Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Colorado Festivals of Dead “Frozen Dead Guy Day” and Coffin Races

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“The first is Frozen Dead Guy Day, it’s in Estes Park. This man, Bredo Morstoel, he died, and he was like “I want to be frozen and you can bring me back to life one day when you guys have that technology.” And they granted his wish and there’s a shed that has his cyro preserved body in it, so he’s a frozen dead guy. And so every year there’s an annual celebration called Frozen Dead Guy Day in Estes Park, where they celebrate and all hail the frozen dead guy that’s just chilling in the shed in town. So people take photos outside and have coffin races.

The coffin races are similar to Emma Crawford Coffin Races in Manitou Springs Colorado. Emma Crawford wanted to be buried alongside Pikes Peak, which is right outside Manatu. There was a horrible mudslide on a rainy day and her coffin comes tumbling down the mountain, down through town square. They’re like “No Emma your coffin!” She gets put back in the mountain, it’s fine. But now to honor her displaced coffin there are coffin races where everybody has to make a coffin and race their coffin down the side of the road against other coffins. People dress up super Halloweeny, super fun, same with Frozen Dead Guy Day, to celebrate the dead! To keep her body safe in the mountain so she doesn’t come sliding in town again you have to race your coffin, to appease Emma Crawford. I used to go to Emma Crawford Coffin Races every year and I would participate, we would sit on top of a hearst. We would dress up and hand out flyers for the haunted house I worked at. Everybody gets so into it and gets competitive about the best decorated coffin, what’s the best design for racing, who do you want to win, who has the silliest costume? The whole thing’s broadcast on the news. Afterwards I love to get myself some pumpkin pie ice cream. 

Context

Y is a 19-year-old college student from Denver, Colorado. She would visit the Emma Crawford Races every year with her family because they have family friends in Estes Park who they would visit and stay with and celebrate the festival. Her dad would also often take her to the Frozen Dead Guy Day celebrations. She remembers the Coffin Races fondly as fun celebrations that were around her favorite holiday, Halloween. She’s really interested in the gothic and macabre, so these festivals were favorites of hers.

Analysis

Both festivals have all of the elements of festivals. They are examples of festival time, when you operate by different rules than you usually would. Death and the macabre are usually avoided for Americans, they’re usually sad, upsetting taboo topics. However, during these festivals, people celebrate those things and make light of them. Emma Crawford Coffin Races occur in October, relating them to Halloween or Samhein. Lots of festivals surrounding the dead happen during this time period, like Day of the Dead, Halloween, or All Saints Day. This is related to the agricultural calendar, when things got colder and crops would start to die after harvest. These are Chthonic festivals and rituals, relating to returning to the earth. During the Coffin Races, people become comfortable with the idea of being in coffins and returning to the earth, something that is usually taboo. Both of these festivals are also the results of when proper burial rituals were done wrong. In the case of Frozen Dead Guy Day, he defied the usual expectations of burial rituals, and is actually attempting to defy death by coming back to life later on. The Emma Crawford Coffin Races are supposedly held to appease Emma’s spirit, because her resting place was disrespected and disrupted, so the festival must be held as a sort of apology for this disrespect and to celebrate her spirit. Both festivals also include lots of elements of performance. They follow a syntax, with the opening, the main event of coffin racing, celebrations such as eating, music, and drinking, maybe a costume contest near the middle, and then the closing celebrations. The big event of the coffin racing in both festivals is a symbolic event representing people making light and coming to terms with tough topics like their own mortality. There are performative acts like the costumes, and the racing. Costumes are also an example of the festival’s specific dress requirements. The festivals also have specific foods associated with them. Y says she loves to eat pumpkin pie ice cream after the Emma Crawford Coffin Races, with pumpkin being a food associated with Fall and Halloween time. These festivals are also community and identity building events for the towns. Both festivals are held in small towns that take great community pride in these events. These festivals have put these small towns on the map, and share town history and folklore stories that have stuck around in the community.

Beltane / Birthday Celebration

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“What Beltane actually is it’s like an old holiday, like Pagan but also Greek and Roman, it’s just an old holiday back when we were relying on crops cause it’s like the peak of spring, right in between the spring equinox and summer solstice. So what I do is I have a bowl of water that I place at the window at the start of the morning, and it collects the sun during the day and you put in your yellow flowers, or just any flowers you have to symbolize spring, and you can manifest over it. It’s an offering to the Mayday goddess, she’s not necessarily someone I follow, but I just like that it’s the same day as my birthday so I always do a little thing for it, a little offering. It’s more of like, a new beginnings thing, cause it’s actually the start of my next year of life. It’s sort of cleansing, I think in general spring is the time for that, new growth, birth and all that. A lot of people do fertility stuff, for me it’s just clean slate, new beginnings, on my birthday. I find it calming to have my own space, mediate, manifest, and go about my day.

Context

Y is a 19-year-old college student from Denver, Colorado. She started celebrating Beltane when she was in middle school, after she found out it was on the same day as her birthday. She doesn’t follow any pagan faith or celebrate any other Sabbats, so this celebration is both a Beltane ritual and more of a personal birthday ritual. She is actually of the Muslim faith, and says the ritual is technically a sin in her religion. She interprets the ritual and Beltane celebration more as a birthday cleansing ritual and as a quiet moment for her to calm herself before her birthday begins and reflect on what she wants in the year ahead.

Analysis

Beltane is one of the holidays that follows the agricultural calendar and also follows our life cycles, representing the cyclical calendar.. It happens on May 1st, during a time of great agricultural reproduction and the planting and growing of new crops. It also represents the time of budding youth in the life cycle. It’s similar to the saying of a May-December wedding, referring to when a young girl (in her May era) marries an old man (in his December era). May, spring, and Beltane are associated with new beginnings and growth in both the life cycle and agricultural cycle. This particular Beltane ritual especially represents new beginnings, as for Y it represents a new year of her life. The fact that she celebrates this holiday is very interesting because it illustrates an inter splicing of faiths. She is Muslim, and doesn’t usually celebrate the pagan holidays of the Sabbats. She chooses to celebrate this one because it’s on her birthday, which makes it also a birthday celebration. Birthday celebrations are one of the three big steps in life that are usually celebrated: birth, marriage, and death. Birthdays represent coming into a new identity, and are a time of liminality when a person is first becoming that new age. A lot of birthday celebrations are group celebrations, such as singing Happy Birthday together. Some people say that birthday parties started because the birthday, as a day of liminality, is a day when a person is more vulnerable to spirits, so groups would gather to protect the birthday person. Birthdays are also a time of private ritual though, many people have their own private rituals they do on the day to either reflect back on their life, or imagine the possibilities the new age will bring them. Y uses her birthday ritual to manifest good things into her life for the next year. This illustrates Dundes’ argument that the American worldview is very future centric. Instead of reflecting of the past, she looks forward to the future on her birthday. It is also an example of how American society looks at time linearly. Despite celebrating a festival like Beltane that uses cyclical time, her perspective of her birthday moving forward linearly is an example of her experiencing linear time. 

Chinese New Year Traditions

Text: “On Chinese New Year, we wish for good luck for the rest of the year as well as health and mental health. Something considered bad luck is cutting your hair before the new year and cleaning before the new year. In terms of food for Chinese New Year, something that my family likes to do is make handmade dumplings. We wear qipaos, which is a traditional form of dress.”

Context: The informant is Chinese-American. Her parents immigrated from China but the informant grew up in the United States in Southern California. The informant is 20 years old and she currently attends the University of Southern California. The informant celebrates Chinese New Year every year with her family. The informant also discussed that she gets a lot of money during this holiday because all of the older family members give the younger people money. Since the entire extended family celebrates this holiday together, the informant usually gets a lot of money. The informant described that she only wears qipaos on this occasion. She also stated that they only make handmade dumplings on this holiday to preserve this tradition. Chinese New Year is based on the Lunar Calendar but it usually starts in late January or early February. 

Analysis: Chinese New Year seems to be similar to the traditional American New Year in the sense that people wish for good luck for the rest of the year. I think the Chinese New Year has more of an emphasis on wishing for good health. We don’t have the superstitions of cutting hair or cleaning before the new year as my friend described. I appreciated the informant telling me about both her family’s individual culture such as making handmade dumplings as well as her telling me about the broader culture associated with the holiday such as the qipaos and the focus on wishing for good health.

Doljanchi Tradition

Text: “In Korea, we wish for health, wealth, and intelligence. That’s something that’s really big when someone turns one year old. There are different objects that you put in front of the baby, whatever they grab signifies something. For example, a string signifies longevity in your life. If the baby reaches for a ball, that symbolizes athleticism.”

Context: The informant is Korean-American. Her parents immigrated from Korea but the informant grew up in the United States and moved around different states as a child. The informant is 21 years old and she currently attends the University of Southern California. The informant has grown up with the Korean culture of wishing for good health and intelligence. The informant participated in the activity described as a baby, also known as Doljanchi. In this ceremony, many objects are placed in front of the baby such as books, a ball, string, a paintbrush, and money. She has also seen some of her younger cousins have a Doljanchi celebration. This celebration is commonly celebrated throughout Korea and among Korean Americans. 

Analysis: This information was very intriguing to me because I hadn’t learned much about it prior to interviewing my informant. I had briefly heard about it but didn’t know a lot of the details. The Dolijanchi is so interesting to me because it brings up the question of how developed are humans at one year old. If the baby can choose an item that determines how they’ll act as an adult, how psychologically developed are they? From what I understand, the parents must love to see the Dolijanchi and then compare the result of the ceremony to how the child acts growing up. 

Traditional Korean Soups

Text: “On Korean New Year, people eat rice cake soup and on birthdays people eat seaweed soup.”

Context: The informant is Korean-American. Her parents immigrated from Korea but the informant grew up in the United States and moved around different states as a child. The informant is 21 years old and she currently attends the University of Southern California. The informant grew up with these Korean traditions. The rice cake soup is called tteokguk and is made with sliced rice cakes, beef or chicken broth, and multiple garnishes such as egg and seaweed. The soup is said to bring good luck and fortune at the start of the year. The seaweed soup is called miyeok-guk. This traditional soup is made with seaweed, beef, and various seasonings. This soup is regarded as a means of celebrating a person’s life and health for another year. This is a tradition because it’s a reminder of the value of nutrition and good health in preserving a long and happy life.

Analysis: I was very interested to learn about these traditional soups from the informant because I don’t have many food traditions like this in my culture. The closest traditional food I eat is a birthday cake. I’ve never heard of traditional soups for birthdays and New Year. I’m fascinated by the Korean traditions that are dedicated to good luck and life preservation. These seem to be common themes in Korean culture.