By james art 
RALEIGH, N.C. — The earthy smoke of Mexican copal incense wafts around the entrance to historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, N.C. It’s a way to keep the bad vibes away and invite the good ones in for Día de Oakwood, a major Day of the Dead art installation and festival, Peter Marin said.
“It’s like cleaning your house before the guests come,” says Marin, a Mexican-American artist who now calls North Carolina home and helps organize the weeklong festival.
“When the Spanish arrived in America, it was too expensive to import frankincense and myrrh. So they started using Copal in religious ceremonies.
It’s an example of syncretism — things coming together, Marin said. That’s as true in pre-Columbian Mexico as it is here in this 155-year-old cemetery, where a local Mexican tradition has found a home not far from the graves of Confederate generals.
The ceremonial copal – with the help of hundreds of glowing cempasúchil flowers, of course – will attract the souls of the dead on November 1 and 2, when the Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and the US
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra/NPR
/
NPR
Día de Oakwood began almost a decade ago with a small offer at a local Mexican restaurant. Ofrendas are built for Día de los Muertos to invite the dead back so they can visit whomever they left behind on Earth.
Angela Salamanca, the restaurant’s owner, later moved into the Oakwood Cemetery lease — and what happened next surprised her.
“You have to come and see what happened,” she recalled the cemetery director saying. “All these people bring pictures of the ofrenda.”
As time went on, more and more people from Raleigh — including people who had never celebrated Día de Los Muertos — began leaving pictures of their beloved dead in Salamanca’s orenda.
“I even had someone call me and ask me to print a picture of a World War II veteran who is buried here in the cemetery and put it up for rent,” Salamanca said. “And when I came back, there were really 20 extra pictures.”
She continued, “It helps me with my grief and my process to be able to keep it for other people.”
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra for NPR. /
This year, Día de Oakwood has grown: ten altar offerings, or ofrendas, featuring works made by students from six different schools under Marin’s guidance.
Longleaf School of the Arts made an altar for the 100 people who died in the recent Hurricane Helena that devastated Western North Carolina. Raleigh Charter High School has built a public ofrenda for deceased pets.
Marin has done ofrenda installations before in museums and galleries. But making it a cemetery seems more authentic to tradition, he said.
“The museum is a good place, but it takes it out of context, doesn’t it?” Marin said. “Because there’s something about being in place, that it’s happening here. This is the place for it.”
For him, it’s about a cultural appreciation of an evolving mourning tradition that has taken root in a growing Southern city.
“People are here because they want to learn,” Marin said. “If we don’t do something about this openness, we are doomed. If we close… se acabó.”
“Se acabó,” he says. “It’s over.”
For Marin, it’s about keeping the door open to tradition—and to each other.
“Death is the only thing that binds us together for sure, and if we can celebrate death together, well, we’ve taken a giant step.”
This story was produced through a collaboration between NPR and the Religion News Service.
Copyright 2024 NPR