Aztec Afterlife Beliefs

Death has always been seen as the essence of misery, darkness, and evil. When people are exposed to the concept of dying, they are frightened, because death leads to lands that are unknown to man. Even though people do not understand it, the unknown world of the afterlife is assumed to be cold and lonely, an inescapable void. People, when they think of death, are reminded of how they lost their loved ones to it, how they have mourned those they will never be able to see again. However, while this is the widespread view of the afterlife, there are people who see death as a new beginning. It is a door to the wonderful world of jubilation. Because of this, the living sometimes join the festivities of the dead once a year, commemorating them on a day that has been deemed “El Dia de los Muertos”. The Day of the Dead was coined by the Aztecs, who believed that death was another phase of people’s lives. They did not see it as an end, nor did they believe death was something that should cause grief in the lives of the living. In the minds of the …show more content…
This lack of an unambiguous cosmos resulted in a sense of awe towards the afterlife. The world beyond the door of death was a mystical one, one that instilled a sense of perplexity in the living. As stated by Thaneeya McArdle in her article, Dia de los Muertos History, “Death was simply a continuance of life, just on another plane of existence.” This plane of existence could take on any form in the imaginations of the Aztecs. However, people depicted it with the same common principles that are present in modern day celebrations of The Day of the Dead. There were bright colors that would swirl through crowds of dancers, music that played to uplift the spirits of all, and delicious food that was shared with everyone until they had their full. These images dominated the idea of what the afterlife would look