Also called copalli, pom, copal blanco, copal negro
Copal is the bright, piney tree resin that peoples of Mexico and Central America have burned as a sacred offering for well over a thousand years. Its white smoke still rises over Day of the Dead altars, church doors and village ceremonies, and it can be burned at home with respect as an offering of thanks or remembrance.
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Take care: Burn copal only on incense charcoal in a clay or fireproof dish with a window open; it smokes heavily and should be kept away from pet birds, small children and anyone with asthma. Never leave the charcoal unattended. Copal belongs to living Indigenous and Mexican traditions; burn it as a respectful offering and do not imitate a community's ceremony or claim a title such as curandera you have not been given.
Archaeologists have recovered shaped pieces of copal from the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza and from offerings at the Templo Mayor in Mexico City. Some were molded like tortillas, tamales or ears of corn, suggesting copal was literally fed to the gods.
Uses: copal shaped into food forms
Families burn copal on home altars and at gravesides on November 1 and 2 to purify the space and guide the returning dead with its scent, alongside marigolds, candles and the dead person's favorite foods.
Uses: copal, cempasúchil marigolds, candles, ofrenda foods
Concheros and Aztec dance groups open their ceremonies with copal smoke, and it is burned in sweat lodges and by healers on both sides of the US-Mexico border. These are community rites led by people within those traditions.
Uses: copal, sahumador
The word copal comes from Nahuatl copalli, meaning incense. It names resins from several trees, especially Protium copal and Bursera species, collected by cutting the bark. Copal was burned in household shrines, temples and caves across Mesoamerica. Pieces recovered from the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza and from the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, built between 1325 and 1521, still give off their scent after five centuries underground, and some were shaped like food offerings.
Copal's white smoke was understood as a way to carry words and offerings to the deities, and in some accounts as the blood of trees. After the Spanish conquest, copal moved into Catholic feast days, cemetery visits and especially Día de Muertos, while Maya and other Indigenous communities kept using it in their own prayers. These are living traditions, so treat copal as a gift from those cultures rather than a prop.
A raw egg is passed over the body to absorb heaviness, envy or the evil eye, then cracked into water and read. Widespread across Mexico and Latin America.
A small, regularly tended shrine where a family remembers its dead with photographs, light, water and offerings, a practice shared in different forms by Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, African, Afro-Caribbean, Mexican and modern pagan households.
A home altar built for the Mexican Day of the Dead, set with photographs, marigolds, candles, water, salt, pan de muerto and the favorite foods of the dead so that their spirits feel welcome when they return on November 1 and 2.
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