BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY ABIGAIL CURTIS Leanna Cotton, 6, and her mom, Brenda Cotton, both of Thomaston, show off the sugar skulls they made to honor loved ones. "Mine is for my old dog Gretta," Leanna said. Buy Photo

ROCKLAND, Maine — When Francisco Rosa was growing up in the Pacific state of Colima in Mexico, he and his family would pack a festive picnic lunch every year on Nov. 2 and head to a special place: the cemetery.

There, they would eat holiday treats such as sugar skulls and pan de los muertos — bread of the dead — as they celebrated the memory of loved ones who had passed away. It was all part of the rituals of the Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead.

“It is one of the most important celebrations in Mexico,” Rosa said Friday evening at the Penobscot School in Rockland. “In Mexico, the celebration is supposed to be funny, even though it is about death.”

Rosa, who is spending the year as an exchange teacher at the language school, shared the tradition with a roomful of people who were taking Spanish classes or who simply were curious about other cultures.

An elaborate altar took the place of honor in the classroom, decorated with everything from paper flowers and candles to candy and bottles of beer.

“It follows the belief that we like to put [on display] what people liked when they were alive,” he said.

Often people celebrate the Dia de los Muertos in their homes and create these altars, Rosa said, placing on them portraits, favorite foods and belongings of the loved ones. But some of the decorations are more universal and are steeped in meaning, he said.

The paper decorations that fluttered from the ceiling above the altar and the nearest outside door had holes cut in them so that souls of the departed can come inside, and also go back out. The altars, or ofrendas, are often adorned with yellow marigolds — an ancient symbol of death. The flowers and the candles are said to attract souls to come inside and “take part in the pleasures they once enjoyed in life,” Rosa said.

“Some of the symbolism on the altar is very interesting,” said Brenda Cotton of Thomaston, who brought her 6-year-old daughter, Leanna Cotton. “We thought we’d come and partake of the celebration, and let her see a Mexican event.”

The room was filled with the ebullient sounds of a mariachi band and the smell of sugar from the skulls, which participants decorated.

Leanna said she was coloring her sugar skull in honor of her “old dog, Gretta.”

Patti Luchetti, the school director, said the evening was a “treasure.”

“The only thing that keeps the Penobscot School really alive is the interest of the people,” she said. “The school is good to teach the reality of the world to people who don’t travel.”

Jack Gee of Tenants Harbor said he appreciated learning about some of those realities.

“This was very interesting, very informative,” Gee said. “I don’t know anything about this when I came. The attitude about death is different [in Mexico]. They don’t fear it the way we do.”