7 Latinx People on What Catrinas Mean to Them
Hollowed-out eyes, stitched mouths, and intricate flower wreaths are some of the distinctive markings of La Calavera Catrina—known more simply as La Catrina, “the elegant skull”—a cultural makeup worn during Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which begins November 1. The glamorous creations have become popularized globally through films like Disney’s Coco and most recently Netflix’s The Chair, but La Catrina is not an aesthetic for a Pinterest board or fodder for a Halloween costume—something that those unfamiliar with Latino culture might not understand. It’s a tradition with pre-Hispanic roots that nurtures a direct relationship between the living and the dead.
Colorado State University assistant professor María Inés Canto, Ph.D., explains that the symbol of La Catrina was born from several elements, including “the relationship that indigenous cultures had with death.” But it was the Spanish conquest and imposition of the Catholic religion that Dr. Canto says hybridized various cultural expressions. “A kind of evangelizing analogy began. For example, indigenous cultures were polytheistic and carried out their celebrations in the open air, so the church began to incorporate festivals and processions of various saints with whom the original settlers could identify.”
La Catrina specifically was created in the early 1910s by Mexican political cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada. According to Dr. Canto, Posada frequently used the elegantly dressed skeletons to criticize the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and the upper classes that supported him during the Mexican Revolution.
“Many journalists used the image of skeletons for criticism, and at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the society in Mexico was very polarized, with lots of poor people and a few catrines who could afford to dress well,” University of San Diego associate professor Antonieta Mercado, Ph.D., explains. “Posada painted many other skulls and skeletons, and used the trope of skeletons to satirize and criticize politicians and public figures of the time…implying they did something wrong, and therefore they were going to be turned into skeletons.”
While Posada’s catrinas were fashioned after European images of skeletons, artists like Diego Rivera “started a tradition of vindicating indigenous iconography in the 1930s.” They considered the Mexican Revolution a war that vindicated the rights of the common people, not elites, Dr. Mercado explains.
The remainder of the 20th century would mark La Catrina’s evolution into a Día de los Muertos tradition. Dr. Mercado believes the beginning of the 21st century was when women really began to dress up as Catrinas. “There were some people who painted their faces in Mexico as skeletons but not dressing up as La Catrina until the celebration got more transnational. Year after year, you could see Catrinas in places where Mexicans and Mexican Americans live in the U.S. as the 2000s advanced.”
The intertwining of La Catrina and Día de los Muertos was a natural evolution of traditions over time—but for Dr. Canto, the potency of La Catrina through the centuries speaks to a significant burden: “I take the hand of that elegant and colorful Catrina to speak of the more than 10 women who are killed in Mexico every day…. I take the color contrast of La Catrina to talk about how the official discourse and most of the media make feminicides invisible as well as to highlight the work of nongovernmental feminist organizations that support victims and their families from civil society. May La Catrina amplify our voices.”
