Oaxaca: Huautla de Jimenez. Day of the Dead: the ?Huehuentones?, performing the souls coming back, dance and plays in the streets and inside the cemetery. The Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead), recently declared by UNESCO as an ?oral and intangible cultural heritage of humanity,? is one of Mexico's most cherished traditions, celebrated in cities and villages countrywide. Far away from more well-traveled tourist routes, in a Sierrra Madre mountain village near Oaxaca, women speak quietly with beloved departed souls at graves adorned with offerings of food, candies, liquor, cigarettes, evertything their dead enjoyed while alive. In Huautla de Jimenez local Mazatec Indians still meet their long-gone friends and family in the graveyard, celebrating along with Huehuetones, mysterious masked figures representing the visiting souls from the Underworld.
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