In Mexico, indigenous and Catholic calendars have grown into one another. The dead come home each November, the peoples of Oaxaca dance on the hill in July, and masked Parachicos fill a Chiapas town every January.
Photo: Miguel Angel Mandujano Contreras, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of Mexico’s greatest festivals sit where indigenous tradition and the Catholic year meet. The Day of the Dead falls on All Saints’ and All Souls’ days and at the end of the maize harvest; the Guelaguetza of Oaxaca joins old festivals of maize with the feast of the Virgin of Carmen; the Parachicos dance for Catholic saints in masks carved by local families.
The Day of the Dead and the Parachicos are on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and all three festivals are still first of all community occasions, not shows staged for visitors.
Día de Muertos
At the turn of October and November, Mexican families welcome their dead home for a brief visit. They build altars with marigolds, candles and the departed’s favourite food, decorate graves, and in some towns keep vigil in the cemetery all night.
November 1 – 2, 2026Calculated
Fiesta Grande de Enero — Parachicos
For almost three weeks every January, the dancers of Chiapa de Corzo put on carved wooden masks, shake their maracas and carry the images of their saints through the streets from morning to night, in the town’s Great Feast.
January 4 – 23, 2027Calculated
On two Mondays each July, delegations from the eight regions of Oaxaca climb the Cerro del Fortín to present their dances, music and costumes — the best-known indigenous gathering of its kind in Mexico, with a month of food, mezcal and craft fairs around it.
July 19, 2027Estimated