October 29, 2021 — Autumn is the season of preparation. It is a time for harvesting before scarcity, gathering seeds and crispness before freezing, and vibrant color before grey monotony. It’s no surprise that many cultures celebrate autumn by remembering those who have gone before them, and celebrating abundant life. These holidays are a study of contrasts in different parts of the world.
Halloween, a U.S. tradition, is one of the most popular. It is a carnival atmosphere where “revelry and chaos and possibly scary things can just run amok,” says Sojin, PhD, curator at Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The day (or night), is about letting go of inhibitions and having fun with the frightening. Halloween is a celebration of mortality, with images of skeletons or murderous dolls. But the main focus is on costumes, decorations, and candy. Absent is a sober reminder of the end of life.
Erica Buist, author Of This Party’s Dead, says that American Halloween is a perfect example of what American culture does in the death of people.
She says that Samhain, Halloween — was a Celtic death festival. The Americans have taken it and made it scary. “It’s a way to engage with it, without any actual engagement.”
Catholic All Souls Day, a religious holiday, allows for a more open-minded recognition of mortality by visiting the graves of loved ones. These opportunities are rare in the secular U.S. society. This may be because death is frightening in American culture. Kim says that death is gross.
Halloween is a way to push back, to make death flamboyant and even darkly funny.
Dimitris Zygalatas, PhD is an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut. “Death is not just terrifying, but it is also very abstract because we cannot imagine how it would be like to not exist,” he said.
Kim says that in non-U.S. cultures death is more commonly acknowledged as something people deal with every day.
The Day of the Dead is a Latin holiday that occurs just after Halloween. It descends from South American indigenous celebrations. Legend has it that on this day, ancestral relatives come back to life to eat, drink, and dance with them. The living, in turn, treat the dead like honored guests and leave them favorite foods and gifts, such as sugar skulls, on gravesites or shrines.
Kim says it is a day to celebrate, “not being afraid of death, but seeing that death is part of life.”
Similar festivities are held on the Sicilian Day of the Dead. Families bring flowers to brighten gravesites. Parents hide “gifts of the dead” for their children in the morning to strengthen the bond between generations. Marzipan fruits and bones-shaped cookies brighten shops. Buist says that these practices teach children that you can talk about people and they are okay to mention them.
There’s also the Obon Japanese Buddhist celebration, which is usually held in August and focuses on ancestors. Obon is a time when people clean gravesites and share a meal. But the most significant public expression takes place at the temples. People float or hang lanterns that bear the names of those who have passed away, and then the community gets together to dance. The sound of live drums and music is a common accompaniment. “The idea is that you dance without ego. You don’t care about your appearance. Kim says that you are dancing to remember your ancestors and this moment.
Similar celebrations are held in China and Nepal, Thailand, Madagascar. Death holidays are as human as language. Kim says that their importance is centered on the idea of “continuum versus end”.
Buist says death holidays emphasize this cyclical view and encourage a continuing relationship with the deceased. Buist says, “Have any of you heard the expression, “Grief is love without a place to go?” She asks. “It’s this saying that we use here, and it makes me feel like they’ve been everywhere else. I’d give it somewhere to go.” She notes that many of these holidays have a common theme across cultures.
Death holidays allow love to have a place to go and give it a time and a place to do so.
Kim says that having these things punctuate our calendar means we have this time and space. Kim also notes that they allow us to deal with death in a communal space. These practices allow us to grieve, remember our loved ones, and face our mortality together.
Xygalatas states that the ritual of death holidays “makes the prospect for our own death a little less frightening.”
WebMD Health News
Sources
Sojin Kim, PhD is the curator at Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, DC.
Erica Buist, freelance writer, author of This Party’s Dead London.
ElsalvadorINFO: All Souls Day El Salvador. Remembering the People Who Have Passed Away
Kid World Citizen: All Saints Day in Poland
Louisiana Life Magazine: This Time of Year Is A Grave Anffair.
Dimitris Xygalatas PhD, professor, Department of Anthropology, Department of Psychological Sciences University of Connecticut
MexicanSugarSkull: History of Day of the DeadDia de los Muertos
The Spruce Eats: The Story of Dia de los Muertos Sugar Skulls. History.com: Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos).
Anthropological Perspectives on Death: Dia de los Muertos – Celebrating the Dead
Palermo Street Food – The Sicilian Day of the Dead.
Sicilian Secrets: Day of Death: Once upon a Time in Sicily on November 2.
Cake: How These 10 Countries Celebrate Dia de los Muertos.
Waterstones: This Party’s dead: Grief, Joy, and Spilled Rum at World’s Death Festivals (Hardback).
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