Day of the Dead Origins

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The Legend
The Aztec celebration of day of the dead all started because of the Aztec belief of how human life came to be. According to one of the versions of the legend, humans had been made from bones of the previous life. Aztec believed that there has been five worlds created, four of which were previously destroyed killing the human raise. After the firth world was created (the world in which we humans live in now) the god Quetzacoatl wanted to once again create human life that had been previously abolished with the destruction of the fourth sun. To once again create human life Quetzacoatl when on a passage to the underworld with his guide dog Xolotl. He wanted to retrieve human bones from the 9th circle of the underworld which was guarded by Mictlantecuhtli- the Aztec god of death and the ruler of Mictal. When he got there Mictlantecuhtli was reluctant to give him the bones, so he gave him a task to achieve first. After he had completed the task Quetzacoatl started gathering the human bones but Mictlantecuhtli refused to allow him to gather bones, so she sent people after him to ...

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