Zempaz úchitl

[Frye, David]

Hope this doesn't take the discussion to far from Nahuatl, but I have long wondered how it is that the marigold (genus Tagetes, zempualxochitl, cempasuchil, simpasuche, etc.--there are many pronunciations even in the same town) came to be the "flower of death" in All Saint's (Todos Santos) celebrations in Haiti as well as in Mexico. Did Haiti get the flower and this use of it from Mexico, or was there a prior European (or at least Franco-Spanish) use of marigolds for the Days of the Dead? Many people, including me, assume that the cempasuchil has been the "flower of the dead" in Mexico since pre-Spanish times, but it wouldn't hurt to test these assumptions. Anybody know about a) pre-Spanish evidence for use of marigolds to commemorate the dead, and/or b) pre-1492 use of marigolds in the European All Saint's celebrations? (For that matter, were there pre-1492 species of Tagetes in Europe? I note that pre-1492 English uses of the word "marigold" refer to Calendula, a separate genus of flower, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Not being a botanist or gardener, I probably couldn't tell one from the other.) 
 
David Frye
University of Michigan