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DAY-OF-THE DEAD CELEBRATION IN ZAACHILA, OAXACA, MEXICO

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  AP  11-03-95 01:53 AMT
  PM-Mexico-Day of Dead,0483
  Mexicans Close Day-of-Dead Commemoration with Fireworks,
  Meditation
  AP Photo OAX101, OAX102
  By SARA SILVER=
  Associated Press Writer=
     ZAACHILA, Mexico (AP)  At dusk, the people of the village
  gathered to fill the cemetery with tokens of life for their dead.
  They laid marigolds and purple flowers at the corners of graves
  made of cement, stone and tile.
     And then, in a scene repeated in cities and towns across Mexico,
  the Day of the Dead celebrations reached a crescendo Thursday
  night. Some set off fireworks, while others mediated in silence.
     Pedro Mases was one of the quiet ones. He laid a wreath of
  daisies on the grave of his 13-year-old son, Ivan, who died of an
  undiagnosed blood ailment a year ago.
     ``This helps us accept that our son's death was not a punishment
  from God,'' he said. His wife, Blanca, nursing the youngest of
  their four other children, said it helps her remember her boy.
     ``To each his own day,'' she added.
     Then it was back to work until next year for the people of
  Zaachila, a village 21 miles south of Oaxaca City that is inhabited
  partly by Zapotec Indians.
     Mexico's 10-month-old economic crisis took its toll on
  commemorations this year. In some places, people did without not
  only fireworks and flowers, but also the candles they traditionally
  light at the four corners of graves.
     ``The price has doubled from last year,'' explained Zaachila's
  candle seller, Sofia Balean. ``You used to get four candles for
  five pesos, now you get only two.''
     Five pesos is equal to about 75 cents.
     ``Those who have the cents, buy them,'' Balean said. Those who
  don't do without.
     Day of the Dead predates the All Saints' Day celebrations of the
  Roman Catholic tradition brought by Spanish colonizers in the
  1500s.
     Zapotec Indians worshipped the goddess Huitzilopochotli with
  food, incense and flowers on a special holiday when the dead were
  believed to parade around their communities.
     Dominican friars who arrived in 1528 mixed indigenous traditions
  into the celebration of All Saints Day with Masses to alleviate
  tormented souls said to be in purgatory.
     ``Spending the night in the cemetery is a dramatic way of paying
  homage to the dead, but altars in the home are most typical,'' said
  Victor Alcazar of Miahuatlan, a village 30 miles south of Zaachila.
     Images of happy, living skeletons drinking, dancing and even
  marrying permeate Oaxacan art.
     Mexicans living in homes with dirt floors fill floor-to-ceiling
  altars with flowers, sugar cane stalks, corn and fruit. They also
  try to lure home the spirits of dead relatives by stocking up on
  the liquor, beer and cigarettes that they liked while alive.
     Balancing out the vices of the dead, pictures of the Virgin of
  Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint, also are placed on the altars.