The final festival before the Nativity season celebrates Death as perhaps the most mysterious of the Mysteries of Life. The image here represents Catrina, a central figure in the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. Though relatively recent in this elegant form, Catrina embodies a folk-tradition of the Aztec goddess Mictecacihuatl, Lady of the Dead, Keeper of the Bones. The festival is celebrated with altars to the honoured dead, with sugar skulls and crossed-bone buns, and with grave-visiting. Though the idea of death is very much to the forefront, it is far from a sombre festival and includes dressing-up and dancing. Read about the inner meaning of Tamala