Day of the Dead Katrinas and their Meaning

The Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico take place just before Christmas and a very strange sculpture pops up all over the place of a large skeleton dressed up in the finery of old colonial Mexico. I found this curious and even found one that was 40 or so feet high on the way to Guadajalara. The driver explained that that was the largest Katrina in Mexico. He said it took a week to construct the fiberglass image. He said the Katrina is an effigy of the snooty colonial ladies all in their finery being better than everyone else. The statement of the Katrina sculptures that caught on as a tradition is that, "with all your finery and thinking that you are better than everyone else, you are nothing but a skeleton inside and you are going to die just like all the rest of us". Some businesses compete for who can make the biggest and "bestest" with prizes.