This coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend, officially an observance to honor fallen soldiers but unofficially the beginning of the summer. We have Congress in 1968 to thank for creating the Uniform Holiday Act, which turned many of our solemn, meaningful observances into convenient three-day weekends, perfect for getaways full of clogged traffic leaving town and home improvement projects that I don’t have enough time to finish because I didn’t start until Monday. On the other hand, the garage could use a spruce up…
I’ve never been able to warm up to Memorial Day, and trying to put my finger on it, I think it’s because of the hypocrisy. To the extent that there’s a typical saying besides “Hot Dogs Half OFF!” or “Beach is Open” or “Maybe there’s a frontage road around this mess…,” the speeches come from politicians determined to shape the idea of sacrifice into a battering ram to justify more use of force. It doesn’t help that every single American war in my lifetime has been about the elite in the US sending the have-not soldiers into places we should not be, but of course that’s not the fault of those in uniform, thank you for your service. (Don’t get me wrong; I would rather have a military than the alternative.) It just too often makes me think of those Jackson Browne lyrics:
I want to know who the men in the shadows are,
Jackson Browne “Lives in the Balance”
I want to hear someone asking them why,
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight and to die…
Still, perhaps in penance for not sufficiently appreciating the sacrifice because of politicians’ crocodile tears, I can offer up a little historical journey. Not why America created Memorial Day because all those bot-churned quasi-stories will trace it to the Civil War. Instead, my question is was putting flowers on military graves always a thing? How did other, older cultures used to celebrate their dead? We’re one of the few cultures that only observes this for one day and restricts it to people in the military.
Meanwhile lots of other cultures, historically, set aside time to remember those who passed before us, especially family members.
The Drab, Sad Afterlife in Sumeria
You have to give Sumerians their due on honoring the dead; they gave it an entire month. They set aside all of Abu, in late summer, to light fires, clean tombs, and refresh the ceremonial objects. They also did sports, because it was in the summer and they hoped to entertain the ghosts, but let’s get to the ghosts before we discuss the wrestling.
The Sumerian’s view of the afterlife was egalitarian. Everyone went to the same place when they died–kings, farmers, babies, priests. The Queen of the Night, Ereshkigal, ran the place but the underworld wasn’t such a great place, drab and dreary. A great king might come in and arrange for a wonderful banquet, but he would find the food spoiled, the water brackish.
Those whose families cherished their memories and kept their graves clean might be somewhat content, even like a “companion to the gods,” according to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Those forgotten might “weep bitterly,” face against the wall. Hence, one reason to have a large family is because a dead man with one son might be forgotten, whereas one with seven sons is more likely remembered. A proper burial helps; however, the ghosts could still become restless because the afterlife was not a fun place.
Abu meant both the time period, when the family members would clean up the tombs, but also referred to the hole in the burial mounds where they would pour in foodstuff (honey, oil). They hoped the treats would help sustain or at least appease the ghosts, who would stay content rather than seek out the land of the living. Otherwise, they’d come looking for you, and then you had to hire an exorcist.
The Sumerians would also light fires to keep the ghosts away, and as long as they had torchlight and it was the summer, they would hold night time athletic contests. Yes! Like the Olympics. Only, in between the wrestling and boxing and races, they would offer solemn prayers for the ancestors. Kind of like today when the TV director includes a flashback or a reminder of how so-and-so is inspired by his dead grandmother…
Leave Out Plenty of Food and Water
The Egyptians had a far more elaborate process of burial, although a little less calendar time to honor their dead. They had two observances. One was the three-day Wag Festival, the 17-19th of the first month Tekh/Thoth, when the Nile Flooded (late summer). This was the “opening” of the year, the opening of the Nile, so it was also the opening of the way for souls to take the journey safely into the Underworld.
Egyptians felt that it was important for a soul in the afterlife to have a good experience. That was partly up to the person, because when they died, their heart would be weighed on the scale of Ma’at (bottom of figure). If they were found wanting, the crocodile deity Ammit would devour the heart, and the person would not be lost and forgotten, with no afterlife. If they were a good person, they could continue on, with a good afterlife.
However, like the Sumerians, Egyptians also needed family and friends to remember them. Not only did Egyptian family members need to honor their dead family with fond memories and clean resting places, they needed to provide fresh food, torches, and sometimes even ceremonial paper boats (if near water) to help the dead continue their journey.
The city of Thebes on the Nile also held a second special observance for the dead, called the “Beautiful Festival of the Valley.” This entailed a major procession across the water to the temples, where officials would venerate dead pharaohs. Families, too, would proceed solemnly to put flowers on their loved ones’ tombs–flowers were available because it was past harvest season–along with more cleaning, more fresh supplies. This integrated ancestor worship into the larger sacred festival to honor the kings.
Sweeping the Tombs in China: Qingming
Ancient China had its own festival day for honoring the dead, called Qingming (Chingming). This one-day spring festival, held two weeks after the spring equinox, also encouraged family members to light fires in shrines, burn paper to honor the ancestral spirits, and to sweep out the tombs where ancestors lie buried. Much of my vision of this is from the first version of Disney’s Mulan, but I don’t think the movie was entirely off the mark.
Part of the ancient Chinese view of ancestors was that they could bring you good fortune and success provided you honored their memory properly. It was like a mutual co-existence; you remembered them and cared for their grave, and they helped you out.
Some scholars believe that this one-day holiday arose during the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong though people were spending too much time and money on the practices. Xuanzong limited it to once a year. Meanwhile, the custom has lasted for centuries, and spread from China to its neighbors: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and so on.
Holidays are never stable, though, and regime changes often try to change traditions, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In 1911, China kicked out the emperors and explicitly turned to the West, replacing their complex lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian calendar. They eliminated several of the traditional holidays, Qingming among them, and sometimes fined people who still followed the old calendar. When Mao came in, decades later, this policy was strengthened and, during the Cultural Revolution, old practices such as these were strictly forbidden, reinforced at gunpoint.
More recently, the Chinese government has signed on to the ICH conventions under UNESCO, which encourages countries to revitalize some of their traditional practices (the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage). As one historian noted, traditional culture was seen by the government initially as a hindrance to economic production, but is now viewed as essential to cultural identity and spiritual sustenance for people.
Beans and Roses: Roman Festivals for the Dead
Ancient Rome had multiple festivals honoring the dead–even one special to the military. First, in mid-February, they held a nine-day period of reflection called Parentalia and Feralia. February was the Roman month of purification, where Romans were supposed to stay at home and make offerings rather than celebrate or conduct business, while priests performed a series of sacred rites. Ovid, in a lengthy poem detailing Roman holidays, explained that if Romans reflected this duty, they risked angering the spirits of the dead. The February offerings included both food for sustenance, again to help the dead in their eternal time in the underworld, and garlands, especially of violets.
Angry spirits were front and center of a second festival in May called Lemuralia. The lemures were vengeful and wandering spirits whose family members had forgotten them or who had not conducted proper burial rights. For three days in May–the 9, 11, and 13–family members would gather at night for a special ritual.
The head of the family would take a handful of black beans and throw them behind him while chanting: “Haec ego mitto; his. .. redimo meque meosque fabis” (with these beans, I redeem my dear ones and myself). He had to wash first and do this barefoot. The phrase was chanted nine times, which probably led to a lot of bean sweeping later. Black was the color of the shades in the underworld and beans considered a very healthy food, so this was thought to be offering good food to the ghosts. Do you suppose this would work to ward off aggressive squirrels?
No beans were needed, however, for lauding ancestors as well as military heroes in the other May festival of Rosalia. This observance involved putting rose garlands, wreaths, and rose petals on to burial sites. Families would hold a festive meal near the cemetery, surrounding themselves with plenty of the roses to symbolize Venus and Mars and an appreciation of the fleeting nature of life and beauty. May was when the roses were in bloom.
However, the Roman army also added a specific variation, called the Rosaliae Signorum, to their calendar (Rosalia of the Standards). After washing and covering themselves with holy oil, soldiers would drape their uniforms and the standards with rose crowns and garlands. Hanging roses up on the standard was their variation of Memorial Day.
There’s an interesting post-script to this Roman observance. The combination of roses, rose petals, spirits, and remembrance remained strong in Rome even as the Empire crumbled and moved elsewhere. Christianity came in and the church moved both to eliminate “pagan” traditions and to transform them, where they could. One change involved the Christian observance of Pentecost when, 50 days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit descends to the disciples of Jesus who start speaking in tongues.
Legend says that in the seventh century, the Church created a variation of this ritual to take place in the Pantheon, one of the glorious ancient Roman buildings still intact. On Pentecost, rose petals would be scattered from the top, symbolizing the descent of the spirit (Spirit, if you prefer). This provides a link between several types of traditions–ancient Rome, medieval Christianity, and the universal idea of remembrance through spirits– combining in a modern variation of the Rosalia.
Thus, for centuries, cultures have been remembering the departed with flowers. The earliest versions of Memorial Day were named Decoration Day, an observance that focuse on required action rather than mere passive remembrance. It was common for women and children (i.e., non-soldiers) to lead the way in this effort.
As I ponder this, it seems that there might be a lot of people who we ought to thank in remembrance in ADDITION to family members and those in the military, like teachers, doctors, nurses, and heck anyone we knew and remember fondly.
Putting a flower on a soldier’s headstone is a noble endeavor, or anyone’s headstone, for that matter. If that’s not in your plans, maybe take a minute or two this weekend to remember a family member, take a look at some old photos, tell a story or two–that might help calm their restless spirits. It might even calm your own.
