A custom

“Funeral” embroidery on rubber, altered photograph. 2014 (private collection)

“How many women would laugh at funerals of their husbands if it were not the custom to cry!” (quote from the book: Women, Wedlock and the world)

with frame

It’s almost time for Halloween. Unfortunately it is not a huge celebration in South Africa- as far as I know, not like others celebrate it in other countries, and especially not in small little towns like ours, but it’s okay. I do wish we celebrated the “Day of the Dead”.

Frances Ann Day summarizes the three-day celebration, the Day of the Dead—

“	On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children’s altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives. The three-day fiesta filled with marigolds, the flowers of the dead; muertos (the bread of the dead); sugar skulls; cardboard skeletons; tissue paper decorations; fruit and nuts; incense, and other traditional foods and decorations.	”
—Frances Ann Day, Latina and Latino Voices in Literature^[6]