[FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE NOVA SCOTIAN INSTItute of natuRAL

SCIENCE.]

THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD1

By R. G. Haliburton, F.S.A.

In European Calendars, the last day of October, and the first and second days of November, are designated as the festivals of All Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls.

Though they have hitherto never attracted any special attention, and have not been supposed to have been connected with each other, they originally constituted but one commemoration of three days' duration, known among almost all nations as "the Festival of the Dead," or the "Feast of Ancestors."

It is now, or was formerly, observed at or near the beginning of November by the Peruvians, the Hindoos, the Pacific Islanders, the people of the Tonga Islands, the Australians, the ancient Persians, the ancient Egyptians, and the northern nations of Europe,

'At the suggestion of the writer, the above paper was substituted for one read before the Institute, which had been privately printed. In the previous one, on "New Material for the History of Man, Derived from a Comparison of the Customs and Superstitions of Nations," it was endeavored to show that the source of these superstitions, so far from being "absolutely unattainable," as it has been hitherto considered by all who have treated of them, could be arrived at by a comparison of the customs of civilized and savage races; and that those superstitions, being possessed of a marvellous vitality, are valuable historical memorials of primitive society. As an illustration of the duration and universality of primitive superstitions and customs, those connected with the habit of saying "God bless you!" to a person who sneezes, were selected. This absurd custom, referred to by Homer, and found in Europe, Asia, Africa, Polynesia and America, was traced to a belief found in the Arctic regions, Australia, and Central Africa (and it might have been added, in Ireland), that death and disease are not the result of natural, but of supernatural, causes; and that when a person sneezes, he is liable to be a victim of the spirits, or as the Celtic race express it, "to be carried off by the fairies." It was also argued that this custom, the trivial nature of which precludes the idea that it could have been borrowed by nations from each other, or that nature can everywhere have suggested it to the human race, plainly must have been inherited from a common source, and is a very conclusive argument in favor of the unity of origin of our race. These views have been confirmed by the observations of Captains Speke and Grant (see Illustrated London News, July 4, 1863, p. 23). An interesting little work by W. R. Wylde, on "Irish Popular Superstitions," published by William S. Orr & Co., London-which the writer was unable to procure until after the paper was read before the Nova Scotian Institute-supplies very curious facts, which corroborate his conclusions as to the origin of this custom. See from p. 120 to 135; also p. 51 to 58. See also Strada's Prolusiones-Cur sternuentes salutentur Lib. iii. Prael. iv.

and continued for three days among the Japanese, the Hindoos, the Australians, the ancient Romans, and the ancient Egyptians.

Halloween is known among the Highlanders by a name meaning the consolation of the spirits of the dead, and is with them, as with the Cinghalese, the Pacific Islanders, and almost every race among whom the festival is observed, connected with a harvest home, or, south of the equator, with a first fruits celebration. An old writer asks why do we suppose that the spirits of the dead are more abroad on Halloween than at any other time of the years and so convinced are the Irish peasantry of the fact, that they discreetly prefer remaining at home on that ill-omened night. The Halloween torches of the Irish, the Halloween bonfires of the Scotch, the Coel Coeth fires of the Welsh, and the Tindle fires of Cornwall, lighted at Halloween, are clearly memorials of a custom found almost everywhere at the celebration of the festival of the dead. The origin of the lanthorn festival has never yet been conjectured. It will be found, I believe, to have originated in the wide-spread custom of lighting bonfires at this festival.

The church of De Sens, in France, was endowed by its founder in the days of Charlemagne, for the purpose of having mass said for the dead, and the graveyard visited on All Halloween. Wherever the Roman Catholic Church exists, solemn mass for all souls is said on the second day of November; on that day the gay Parisians, exchanging the boulevard for the cemetery, lunch at the graves of their deceased relatives, and hold unconsciously their "feast of ancestors," on the very same day that savages in far distant quarters of the globe observe in a similar manner their festival of the dead."

Even the Church of England, which rejects All Souls, as based on a belief in purgatory, and as being a creation of Popery, devoutly clings to All Saints, which is clearly a relic of primeval heathenism.

On All Souls day, the English peasant goes a-souling, begging for "a soul cake for all Christen souls." He has very little suspicion that he is preserving a heathen rite, the meaning of which is not to be found in the Book of Common Prayer, but (as I shall hereafter show) is to be discovered in the sacred books of India, in which country the consecrated cake is still offered, as it has been for thousands of years in the autumn, to the souls of

2

See Brady's Clavis Calendaria, as to Oct. 31st.

See Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. p. 388, 396. (Ed. 1853.)

'Hodie in Ecclesia Senonensi, sit Anniversarium solemne, et generale pro defunctis.-Thiers' Traité des Superstitions, iii. 98.

5

Atlantic Monthly for May, 1862.

deceased ancestors. But, though the festival of the dead is so generally observed in November, there are some exceptions. Thus it was observed in February by the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, and the Algonquins of America, and in August by the Japanese and Chinese. The traces of its being observed in May are very few, and those of its being held at any other times of the year are of exceedingly rare occurrence. Before, therefore, I can attempt to treat of the festival of the dead, or refer to its origin and history, and the influence it has exerted on ancient mythology, it is necessary to confine this paper simply to questions connected with the calendar, and the times when the festival is found to be observed. It is important to trace the ancient November festival to the primeval year, which must have fixed it in that month among races south, as well as north of the equator. This year, I believe I have succeeded in discovering; and, as it appears to have originated in, or at least only now exists in, the southern hemisphere, I have designated it as the Primitive Southern year. It is also necessary to show that the festival of the dead, occurring in February or August, indicates a change having taken place, and a more recent year, commencing in February, having been substituted. As we only find this year north of the equator (so far as I have been able to learn), I have designated it as the Primitive Northern year.

Wherever the festival occurs in November, it is, or at least originally was, the new year's festival of the primitive southern year. Where it is held in February, it is, or once was, the commemoration of the commencement of the northern year.

As the mode of investigation pursued on this point materially adds to the credibility of my conclusions, I may be pardoned for referring to it.

The startling fact that "this feast was celebrated among the ancient Peruvians at the same period, and on the same day that Christians solemnize the commemoration of the dead (2d November)," at once drew my attention to the question, how was this uniformity in the time of observance preserved, not only in far distant quarters of the globe, but also through that vast lapse of time since the Peruvian, and the Indo-European first inherited this primeval festival from a common source?

It was plain that this singular uniformity could never have been preserved by means of the defective solar year in vogue among ancient nations. How then could this result have been produced? It was apparent that the festival must have been regu

6

Maurice's Indian Antiquities, ii. 189.

'Peruvian Antiquities, by M. Rivero and Von Tschudi, translated by Dr. Hawks, New York, 1855, p. 134.

lated by some visible sign, or mark, that nature had supplied, such as the rising of some constellation.

Remembering the ancient traditions as to the Pleiades, I naturally turned my attention to them. Professor How kindly offered to ascertain from an excellent astronomer whether the Pleiades could have ever risen in November in Asia or Europe. I was fortunately, however, able to save that gentleman the calculation. On turning to Bailly's Astronomie Indienne, I found him state that the most ancient year, as regulated by the calendar of the Brahmins of Tirvalore, began in November, and I was much gratified at finding that, in that calendar, the month of November is called Cartiguey, i.e., the month of the Pleiades,a circumstance which, M. Bailly says, would seem to indicate that that constellation by its rising or setting in that month, must have regulated the commencement of the ancient year in November.

But here a fresh difficulty arose as respects the calendar. To suppose that the Pleiades rose in that month, and commenced the year in the autumn, was not only opposed to ancient traditions respecting them, and to their name as the Stars of Spring (Vergiliae), but also to their actual movements, at the present day at

least.

We could not assume that great astronomical changes could ever have produced this result. How then could we account for the anomaly? I discovered the clue in extending my researches to the southern hemisphere, where I found the festival of the dead to occur in November, and to be the vernal new year's festival of a year commencing in November, and regulated by the rising of the Pleiades in the evening.

Before concluding this prefatory paper, it may be as well to state that the whole subject, both as regards the primitive new year festival of the dead and the primitive year, has altogether escaped the observation of the learned. De Rougemont, in his Peuple Primitif, published at Paris in 1856, has, out of three volumes, not devoted as many pages to "Les Fêtes des Morts," though they are unquestionably the most remarkable memorials we possess of Le peuple Primitif. Festivals connected with the seasons, he says, cannot now be investigated, from our ignorance of the primitive calendar; and he therefore only selects those that took place at the time of the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, i.e., associated with a solar year, and hence of a comparatively recent date, and subsequent to those of the two primitive calendars to which I have referred.

"Nous ne pouvons ici faire un étude spéciale de celles, qui se rapportent avant tout aux saisons; les calendriers des anciens nous 8 Vol. I, p. 28, 134.

sont trop imparfaitment connus, pour que nous puissions espérer de reconstruire celui du peuple primitif.'

The primitive year of two seasons, commencing in November, and the connection of the Pleiades with the primeval calendar, are not even referred to in the latest work on the astronomy of the ancients, published last year in Paris.10 Though very many remarkable facts in the history of the calendar and of our race, to which the study of the festival of the dead has afforded me a clue, are referred to by Greswell in his learned works on the Calendars of the Ancients, he has attempted to explain them by resorting to the miracles in the Bible-as to the sun having stood still or gone back on certain occasions-events which he contends must not only have disturbed, but have even left their impress on the calen dars of the ancients. But they are, I believe, capable of a more common-place solution. I trust that I shall be able to prove that these subjects are susceptible of an explanation, without having, with Greswell, to refer to miracles in the days of Hezekiah, or with Ovid, to leave the knotty point to be unravelled by the Gods“Dicta sit unde dies, quæ nominis extet origo Me fugit, ex aliquo est invenienda deo." "

THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD BROUGHT TO EUROPE AND ASIA BY A MIGRATION OF RACES FROM THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

1

"Mudán de pays y de estrellas." -Garcillasso de la Vega.

"Who can restrain the pleasant influences of the Pleiades?" we are asked in the book of Job, the most ancient production of sacred or profane literature. "The lights in the firmaments of the heavens," "for signs and for seasons, and for days, and for years," are supposed to have reference to that constellation, as well as to the sun and moon, for in early ages neither the sun nor the moon could have indicated the length of the year, or its division into seasons. The extreme veneration of remote antiquity for the Pleiades, or Vergiliæ, for having marked the seasons, and the beginning of the spring, are amongst the most venerable traditions of our race, and are now only realized among Australian savages,

'Vol. I, p. 523.

10 "Antiquité des Races Humaines. Reconstitution de la Chronologie, et de l'Histoire des Peuples Primitifs. Par l'examen des documents originaux, et par l'Astronomie," by Rodier.