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Indians in Mexico Mark Day of the Dead

Antonio Haas pulls a wooden box from a small cement cubicle, brushes a year of dust from the top and pushes back the lid to reveal a pile of coffee-colored bones and a small skull covered with patches of hair. It's what remains of his father who died five years ago, and with the Day of the Dead approaching, it's time for their annual cleaning.

It may strike outsiders as macabre, but Haas says it's the most natural thing in the world. "There is nothing to fear from the dead," he says, tenderly rubbing the skull. "It's the living we should fear."

For this 58-year-old farmer and dozens of other descendants of Mayan Indians in this small village on the Yucatan Peninsula, the last days of October are devoted to cleaning the bones: dusting, polishing, scrubbing and rearranging the skeletal remains of family members in time for the Day of the Dead, when Mexicans welcome the souls of the dearly departed back to Earth.

The ceremonies on Halloween are taken seriously. Mexicans honor the dead on Nov. 1, when the souls of dead children are believed to arrive, and on Nov. 2, when adults are believed to return.

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