Day of the Dead Masks: What They Mean and Where They Are Worn

The Oakland Museum of California describes a painted wooden mask from Oaxaca used during the Days of the Dead by men who went from house to house asking for food or money. Its Día de los Muertos curriculum places masks like this in some of the season's dances and in processions to the cemetery. In those settings, a mask is part of a performance that moves through the community, visiting households and walking toward the graves where families gather.

That is a specific practice in a specific state. Not every town in Oaxaca uses masks the same way, and not every Mexican state uses them at all for Día de Muertos.

The most fully documented masked tradition of the season comes from the Huasteca, a region that crosses parts of Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas. There, the Days of the Dead are called Xantolo, and they include masked dances such as la viejada, also called the danza de los viejos. Dancers take on the roles of old people, animals, death, devils and other characters. INAH, Mexico's national institute of anthropology and history, describes the dancers as koles who wear wooden masks.

In Tempoal, Veracruz, a 2012 INAH publication on the danza de los viejos records the cast: the pregnant woman, the cowboy, the old man, the skeleton and the devil, among others. The masks there can be strikingly human or animal, and some honor people who have died or people the whole town would recognize, including public figures.

The masks are carved, and the wood matters. The same INAH publication lists cedar, orejón and pemuche as woods used in Tempoal, and singles out pemuche as especially valued because it is light, resists insects and is less likely to break.

Elsewhere in the Huasteca, a collection record at the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum identifies a Comanche dance mask from San Vicente Tancuayalab, San Luis Potosí, used in Carnival and Day of the Dead dances. A photograph of Xantolo dancers taken in Xalapa, Veracruz, on October 29, 2016, records the dance there.

Mask materials change from place to place, and so does their purpose. Carved and painted wood runs through the dance traditions: the Tempoal masks, the Oaxaca mask in the Oakland Museum's curriculum, and a carved and painted wooden Day of the Dead mask made in Mexico in the 1980s that is now in the British Museum.

Paper is the other great material. Papier-mâché and cartonería, Mexico's paper-based craftwork, are central to calavera and Catrina objects. The Burke Museum records a Day of the Dead mask from Celaya, Guanajuato, made of paper and paint using papier-mâché, and notes that calacas and other skeleton figures are made from wood, papier-mâché and clay. The Mexican Museum lists papier-mâché, clay, wood, metal and cut paper among the materials used for calavera decorations.

The material on its own does not tell you what a mask means. A wooden mask can be a dance character in Veracruz or a decorative piece made for sale; a paper mask can be a festival costume or a child's craft project. To read a mask, you need its community, its maker, its dance and its occasion. Our story on calacas follows the skeleton figures made from many of the same materials.

The skull masks you can buy online and the Catrina faces at festivals trace back to José Guadalupe Posada, the Mexican printmaker who drew satirical skeletons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Mexican Museum explains that the figure now called La Catrina was originally La Calavera Garbancera, a jab at people who turned away from their Mexican identity while chasing European bourgeois fashion. Posada's calaveras mocked politicians and every social class alike, with death as the destiny everyone shares, rich and poor. You can read more about the printmaker in our story on José Guadalupe Posada and about the figure herself in La Catrina.

Today, Catrina and calavera imagery shows up in masks, face painting, sculpture, posters, processions, altar decorations and plenty of things for sale. It can carry remembrance, a sense of mortality, social satire, beauty joined with death, cultural identity or simple festive performance, and which of those it carries depends on who is wearing it and where. In Mérida, Yucatán, the Days of the Dead are called Hanal Pixán, and the celebrations include a Catrina parade, the Paseo de las Catrinas; one photograph shows a Catrina there on November 2, 2024. Many people paint the face instead of wearing a mask, and our Catrina makeup story covers that look.

So, what is the difference between a Day of the Dead mask and a Catrina mask? A Catrina mask is one kind of Day of the Dead mask, based on Posada's skeleton lady. A store-bought Catrina mask for a costume is a modern commercial or personal object, which is a perfectly good thing to be. It is simply a different object from a carved Xantolo mask made for a particular dance in a particular town.

Día de Muertos has a long history in the United States too. The Smithsonian American Art Museum traces observances by Mexican immigrants in the United States back to the 1890s, and dates a major modern revival to Chicano artists and activists. In 1973, Self Help Graphics & Art held a celebration in East Los Angeles that brought together ofrendas, parades, costumes and artworks. It helped build Mexican American cultural identity, and it commemorated people killed by gang violence.

Public celebrations in the United States now often include masks, costumes, face paint and calavera imagery in processions. The Mexican Museum's account of Chicano celebrations in San Francisco links respectful public presentation with attention to where the tradition comes from, and El Museo del Barrio offers calavera mask-making as an educational activity alongside discussion of the holiday's pre-Columbian roots and present-day community practice. For more on how the holiday is kept north of the border, see our guide to Day of the Dead celebrations in the USA.

Masks have mattered in Mexico for a very long time, though the oldest examples belong to their own stories rather than to Día de Muertos.

The Library of Congress holds a stone funerary mask from Teotihuacan, dated to about 200 to 500 CE, part of the Jay I. Kislak Collection, which the library makes available as public domain. Museo Amparo in Puebla holds a Nahua mask representing death, from the central Altiplano, dated to the Postclassic period, about 900 to 1521 CE. It is made of green stone, with incised teeth and features that resemble a skull, and its record describes its region, culture, period and techniques without identifying it as a Día de Muertos mask. The Brooklyn Museum holds Maya ceramic figures from Jaina Island wearing animal masks or headdresses, made as funerary objects and tied to high status, deities or the underworld.

In Sonora, Yoreme and Yoeme communities keep the pajko'ora mask tradition, documented by the National Museum of the American Indian. The mask can be worn over the face or at the back of the head, and its designs may represent the universe, stars, plants, animals, maize and the wisdom of elders. Its main occasions are village feast days and Holy Week, so it belongs to its own ceremonial dance rather than to Día de Muertos in general.

Together these objects show how important masked representation has been across many centuries and cultures in Mexico. They do not show that today's Day of the Dead masks descend from one ancient mask tradition, and each is best understood in its own time and place.

Is it disrespectful to wear a Day of the Dead mask? It depends on the mask, the event and how you wear it, and the people hosting the celebration are the ones to ask. There is no single rule for every community, but these habits fit nearly any setting:

• Know where the mask comes from. Identify the community, dance or event connected with it before you wear it.
• Follow the hosts. Check the rules of the organization running a procession, cemetery visit, altar event or dance before you join in.
• Ask before you photograph. Dancers, artisans, altars and mourners deserve a request first.
• Stay out of ritual spaces unless invited. Do not enter a ritual space or touch an altar without permission.
• Call a costume a costume. A commercial Catrina mask is not an ancient sacred artifact, so do not present it as one.
• Skip the caricature. No fake accents, stereotyped clothing or Día de Muertos imagery used to mock Mexican people.
• Give credit. Name the maker, community, museum or photographer when you share an image.
• Ask about dance masks. If a mask belongs to a local dance, ask a cultural organizer or practitioner whether visitors may wear a similar one.

Día de Muertos practices differ by state, town, family, Indigenous community and diaspora, so what is welcome at a public parade in one city may be out of place at a family grave in a village.

A Catrina mask from a party store and a pemuche mask danced in Tempoal share a season, a skull or two and not much else, and both have a place in how people remember their dead today. If you are wearing one this year, knowing which tradition it comes from is the best way to wear it well. For the wider celebration, start with our guide to Día de Muertos.