temples, houses and streets were adorned with flowers. . . . Thus decorated with flowers, they engaged in different dances, merrymaking, festivities, and farces, all filled with gladness and good cheer. All this was in honor of and reverence for flowers. This day was called Xochilhuitl, which means “Feast of the Flowers,” and no other finery-gold, silver, stones, feathers-was worn on this day-only flowers. Besides being the day of the flowers it was the day of a goddess, who, as I have said, was called Xochiquetzal. This goddess was the patroness of painters, embroiderers, weavers, silversmiths, sculptors, and all those whose profession it was to imitate nature in crafts and in drawing. All held this goddess to be their patroness, and her feast was specially solemnized by them. . . (238)

[This selection was translated by John Curl and found at the web site of the Foundation for the Advancement of Meso-American Studies.]

The Portugese took the flower to India where it soon became a sacred flower in Hindu worship. It is grown in great quantities in India and Thailand and used in garlands for rituals, weddings and festivals. You can see the garlands ornamenting cars, carts and tools during the Dussera festival in India in this article at Julie Ardery’s wonderful site, Human Flower Project, where you can also read a great article by Jill Nokes about her journey on the trail of Zempasuchitl.

Marigold flowers can be dried and added to scrambled eggs or other egg and cheese dishes. In Mexico, the dried flower heads are fed to chickens because they add color to the flesh of the chickens who eat them and to the yolks of the eggs they produce.  The flower petals also produce a yellow dye.

The marigold is a great companion plant in the garden. Both the odor of the leaves and chemicals in the root keep away pests. The smell of linalool found in marigolds (and lavender and sweet peas) has been shown to reduce stress.

One of my favorite sources for garden plants, Mountain Valley Growers, sells several unusual varieties of marigold and provides thorough descriptions of them, including the results of a taste test between French marigold and Spanish marigold.

If you want seeds instead, go to this article (also at the fabulous Human Flower Project web site) about marigold missionary, David Moffitt, who gives away thousands of marigold seeds away if you send him a self-addressed stamped envelope.

In the language of the flowers, marigolds have unfortunate meanings. African marigolds mean “vulgar minds” and French marigolds mean “jealousy.”

References:
Greenaway, Kate, Language of Flowers
Kaplan, Lawrence, “Historical and Ethnobotanical Aspects of Domestication in Tagetes,” adapted from a paper presented at the IX International Botanical Congress at Montreal, August 28, 1959

Days of the Dead

The Tzeltals of Mexico celebrate the Feast of the Dead for thirteen days, beginning on October 25th. Graves are decorated with pine needles and tusus (yellow wild flowers).

In Puebla, the accidentados (the souls of those who died in accidents) return on October 28th, followed by the angelitos (the souls of dead children) who show up at noon on October 31, to be followed by the souls of dead adults on November 1. This sequence probably derives from the Aztec calendar which devoted two months to the dead: the ninth month to dead infants, the tenth month to dead adults.

The Aztecs did not fear death like European Christians, for whom it was a time of judgment. The Aztecs saw death as a phase in a cyclic journey. In fact, to die was to wake from the dream of life. In the Yucatan, the Maya bury their dead with food, drink, clothing and other things they will need on their journey to the place of the dead.

The combination of the indigenous reverence for death with the Catholic holidays of All Saints and All Souls brought to Mexico by the Spaniards in 1521 produced a flowering of ritual and art in Mexico around the time of this holiday. Vendors sell skeletons made of paper mache or clay and wire with cotton wool hair, dressed as postmen, revolutionaries, street vendors, wedding couples and musicians and macabre toys, like clay skulls with movable lower jaws or skeletons that dance on a string. In Oaxaca, you can turn a handle and watch skeletons in small painted wooden theatres rise up in their coffins or drink from a cup. Printers make special editions and comic publications, satirizing famous people both dead and alive, who are depicted in skeleton or skull form with satirical obituaries, describing the person and his (mis)deeds.

Children beg for “a funeral” or “a death” and are given treats like bones made of milk chocolate and sugar skulls with maraschino cherries for eyes and grins of syrup and rows of fine gold teeth, sometimes bearing their name. One visitor to Mexico in 1884 remarked on figures in the shape of guitars, sheep, angels, souls in purgatory (I’d like to see this!) and animals “of every species, enough to form specimens for Noah’s ark.”

The Days of the Dead are a time of reunion. People travel home. Altars are set up in houses, and decorated with flowers, leaves, fruit, incense and candles.  Sometimes flower petals are scattered in a path from the altar to the open door to guide the returning dead.

Ofrendas, offerings, to the dead of food and drink are placed on the altar. The dead derive nourishment from the smell of the food and drink so it should have a strong aroma. Starr mentions liquors, cigarettes, mole, pulque and tamales. Anita Brenner in Idols Behind Altars mentions beans, chili, tortillas, and other ordinary dishes plus the specialties of the season: “pumpkins baked with sugar cane, pulque or a bluish maize-brew with a delicate sugar film, and Dead Mens’ Bread. For the children, candy skulls, pastry coffins, ribs and thigh-bones made of chocolate and frosted sugar, tombstones, wreaths, and pretentious funerals.”

Everyone goes to church. Masses are said. Genealogies recited. On the night of November 1, people gather in cemeteries and spend the night with “the little dead ones.” A priest might come and sprinkle the graves with holy water. Candles burn on every grave which are decorated with offerings and flowers. Brenner mentions heavy purple wild blossoms and the yellow pungent cempoalxochitl (marigolds). In Zinacantan, the graves are covered with pine needles, pine boughs and red geraniums and offerings. In Jimenez, people bring the bed in which the person died to the cemetery, hung with lace and curtains, white for children and black for adults. Those who have no beds take tables and place them over the grave instead, decorating them with gold and silver paper stars, paper flowers, etc. Sometimes bands serenade the dead with songs and music. In other places, people dance. Refreshments are sold at the gate.

In San Augustin, the children gather at the church early in the morning of October 31st. From there, they walk to the graveyard, carrying a banner depicting the Eucharist, bread angels and green branches, accompanied by a prayer-maker and a few women and a band. In the graveyard, they say prayers and then return to the church, bringing back with them the souls of the angelitos, the dead children. After praying a second time, they go home to feast with their parents on mole, tamales, bread, squash, fruits, pumpkin prepared with brown sugar, maize cobs and other foods. At night four dishes are put on the floor of the house, together with candles, flowers and food for the dead. Bread and fruit are put on a “sun-and-water” bed made from maize stalks. Candles and tiny angels are left on the dry stone walls and fences so that the village children can come and carry them off. Animals are watched to make sure they don’t eat the offerings; dogs are sometimes muzzled during this holiday so their barking doesn’t drive away the dead. In the morning, the family eats the food left out for the dead and prepares another feast for the dead adults. On the third day, November 2nd, the children, along with the prayer-maker and the band, take the dead back to the graveyard.

References:
Brenner, Anita, Idols behind Altars. Beacon Press 1970, quoted in Sayer
Sayer, Chloe, ed, Mexico: The Day of the Dead, London: Redstone Press
Starr, Frederick, from a catalogue for the Collection of Objects Illustrating the Folklore of Mexico, produced for the Folkore Society in London quoted by Sayer

The beautiful photographs were taken by Judy Maselli in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Taken from my Halloween holiday e-book which contains recipes for sugar skulls and bones of the dead, plus more information on other cultural variants of this holiday including I Morti in Italy, Samhain in Ireland, Nos Galan Gaef in Wales. You can order it and get an instant download link at my store.