Tag Archives: death

Ocean Wake

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Encinitas, CA
Performance Date: 3/24/2013
Primary Language: English

“When someone dies in Encinitas, I think it’s a Hawaiian thing too, as part of the wake, we all get on surfboards and paddle out to the ocean.  We get in a circle, and have leis… and we say a prayer or if the person wasn’t spiritual, say some nice words and talk about the person.  Then they have leis or flowers of some sort and you let them float away in the ocean.  It’s the same thing as scattering ashes, without the ashes.”

The informant has been a part of the ritual before, and she learned it from her father who is a part of the surfing community in Encinitas.

This wake ritual goes along with the community that it is practiced in.  The ritual draws from the geographical location near the ocean and the surfing community in the area.  It is a way for everyone to be a part of the celebration of the deceased person’s life, and  the floating leis give a more peaceful picture around the harsh reality of death.

Dia de los Muertos Altar

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend is an animation major at the University of Southern California.  She has some Irish relatives and Mexican relatives.

My friend would celebrate Dia de Los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) by creating an altar for a loved one.  She said that traditionally, the altar had to have cempazuchitl (yellow marigolds) and candles.  The cempazuchitl bring about a festive look to the altar and indicate an air of celebration.  My friend said that Dia de los Muertos is much more about celebrating death and celebrating dead loved ones.

On Dia de Los Muertos, the spirits come out and their surviving loved ones put candles on their altars.  The candles then serve to “light the way” for the spirits to their loved ones.

This year in college, my friend had to adjust what she could put on the altar.  The setup became much more simplistic and focused on the cempazuchitl and the candles.  Each altar is supposed to be dedicated to loved ones – my friend dedicated her altar to her grandfather, but did not have a personal item of his in college.  The tradition is to put a personal item of the deceased one as a way to indicate the altar is for them.  As a substitute, my friend placed a photo of her grandfather on the altar.

I find it very interesting that this tradition of creating the altar revolves on the belief that the spirits are still a part of this world, and that those who are living have an obligation to maintain interactions with the dead.  The fact that my friend talked about having to simplify the altar also makes me believe that altars are usually a really vibrant arrangement.  Many of the elements of the altar visually reinforce the idea of celebration instead of mourning.  It also calls for a personal involvement from the altar maker.  The effect of dedicating the altar to a particular loved one is different from generally dedicating to the dead.

Kristin Congdon’s essay “Making Merry with Death,” included in Peter Narvaez’s collection Of Corpse, contains a version of this altar, which is part of the ofrenda (offering) in Dia de los Muertos:

Narváez, Peter. Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2003. Print.

Avoid the Deadly Four

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/13/2013
Primary Language: English

Click here for video.

“One of my friends told me that in Chinese culture, the word “four” has a similar pronunciation to the word for “death”. So if you go into buildings in like Hong Kong or whatever, they skip the number four, so you know how we as Americans, some high rises don’t have thirteen, they don’t have four. Not only that, but they also skip the entire forty level too. So you go from thirty nine not to forty, but to fifty.”

The avoidance of “four” because it sounds like “death” in Chinese culture is a classic example of homeopathic magic. The thinking centers around the belief that the word invites death because of the way it sounds and the more that it is invoked, the more death and bad luck it invites. The idea that uttering a word can bring bad luck is common, such as the taboo on the word “Macbeth” when inside the theater.

Hotels and apartments have an incentive to omit the number four from much of their buildings because living on a fourth floor room would be seen as living in the shadow of death. For these businesses, it is a smarter move financially to exclude these floors because clients or customers would refuse to associate with them. It’s better to be safe than sorry and avoid the number four.

Interestingly, both South Koreans and Japanese also have an aversion to their “four” word as it is pronounced very similarly to the Chinese “four” and their word for “death” is very similar to the Chinese word for “death.” Of course, Korean and Japanese are strongly believed to have originated from Chinese, and because traditions and superstitions are carried through language, it is reasonable that these two cultures would also avoid the number four.

Burning money at Chinese funerals

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/16/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Informant: “When someone passes away you burn money so that they can spend it in the afterlife. My grandma recently passed, so my mom burned money on specific days. It happens three times I think, it’s very structured. That way, they can use it in the afterlife.”

Me: “Is it real money?”

Informant: “I don’t think so… I’m pretty sure it’s paper with money numbers written on it. It looks like old money. But basically they believe that the spirits can still walk the earth and influence people and have an impact on us, so you want them to be happy. It’s a respect thing. That way you can ask them for favors later. I know they also burn mini fake wooden TVs.”

Analysis: Upon hearing the story from my informant, the first thing that came to mind was the ancient Greek tradition of putting a coin underneath the tongue of a person so they could be ferried over the River in their journey to the underworld.

This fake money is actually called “Joss Paper”, and resembles money used in ancient times by the Emperor. It is usually made of bamboo paper or rice paper. Some of it is wrapped up like gold bars, and it is commonly burned with incense. In more modern folklore, it is believed that this money will go into a bank account that the deceased can access in heaven.

Often, the money must be folded before it is burnt. This is in order to distinguish it from regular money, for burning regular money is considered unlucky in most countries in Asia. The origin of this practice comes from regional folklore in China, and may have evolved from leaving food and incense at the Buddhist altars. However, Buddhism typically discourages burning money as they believe to deceased travels to the “Pure Land”, where there is no need for material things.

Why the Roussillon rocks are red

Nationality: USA, France
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, California
Performance Date: 4/29/13
Primary Language: English

Informant: “This Lord and Lady  lived in the castle in Roussillon, which is like this canyon area in France, right? There was this pageboy that came to hang out at the castle and stuff. The Lord was away a lot and didn’t like to spend time at home. So the pageboy and the Lady spent time together and like, fell in love and started to have an affair. The servants started to notice and a jealous maid reported the incident to the Lord. One day, the pageboy sang a song of his love for the Lady, and hearing the truth, the Lord was so mad he decided to take revenge. He took the pageboy hunting, and when the pageboy wasn’t looking, he stabbed him in the back and cut out his heart. Then he went back to the castle with the heart and had his cook prepare it with a spicy sauce. The Lady thought the dish was delicious, until her husband informed her that she had just eaten the heart of her lover. She said, “You have given me such a good meal, that I never want to taste anything else again”. Then she  fled out of the castle to the edge of the cliff, and jumped off the cliff. Her blood spilled over the land and turned it red, and that is why the Roussillon rocks are red.”

My informant first heard this story from a tour guide when he was visiting Roussillon.

Analysis: According to my research, this is the story of Raymond d’Avignon and Lady Sermonde. It is interesting because while this is story is called a legend, it has the quality of a myth because it tells a story of how the earth came to be, and why the rocks are red.

The Roussillon cliffs are a unique shade of rust-red, therefore it makes sense that someone came up with a story to explain why they were the color they are. This is due to the “ochre” color in the clay of the sand, which is a rose-pigment that is often used in the coloring of textiles.

This story does not appear to be very well known, and is only present in tour-guide websites across the Internet. The story has an almost Shakesperean quality to it. The love, lust and tragedy might be due to the fact that France is known for being the romance capital of the world.