Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central. Painting by Diego Rivera, Public Domain

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A Cherished Mexican Literary Tradition

by Ulises Paniagua

Literary calaveritas originated during the Day of the Dead celebration on November 1st and 2^nd and are part of a beautiful and deep-rooted Mexican tradition. They appear on walls, school chalkboards, social media feeds, and in offices, always in an atmosphere redolent with incense and cempasúchitl.

Calaveritas can be seen and read placed among offerings and altars created to welcome the dead. Those who return to mingle with us and to relive a few of the earthly pleasures of the “un poco aquí” of the Mexica. The dead return to enjoy life eating the essences of fruit: tejocotes, mandarins, bananas, pears, and apples. The dead come for a sip of water, for tamales or bread baked expressly for the occasion. They gather to taste, one more time, certain dishes like rice and mole; and, of course, the to experience harsh sweetness of national drinks like hot chocolate, pulque, tequila and mezcal. If they enjoyed them in life.

Calaveritas, on the other hand, are poems usually composed in the style of a décima (they maintain that rhythm). The poem imagines a the person it refers to is sought after by Death to be taken away. This is either a playful joke in the spirit of memento mori, or it can be a settling of accounts with people who have behaved terribly toward everyone else. Politicians are a usual target.

Far from being gloomy, these texts are mocking, affectionate and ironic. They often highlight a characteristic trait of their target: their occupation, quirks, virtues, and flaws. The great triumph of this literary genre is to demonstrate that death is democratic because it makes us equal: white or brown, rich or poor, Buddhist or Catholic, European, African, Asian, or Latin American.

Calaveritas were born as a satirical genre in texts like pamphlets that circulated in the streets, were posted on walls, or slipped under doors during the time when Mexico was known as New Spain and governed by a Viceroy. Calaveritas have blossomed in the press in modern times modernity. Various sources say the first calaveras were printed in the newspaper El Socialista in Guadalajara in 1849.

Without a doubt, the most celebrated calaveras were those written and illustrated by José Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican social critic and engraver who is the father of the visual concept of the calavera. The expansion of this tradition is closely associated with Posada’s engravings, as well as linked to the popular publications of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. In these pamphlet-style editions the drawings and verses appear accompanied by skeletons dressed as politicians, elegant ladies, merchants, or soldiers as social critique.

Some of them were used to ridicule the dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz (who remained in power for over thirty years). Such subversive irony contributed greatly to fostering the ideological awareness of the Mexican people with an eye to the oncoming Revolution of 1910.

The most important image in the genre, with respect to engravings, was José Guadalupe Posada’s Calavera garbancera; a well-dressed calaca adorned with jewelry, alluding to upper class young women. The Calaverera garbancera was used by Diego Rivera, a student of Posada, in his 1947 mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central where she appears right beside him. From that moment on, the Calaverera garbancera took the name Catrina and has become internationally known.

As an additional and curious fact, is that Death has many names in Mexico; among them: Calaca (Skeleton), Flaca (Skinny), Huesuda (Bony), Pelona (Baldy), Parca (Grim Reaper), Dientona (Big-Teethed), Tilica (Scrawny), Comadre Sebastiana (Godmother/Pal Sebastiana), Hermana Blanca (White Sister), Señora de Negro (Lady in Black), Güera (Blonde/Fair-skinned), Madrina (Godmother), Descarnada (Fleshless), Desdentada (Toothless), Segadora (Reaper), Pálida (Pale One), Novia Fiel (Faithful Bride), Igualadora (The Equalizer), Impuntual (Unpunctual One), Ineludible (Unavoidable), Dientona (Snaggletoothed), and, of course, Catrina.

I share a brief calavera I of my own:

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To the Politicians

The world was being run
by crazy people, every one,
Death arrived to give to each
exactly what they grasped for.

Politicians saw the skeleton near
hid themselves at once in fear.
Then came out, feeling safe and sound,
But to “La Flaca” they were bound.

All the war and destruction, caused
the taxes and the prohibitions,
a moment of redemption, then
they shat themselves in agitation.

Said Death, in a raspy voice:
“I’m taking you all, you lazybones.
Go scheme on the other side,
About your presidential ambitions

The people today are happy and grateful;
Death is the healer of their ailments.
“Thank you, Calaca dear,” they say,
“you freed us from those animals.”

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A Los Politicos

Estaba un día el mundo
gobernado por gente loca
cuando llego la muerte
a darle a cada quien lo que le toca

Vieron los políticos venir al esqueleto
y de inmediato se ocultaron
Cuando salieron, al sentirse a salvo
con la “flaca” se encontraron

Recordaron tanta guerra y destrucción
los impuestos y las prohibiciones,
y aunque tuvieron un momento de redención
se hicieron del baño en los calzones

Dijo la Muerte, ronca:
“Me los llevo a todos, bola de haraganes.
Vayan a inventar, al otro lado,
sus avances presidenciales…”

La gente, hoy, está feliz y agradecida,
tiene a la Muerte cual sanadora de sus males
“Gracias, querida Calaca”, le dicen,
“nos libraste de esos animales”.

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Ulises Paniagua (Mexico, 1976) Narrator and poet. Winner of the Gabriel García Márquez International Short Story Contest, Colombia (2019). Interviewed by Silvia Lemus on the program Tratos y retratos on Canal 22 (2022). In 2023, he was interviewed in an episode of the series La ciudad es mi letra on Capital 21 TV. Featured in the anthology Puente y Precipicio in Russia (2019). Author of two novels, nine short story collections, two books of chronicles, and seven poetry collections. His work has appeared in Nocturnario, Círculo de poesía, Punto en línea, Ígitur, Nueva York Poetry, Altazor, Algarabía, and Periódico de Poesía. Published in Revista Anestesia through his column Los textos del náufrago. Director of the International Colloquium on Poetry and Philosophy (supported by FCE). Former director of the Digital Horror Collection at Editora BGR (Spain). His work has been translated into English, Russian, Greek, Serbian, Czech, and Italian. He is also Latin American editor at Ars Notoria – The Art of the Noteworthy.