On a square black velvet cloth, Lesly Ellis carefully shapes grains of rice in honor of the Mayan calendar symbol for this year’s Día de los Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead.
The symbol changes each year; this one, she said, represents health – honoring ancestors and keeping illness and bad spirits away.
“Dia de los Muertos is very important for our culture,” said Ellis, who is Guatemalan and Mayan Indigenous.
Nuestras Raíces Community Center is preparing for its main Día de los Muertos event this weekend, featuring ofrendas (altars) from across Latino cultures – including Ellis’s.
Fernanda Mazcot, executive director of the nonprofit, said the celebration will go from noon to 4 p.m. at the community center, with food, mariachi music and performances.
Later that evening, from 5 to 8 p.m., the celebration will move to No-Li Brewhouse for more music, performances and contests. This is the first time Nuestras Raices has partnered with No-Li for the Latino celebration.
"I'm really happy to be partners with No-Li on this, so that we can reach a broader community; we want folks to really understand Dia de los Muertos,” Mazcot said.
Día de los Muertos, is traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2 — coinciding with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Families create ofrendas to honor the spirits of loved ones who have passed, adorning them with photos, candles, marigolds and favorite foods of the deceased. These ofrendas are often placed at home, in community spaces or at cemeteries, where families gather to celebrate and remember rather than mourn.
Although best known in Mexico, traditions honoring the dead are observed across Latin America, including in Guatemala, Belize, Bolivia and other countries, each with distinct Indigenous and regional influences.
The celebration’s roots reach back to pre-Columbian cultures such as the Mexica (Aztec), Maya, Zapotecand Mixtec peoples, who held ceremonies to honor ancestors and believed the spirits of the departed could return to visit the living.
After Spanish colonization, these indigenous customs intertwined with Catholic beliefs, creating a syncretictradition that continues to evolve while preserving its deep spiritual significance.
In Guatemala, Ellis said traditions are slightly different from those in Mexico and other countries. Many people will go to the gravesites and clean the tombstones of their loved ones, decorate them and repaint them.
Ellis said she grew up in Guatemala before moving to Spokane when she was 9 years old.
“That's where you put the marigolds, that's where you put the candles and their food and everything else. The cemeteries actually become like a lively gathering place for a lot of the community,” Ellis said.
She said a common offering placed on the ofrendas and gravesites includes corn dough, cocoa beans and coffee – all deeply connected to her Mayan roots and the belief that people are made from those three elements.
“I know in some other Mayan cultures in Mexico, they actually clean the bones of their ancestors, so each culture and each country has something that they do differently,” Ellis said.
Mazcot, like Ellis, said she looks forward to the event every year, even though she knows some people might find it unusual.
“It is a beautiful tradition; it's not supposed to be scary, it's not Halloween,” Mazcot said. “We’re celebrating people that aren’t here and honoring them.”
Griselda Orduño, youth community specialist with Latinos en Spokane, said Día de los Muertos offers many people a space to navigate grief and connect with others experiencing loss.
She said the organization holds an annual Circle of Healing event, which was held Thursday evening, as a way to help community members cope with the death of loved ones.
“In the midst of uncertainty and the shifting political climate, I think we're just reminded of how vital it is to just hold our traditions and our stories and the way we care for one another,” Orduño said. “So a lot of our main focus with this healing circle is just to remind the community that healing is not only personal, but, like, collective.”
One of Ellis’s favorite parts of the yearly celebration in Guatemala, she said, is the giant kites community members prepare every year. Flying just one kite takes a team of 10 to 20 people, all working together to lift it into the sky.
She said the kite guides their ancestors down from heaven.
“Honoring your ancestors and being with them, it’s always been a thing growing up,” Ellis said. “I'm already teaching my children how to do an altar, the significance of it behind it and why it is important to honor ancestors.”
