HONORS COLLEGE DDLM EXHIBIT 2024 RESOURCES

"Every winter, up to a billion monarch butterflies overwinter in fir forests deep in central Mexico’s mountains. For thousands of years the people living in Mexico’s mountains have believed these butterflies are the spirits of the dead. Their arrival in winter coincides with Mexico’s most spectacular festival, Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead."

Hear me out! I know this is a children's podcast, but children's books and media are often a great introduction to new/unfamiliar concepts, even for older people like us! It gave me some ideas on what terms to search for for my own research. 

General Cultural/Anthropological Keywords:

• "Day of the Dead" OR "Día de los Muertos" AND butterflies OR hummingbirds
• "Day of the Dead" altars OR "Ofrendas"
• "Symbolism of butterflies in Mexican culture"
• "Hummingbirds in Mexican folklore"
• "Butterflies as ancestors in Latin American traditions"
• "Animal symbolism in Mesoamerican cultures"

Mythology and Creation Stories:

• "Creation myths butterflies Mesoamerica"
• "Aztec hummingbird myths"
• "Aztec mythology Huitzilopochtli butterflies" (since Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, is associated with hummingbirds)
• "Quetzalcoatl butterflies symbolism" (Quetzalcoatl, in some myths, is associated with both butterflies and hummingbirds)

Scientific/Biological Keywords:

• "Monarch butterflies migration and Mexican culture"
• "Hummingbirds and ancestral beliefs"
• "Monarch butterflies as spiritual symbols"

Folklore and Religious Studies:

• "Mexican folklore butterflies hummingbirds ancestors"
• "Spirituality butterflies hummingbirds Mesoamerican religion"

Central & South American Cultural Beliefs:

• "Butterflies in Andean mythology"
• "Hummingbirds in Inca mythology" OR "Inca hummingbird symbolism"
• "Spiritual significance of butterflies in Central America"
• "Hummingbirds in Mayan culture"
• "Butterflies and ancestors Central America"
• "Amazonian beliefs about hummingbirds"

Broader Mythological/Spiritual Terms:

• "Animal totems butterflies hummingbirds Central America"
• "Spiritual animals ancestors South America"
• "Indigenous beliefs butterflies South America"
• "Hummingbirds symbolism in Latin American folklore"

Ethnobotanical/Environmental Context:

• "Hummingbirds and spiritual beliefs in Amazonian tribes"
• "Indigenous environmentalism butterflies and culture"
• "Monarch butterfly migration South American beliefs"