Everyone knows La Catrina, beautiful female figure, white, thin to the bone, elegant and mysterious, which at this time of year we usually represent as the main symbol of the Day of the Dead festivities; but its origin had another intention, same that we will tell you …
Between the governments of Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz, Mexican society suffered from injustices and inequality – where have we heard that? there were 3 social classes, the Upper Class that was made up of politicians, landowners, large merchants and industrialists, they traveled to Europe, lived in large houses with services and at their parties they dressed in elegant dresses of light colors and large hats; the Middle Class, was a small group as the upper class refused to share their wealth with them, and was made up of small traders and bureaucrats, teachers, professionals and journalists; and the Lower Class, which was the majority of the population and was made up of farmers, miners, factory workers and domestic workers
Newspapers at the time began to make criticisms about the social situation of the country, being one of the main critics of the Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posadas, originally from the City of Aguascalientes, who began to use the figure of a skull as a symbol of his critique; gradually it took the name of Calavera Garbancera because it represented the mockery that was made of chickpea sellers who were poor appeared to be rich and pretended to have a lifestyle like Europeans and belittled their indigenous traditions and roots; she came to be depicted dressed in charro, in a suit, on a horse, dancing and drinking, eating or simply conversing; at that time if someone told you were a Clavera Garbancera was an insult
Along with the image of the Skull began to emerge small thoughts and verses that also criticized the social situation, thus emerging the Literary Skulls, in fact José Guadalupe Posadas came to write “in the bones, but with his French hat of ostrich feathers”
But Catrina’s name came until 1947, when muralist Diego Rivera baptized her in that way, referring to the elegance and good dress with which he identified the privileged class of the country at the time of the birth of the Skull , and he plasmed it in his mural called “Dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Central Alameda”
One thing that remains in force and will continue is what José Guadalupe Posadas said “Death is democratic, because at the end of the day, white girl, brunette, rich or poor, all people end up being Skull”
