A historic cemetery in Raleigh is hosting a Dia de los Muertos festival | WFAE 90.7

RALEIGH, NC – The earthy smoke of Mexican copal incense wafts around the entrance of the historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s a way to keep bad vibes out and invite good ones to Día de Oakwood, a major Day of the Dead art installation and festival here, said Peter Marin.

“It’s like cleaning your house before the guests arrive,” says Marín, 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, Marín said. That’s as true in pre-Columbian Mexico as it is here in this 155-year-old cemetery, where an indigenous Mexican tradition has found a home not far from the burial grounds 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.

“Día de Oakwood” started almost ten years ago, with a small ofrenda at a local Mexican restaurant. Ofrendas were built for Día de los Muertos to invite the dead back so they can visit those they left behind on Earth.

Angela Salamanca, the restaurant’s owner, later moved into the ofrenda at Oakwood Cemetery — and what happened next surprised her.

“You have to come and see what happened,” she remembered the cemetery director saying. “All these people bring photos to the ofrenda.”

Over time, more and more people from Raleigh – including people who had never celebrated Día de Los Muertos – began leaving photos of their beloved dead at the Salamanca ofrenda.

“I even had someone call and ask me to print a photo of a World War II veteran buried here in the cemetery and put it on the ofrenda,” Salamanca said. “And when I came back, sure enough, there were twenty more photos.”

She continued: “It helps me with my grief and my process, to be able to hold it for other people.”

This year, Día de Oakwood has been scaled up: ten altar offerings, or ofrendas, with pieces created by students from six different schools led by Marín.

Longleaf School of the Arts made an altar offering to the 100 people who died during the recent Hurricane Helene that devastated Western North Carolina. Raleigh Charter High School built a public ofrenda for deceased pets.

Marín previously made ofrenda installations in museums and galleries. But making it in a cemetery feels more authentic to the 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 the fact that it’s on the ground, that this is where this is happening. This is the place for it.”

For him, it’s about the cultural appreciation of an evolving mourning tradition that has taken root in a growing Southern city.

“People are here because they want to learn,” says Marín. “If we don’t do something with that openness, we are doomed. If we cut ourselves off from… se acabó.”

“Se acabó,” he says. “It’s over.”

For Marin, it’s about keeping the door open for tradition – and for each other.

“Death is the only thing that unites us for sure, and if we can celebrate death together, then we have taken a huge step.”

This story was produced through a partnership between NPR and Religion News Service.

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