The Day Of The Dead In Mexico

The Day Of The Dead In Mexico Every Mexican is closely acquainted with death, jokes about it, caresses for it, sleeps with it, celebrates it, said the Mexican poet Octavio Paz (Kuhn. 2006). Day of the Dead (Spanish: Dà ­a de los Muertos) is a holiday, festival which is dedicated to the memory of the dead people, and is held on the 1st -2nd of November in Mexico. There is a belief that the souls of dead people come to their relatives` homes these days (Williams, 1998). The origin of the holiday goes back to the tribes of Maya, Purà ©pech, Naun and Totonac. These people had been praising the dead during more than 3 thousand of years. The Aztecs considered that the death was more important than the life. The life was worth of nothing, and they believed that leaving, a man was going through the nine lower worlds in Miktlan, which is the shelter of the dead people. No matter how people lived, it is important how they were dying; it influenced their fate in the netherworld. It is also said that the Day of the Dead was brought to Mexico by Spanish people. But the Catholic Church is not able to eradicate pagan holidays till the end. Day of the Dead is a dangerous mix of Christian traditions of the conquerors and the ancient Aztec customs. Talking about the history of this holiday, it is necessary to mention that the life for the inhabitants of ancient Mexico was just a moment. Death was waking dreams in the present, in order to enter the world of the dead and appear in front of the other gods, depending on the type of case, which took away their lives. Those who have been sacrificed or died in a result of the war, went to the sun after death, the same fate awaited the women who died, giving life to the child. Those who have drowned found themselves in paradise (Smith, 2005). The souls of the dead children were regarded as precious, thats why they stayed in the house; the soul that was not chosen by God was left in the underworld. In order to help souls to travel from this world into the world of the dead, without delay, people who died were buried or burned, along with things, food, a dog as a companion and water for the road. In the sixteenth century, when the conquest and colonization began, the widespread dissemination of the Catholic religion also started. People were afraid of death and hell that time. But in the eighteenth century, two types of attitude toward death were intertwined in a single cult. Skeletons and bones appeared again, but with a festive and the comic mood, in addition, the Catholic symbols appeared in the local crafts and foods. Now it is a popular holiday, which involves all segments of society. It is believed, the souls of the dead people return to the world of alive in order once again to see their families for two days. Houses in these days look like the crypts, but the graves are decorated with flowers and ribbons, and all the relatives and friends come to honor the memory of dead people. And in order their souls which are returning to earth in the form of butterflies or hummingbirds dont get lost, candles are lit everywhere, pointing them the way home (Verti, 1993). The holiday gathers the friends and family together in order to remember and pray for those have already died. The cult of the dead was very important for Indian tribes, which are why nowadays ceremonies, rituals and traditions come from that time. One of the mysteries of the holiday is the altar, which is traditionally built on October 31. The Aztecs believed that the dead are returning home in order to take the necessary things for the journey to the world of the dead: el Mictlon. Now to build the altar is an unusual way to show the deceased relatives, friends, that they are remembered and loved. Each component of the altar has a special meaning. The altar stands on a table covered with an embroidered cloth. The most important component is the bread which has the shape of the human body and has the name of the deceased. The bread is surrounded by orange flowers of calendula, symbolizing the sadness. Candles should be burning around the altar (each of them gets the name of the deceased). In some homes the road from the entrance door to the altar is sprinkled with petals of calendula, in order the deceased not to get lost. On the 1st of November Mexicans go out, meet friends, and then have dinner at home, telling funny stories. Usual altar, which Mexicans have on The Day of Dead has such things as: calaveras, fruit, nuts, candles, bread of dead, alcohol, cigarettes, papel picada (perforated paper) and a lot of petals of flowers (Conklin, 2001). And on the 2nd of November people bring rice with milk, sweets, tequila, cigarettes and coffee to altar. The bottom of the altar is decorated with pumpkins and rolls of various shapes and colors. Sometimes the part of the altar, is carried to the grave of the deceasedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ decorating tracks of cemetery with candles. In those days, people treat each other on behalf of the deceased, in the hope that in the future the deceased will help in a difficult moment. The first day of the holiday is called Dà ­a de los Angelitos (Day of angels) and is dedicated to the commemoration of little children. For adults is meant to be the second day; which is in fact, the Day of the Dead. All major events and celebrations are on the second day. It is the day when street marches, especially in small towns and villages are arranged. The way of the celebration can be very different: in some areas of the country the residents organize sad solemn torch procession, the type of funeral, while others prefer the burlesque fun, bright colors, dances and songs. Usually people dress up as skeletons and at night the whole country under the light of torches rushes to the graves of relatives, taking traditional tequila, favorite food of the deceased and sugar skulls with the names of dead people on forehead. In the night, it looks like a fiery river flows in the direction of the cemetery. At cemeteries people drink, eat, and dance (Greenleigh, 1998). On the Day of the Dead it is common to write humorous epitaphs and draw caricatures of the deceased. Thus, during the holiday people can buy sugar and chocolate skulls of all sizes, marzipan coffins, skeletons and marmalade in every shop. Women bake cakes and donuts with the pattern of bones, the crosses of the dough, and other decorations for the altar, for the picnic at the cemetery. The Day of the Dead is the most popular holiday in Mexico. Mexicans` attitude to the death is not usual; it is not tragic, but joyous day for meeting with those who were dear for them. It is not a tragic holiday, but triumphant festival, with the colorful costumed procession and the music. This holiday is so significant, unusual, and colorful, that in 2003, it was declared the heritage of mankind by UNESCO (Kuhn, 2006). It is very beautiful and interesting to walk at Mexican cemetery at the Day of Dead. Every grave is a peace of art, which can form an idea about the dead person: whether he was a carpenter, or a watchmakerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ There is a small building at every cemetery, which looks like a room with a hole in the ceiling. This is a special place which people use in order to talk to dead people. If someone has something important to tell to the dead people, he can go into this room and whisper his important information. And if the teller is sincere, then he will be always heard by the deceased person. There is a need to say that while celebration, people cook sweets in the form of skulls, make special figurines of dressed female skeletons Katrina (Spanish: La Calavera de la Catrina). In 2004 the students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, built a wall from 5,667 sugar, chocolate and caramel skulls, which is 2,667 skulls more than the former wall. The wall has become one of the records from the Guinness Book of Records (Brandes, 2006). Mexicans have very specific attitude to death, that is why their holiday Day of the Dead is one of the best and popular holidays in their culture. As famous Mexican poet Octavio Paz wrote: Fearless Mexican doesnt feel confused when death comes, he is ready to move forward it, to teas, tempt it, squeeze it in his arms, lie down with it in bed; it is his favorite toy and the last love. Work Cited Brandes, Stanley. Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1405152478. 12.15 (2006). pp. 232. Conklin, Paul. Death Takes A Holiday. U.S. Catholic 66 (2001): 38-41. Greenleigh, John., Beimler, Rosalind Rosoff. The days of the dead: Mexicos Festival of Communion with the Departed. (1998). p. 56. Kuhn, John. Making a night of Day of the Dead. Los Angeles Times 18. 10 (2006). Smith, Fiona. Bolivians Honor Skull-Toting Tradition. Associated Press. 11.08 (2005). Verti, Sebastià ¡n. Mexican traditions. (1993). pp. 112-115. Williams, Rick. The Day of the Dead, Halloween, and the Quest for Mexican National Identity. Journal of American Folklore 442 (1998). pp. 359-80.

Endocrine disrupting compounds and human fertility Essay

In the past 100 years, humans have introduced several hundreds of new compounds into the environment, which actually have affected the physiology of both plants and animals including humans (Propper, 2005). In most cases these deleterious effects are unintended and it was not predicted before that these compounds could have such effects on organisms. Therefore the actual mechanisms by which these compounds affect physiological functions of other organisms are not yet properly researched. When such compounds affect the endocrine systems they are called endocrine disrupting compounds. These compounds would affect different hormonal pathways and physiological functions such as reproduction, development, metabolism and even the behavior of humans and other animals. The present essay is intended to identify some of the endocrine disrupting compounds that affect human fertility, the mechanism of affecting, to analyze the weight of different evidences available and to analyze the current investigation techniques. Endocrine disrupting compounds have been defined as â€Å"an exogenous agent that interferes with the synthesis, secretion, transport, binding, action, or elimination of natural hormones in the body which are responsible for the maintenance of homeostasis, reproduction, development and/or behavior† (Kavloc et al. , 1996). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has accepted this definition as the most appropriate one in the year 2004. These compounds are capable of interfering with normal signaling mechanisms of the endocrine system. Either they could block or make changes in the synthesis of hormones, or they could mimic some of the endocrine compounds, thereby affecting the target organs. They could also affect the release of these hormones from the concerned glands and its transportation. They could also bind with the specific molecules to which hormone binds. These compounds are usually seen in pesticides, industrial effluents, pharmaceutical compounds, etc. Heavy metals also could induce endocrine disruption. Wastewater effluents from cities as well as from agricultural fields are sources of such compounds. The neuro- endocrine system might also get affected by these compounds causing changes in the reproductive organs and associated behaviors in humans. Most of the researches in this filed are concentrated towards the effect of these compounds on estrogen and other steroids responsible for reproduction (Propper, 2005). According to Caserto et al. (2008) these compounds could affect human heath seriously even when present in very small amounts. This is especially because many such chemicals would be these affecting a single target. There are many studies which reveal that waste water discharge in to natural waters have resulted in the changes in reproductive organs of aquatic fauna. This is because of the presence of 17 beta estradiol, estrogens, androgens, etc, in wastewater. These compounds are highly stable and therefore could not be removed completely from wastewater by various treatment procedures to reclaim the water. Traces of these compounds would be present in the drinking water, which is prepared from these natural waters into which the wastewater has been disposed. Bioaccumulation of these compounds in humans is expected to affect fertility (Falconer, 2006). Wagner and Oehlmann (2009) have conducted a study to determine the level of endocrine disrupting compounds in usual food stuffs of humans and they selected bottled mineral water as one of the sources of this compounds. The effort was taken based on the fact that endocrine disrupting hormones reaches the body of human mainly through foodstuffs. They used estrogen receptor alpha for the identification. They found that the mineral waters in plastic bottles are seriously contaminated with phthalates that are getting leached into the water from plastic bottle. Thus it was proved beyond doubt that endocrine disrupting compounds are present in plastic wares and extensive use of plastic wares to store food would result in increased level of these compounds in the foodstuffs with a deleterious effect on fertility. According to Rhind (2005) there is an urgent need to study the effects of endocrine disrupting compounds on animals. Very little is known regarding the concentration of these compounds in the different tissues of animals, the concentration required to produce a deleterious effect on the animals, effect of prolonged exposure to an single compound, the effects of different classes of compounds, effect of the exposure to more than one compounds at a time etc. With the available information it is possible to establish that the endocrine disrupting compounds in the environment is affecting human health adversely with a high impact on fertility. The effect of these endocrine disrupting compounds on human reproduction is different for different compounds. Compounds such as diethylstilbestrol affect female reproductive system and cause abnormal follicular growth, ovulation, abnormal formation of corpus luteum and the overall maintenance of ovary would be affected. It would also affect the normal sexual differentiation in females. Pregnancy would be affected because of the negative effects on fertilization and implantation of the embryo in the uterus. Another pollutant called dioxin has been reported to cause endometriosis in women, which is a very painful disease that leads to infertility (Crisp et al. , 1998). There are some compounds, which are naturally occuring such as phytoestrogens produced by plant that could mimic the properties of estrogens produced by humans (Caserta et al. , 2008). Natural sex hormones are used extensively for different purposes in farms as well as in urban areas and there is every chance that these would become harmful to non-targeted organisms including humans because of the concentrating effect. There are many evidences, which prove that environmental contaminants are causing problems in female fecundity as well as fertility (Louis et al. , 2006). There are evidences to prove that puberty, menstruation, endometriosis, pregnancy, senescence period for reproduction etc are affected by exposure to these compounds. Diethyl stilbestrol was given to pregnant women during 1950’s to prevent miscarriage. But later on due to the adverse effects of these compounds most of the kids developed abnormalities. Finally the compound was withdrawn from the market. The female child produced in such cases developed menstrual abnormalities, vaginal hypoplasia, sudden abortion, premature delivery, uterine malformation and overall low fertility. If the child is a male, it was found to develop testicular dysgenesis syndrome (Milhan 1992). Maternal exposure during pregnancy and exposure to these compounds present in the mother’s milk during the prenatal period are believed to be the reasons for such defects. This occurs due to the lipophilic nature of these compounds, which in turn gets stored in the adipose tissues of the mother. This is one of the strongest evidences of the deleterious effect of these compounds on human reproductive system. There are reports that state that human sperm production has decreased in the past 50 years. Although accurate evidence is not there, the reasons for this decrease is attributed to the presence of endocrine disrupting compounds in the environment (Crisp, 1998). Leydig cells tumors are increasingly believed to be caused by this factor. Same is the case of prostrate cancer. Studies conducted in Coke-oven workers have revealed that there has been an increase of mortality among them due to prostrate cancer due to occupational exposure to these compounds. However more research is required to find out the actual cause of this cancer, whether it is due to endocrine disruption by any chemicals in the environment.

Interactions A Thematic Reader, 8th ed., Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris Free Essay Example, 1750 words

There is the level required of daily life – to follow the instructions in a manual or to analyze a mortgage contract. Then there is a more sophisticated level that opens the doors to elite education and professions. And, of course, people read for entertainment, as well as for intellectual or emotional rewards† (Rich, 386). The passage probably pours some light on the main point of the literacy problem, as the core reason for reading or non-reading lies in children’s (and adults’) willingness to learn and their need to obtain new information. As far as children often don’t understand what education is for, they don’t like it and they don’t want to use the terrific range of resources that modern technologies provide them with. Of course, they prefer choosing to have fun, so they mostly use social networking services to communicate and share information. Although a good thing is that modern children are constantly aware of the fact that the information is always available online once they will need it, so they are advanced in so-called â€Å"digital literacy† (p. We will write a custom essay sample on Interactions: A Thematic Reader, 8th ed., Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page In this situation the representatives of the newly-formed digital generation are more advanced in the opportunities that can open the entire world to them. Even though not all people may be aware of availability of the bulk of information and resources that exist online, or even if they are, still there are a lot of people who just don’t want to use the information people indeed should admit the fact that technology enhances education by learning opportunities. Internet provides people from all around the world with bunch of free-accessed E-books, scholarly articles databases (for instance, the JSTOR, a huge online database of scholarly journals and books), massive online open courses like Coursera and Future Learn etc.

Steve Jobs as a Transformational leader - 1561 Words

A transformational leader is a person that lays his/her goals out and takes extraordinary measures to accomplish them. Their goals usually focus on the well being of the situation and their people. They strive to change the views of others and convince followers that the ethical behavior is morally correct of the leaders. An example of an exceptional leader would be Steve Jobs, the current CEO/co-founder of Apple Inc. Jobs is considered a leading figurehead in both the entertainment and computer industry. Steve Jobs is listed as Fortune Magazines most powerful businessman of 2007 out of twenty-five other top businessmen (Wikipedia). Steve Jobs has made a large impact on our contemporary society due to his contributions, accomplishments†¦show more content†¦During the past 50 years the autocratic style has been used less and less and criticized more often. It is well known that a company who demonstrates this philosophy will have higher turnover and increased absenteeism than other companies. Now companies adopt the more modern permissive and interactive style. However Jobs may never be outmatched by a single entity but due to his unique and aggressive style he single-handedly enhanced an entire organization, something the world never anticipated. When comparing Jobs to historical thinkers it is evident that he clearly shadows Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavellis The Prince is a highly controversial book that outlines Machiavellis idea on effective leadership. In the pre-industrial era Machiavelli wrote this piece to give advice on how a prince would stay in power, to keep power, and how to obtain power. An important issue that Machiavelli touches on is the idea on how princes should keep faith. Machiavelli suggests whether it would be better to be loved or feared. He notes it is much safer to be feared than loved (The Prince, 4). 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