“Graveyard Shift”
’Tis the season for haunts and ghouls. Halloween is right around the corner. Halloween is different things to different people. To some, it brings the excitement of decorating the house with any number of different levels of gore, from the happy pumpkin to the animatronic half-bodied zombie. To others, it’s All-Hallows’-Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. Something that it brought into mind for me, was some of the unusual traditions that cultures have, and have had, when someone passes.
Here in the South, if someone passes away, it’s expected that you’ll bring the family of the departed a meal including fried chicken. Although home cooked is preferred, it can be from Bojangles, just as long as it’s on your Memaw’s best platter. Along with the chicken, bring a pound cake; again on an heirloom plate.
We hang a wreath of white flowers on the door, and when the funeral procession is on the way to the cemetery, you should pull your car to the side of the road, and probably quietly murmur “bless their heart.” The church choir will have sung Rock of Ages, Amazing Grace or I’ll Fly Away; and in most circles, the mourners will be wearing black clothing.
These are customs that seem to have been passed down from generation to generation. Although these traditions have been passed down through the years, I’ve often pondered how these rituals started and why? If you think that we have some unusual customs, let me share some rituals of years past.
One custom was that when someone passes, a member of the family would silently make their way over to the clock in the room, and stop the hands from moving. This honored the moment when the soul left their mortal shell, and it is believed that this custom allowed the departed to continue on to heaven. This prevented the departed from being stuck here, to exist for eternity. Now, once the deceased was laid to rest in the church yard or back yard as it were, the clocks would be restored to working order- unless it was the head of the household, then the family may choose to keep it covered and not ticking.
While the clocks may have been covered, so were the mirrors. Superstition held that a mirror exposed may trap the soul of their dearly departed as they tried to leave, so the glass would be covered with a black cloth. I guess this would also prevent the now widowed wife from preening to look good at the funeral ! Ahem, I digress.
There was also “Memento Mori.” Memento Mori, which translated to English means “remember you must die”, has had many unusual forms over the years. One such example of Memento Mori came from the Victorian era, which included having photographs made of the deceased. This offered an opportunity to immortalize their beloved in a way that was previously impossible. Most families did not own a camera, so a professional photographer would be hired. In the earliest forms of post-mortem photography, coffins were seldom seen and the dead would be staged as if they were still alive. Children were posed with toys or asleep in their bed. Even special frames or props were cleverly used to make the corpse stand upright. For many poor children whose siblings died, they would be required to pose with their brother or sister in a macabre family portrait. Bear in mind that this all had to happen within days of the person’s death in order to take the photographs prior to the visible onset of decomposition. Eeww.
Ever wonder why folks say someone is at “death’s door?” That’s because when the deceased is laid out in the parlor of the family’s home, they are positioned so that their feet face the door. It was believed that if the body was taken out head first, the deceased could see where the house was and return to haunt it. Seems like this was a real problem back in the day with dead folks haunting the living.
So many of these bizarre and superstitious death customs had origins in the Victorian era. Length of time of mourning, for example. When a woman lost her husband, she was expected to mourn him for at least two years, wear the proper dress, isolate herself from society, and take on the countenance of grief at all times. Parents had the freedom to mourn for a lost child as long as they desired to, which could be their entire lifetime. Whereas a child was expected to grieve a lost parent for nine months in a period know as “deep mourning” and then three months, know as “half mourning.”
And last but not least, in the event of one’s sibling passing, the brother or sister was expected to mourn for a total of six months, three months in deep mourning and three months in half mourning.
Now, during these varying lengths of mourning, only a certain type of jewelry was acceptable to wear. According to a noted collector of mourning jewelry, Erika Weiner, “People started making memorial jewelry because there was no photography, and if your loved one died you wanted something as a touchstone to remember them every day. This was the main way that people remembered their departed loved ones. These items weren’t limited to women either; men could have memorial cufflinks or pocket watch fobs with parts of the deceased person’s hair braided within.” Weiner went on to explain, “As far as materials go, black enamel is the hallmark of most mourning pieces. But different metals and gems have different meanings.” Weiner elaborated “that white enamel means the deceased was a woman who died unmarried and a virgin. Pearls would indicate the loss of a child.”
I’m glad for today’s easing of these customs. Now we just have to take over deep-fried food for the grieving family and send a sympathy card. I haven’t heard of an increase in hauntings, so maybe all those customs were just hocus-pocus, or were they?
Just as a side note, when it’s “my time,” bring my family some fried chicken, and I’m totally cool with being dressed in a tie-dyed tee shirt and propped up on some photographer’s stand to make it look like I’m at a Grateful Dead concert.
