Guatemala’s Death Culture
On holiday somewhere between the living and the dead.
In much of the Americas, death has a lot to do with bureaucracy and checklists. We manage a lot. Examples include disposing of the body efficiently, scheduling the funeral, and sometimes even the grief process. Many careseekers tell me they feel pressured to finish up “quickly” thanks to rigid work schedules and social norms.
In Guatemala, death is a part of daily life. While visiting this lovely country, I learned about the way they celebrate it with color, noise, food, and even intoxicated horse racing. I’m convinced that Guatemala’s ancient death traditions help its people stay more alive.
A Cosmology of Continuity
The foundation of Guatemala’s relationship with death lies in its Maya heritage. Death functioned as a transitional phase, mirroring a cyclical process embedded in the natural world. This was not mere metaphor — it was a lived reality.
For Mayan descendants, existence is understood as a balance between life and death. That balance requires ongoing participation from the living. The dead aren’t gone for good; they can and do return. I suspect that gives everyone some measure of comfort while they’re grieving.
According to tradition, souls of the deceased visit the living in nightly dreams but also a few times a year in other ways. Elaborate rituals celebrate and honor those who have passed and although the relationships change, they continue rather than end.
Spirit Guides
Perhaps no Guatemalan death tradition is more unique or beautiful than the giant kite festival held every November in the towns of Santiago Sacatepéquez and Sumpango, just outside Antigua. The tradition of the Festival de Barriletes Gigante was born from a legend that, on November 1st, evil spirits came to the cemetery to haunt and disturb the resting souls. The elders’ solution was to drive the bad spirits away with the noise made by wind touching pieces of paper.
What began as spiritual protection morphed into an extraordinary folk art form. Participants prepare the biggest kites with frames made of bamboo poles. Then they fix paper pieces and other decorations onto it. People take months to build these huge and colorful kites. They’re exhibited during the fairs of the Day of the Saints and the Dead.
These kites aim to communicate with ancestors. The designs address themes related to the environment, the fight against violence, and human rights. Some reach 50 feet in height and cannot fly under their own weight, so they’re displayed as monuments instead. At the end of the celebration, participants burn the kites to let the spirits rest peacefully until the following year.
How cool is that?
So cool that the tradition has been recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage. This distinction reflects just how singular it is. Nothing quite like it exists anywhere else in Latin America.
The Race of Souls
Equally unique and wilder is what happens on the same day in the highland town of Todos Santos Cuchumatán in the department of Huehuetenango. This small, remote community hosts a Day of the Dead festival that ends in a horse race. It’s called a “Race of Souls.”
People told me this ancient Mayan tradition goes back to pre-colonial times. It began when thirteen riders rode to a nearby town for the funeral of a holy man. They drank all night, rode all day, and chaos ensued. After colonization, Spanish conquerors banned Mayans from riding horses. They wanted to limit mobility and freedom. Locals did it despite the ban, as a symbol of indigenous strength.
The race itself is still chaotic: riders continue to drink the whole night before and then ride horses the next day, drunk. They wear traditional ceremonial costumes called traje (red striped pants and white shirts with colorful collars), and the event lasts until sunset. If you ask a local of the older generation, they may still see the riding ritual as a protest against colonialism. They also require men to do this at least four times in their lives.
It is simultaneously a funeral rite, harvest celebration, and act of cultural defiance. A good time all the way around.
The Skull Procession of Petén
Like many countries I visit, Guatemala’s death rituals vary dramatically by region and ethnic community. It’s nice to know that Catholic homogenization hasn’t erased local distinctions.
For example, descendants of the Itza Maya preserve a practice that I’d love to see. In the city of San José Petén, the procession of Las Santas Calaveras takes place at nightfall. During this event, skulls of Mayan kings and priests are venerated to receive blessings. Revelers take them from house to house, where homeowners place altars outside full of food and drinks. Then, they display the skulls in the church for nine days, safeguarded by the town elder.
Naturally, the clergy never approved of this celebration. When a local mayor once attempted to prohibit it, people reported hearing church bells tolling mysteriously in the middle of the night. Some claimed to see a multitude in procession behind a human skull, hovering over the calm waters of a nearby lake.
The tradition survived, as many do, underground and then openly.
Sleeping With the Dead
In Santiago Sacatepéquez, people go to the cemetery on the night of October 31st, sleep next to the graves of loved ones, and wake up there on November 1st. They believe that from midnight onward, evil spirits arrive to disturb the deceased, which is why relatives come to protect them.
According to Maya tradition, all of these traditions honoring the dead encourage the living to make peace with the inevitability of death. Nightly dreams, too, play an active role in this relationship. Maya midwives work with dreams as part of the mourning practice, and communing with the recently deceased this way is considered a normal, healthy part of grief.
Guatemala’s traditions remain an inspiration. Living rituals carried out by communities that believe the boundary between the living and the dead never fully closes. In a world increasingly uncomfortable with mortality, Guatemala offers something I appreciate: a culture that has made peace with the full cycle of life.
I loved reading about the rituals of the various regions of Guatemala.