How 4 Cultures Honour the Dead: Grief Rituals Worth Borrowing

Altar with marigolds and candles for honoring the dead

How 4 Cultures Honour the Dead (and What They Can Teach Us About Grief)

If you look past the candy, costumes and horror movies, Halloween has always been about remembering the dead. It grew out of a time of year when people believed the veil/border between the living and the dead was thin enough to cross.

You don’t have to believe in ghosts to find that useful. Many cultures set aside days to welcome their dead back, with food, colour, music and a surprising amount of fun. Here are four, and what they can teach us about our own grieving hearts.

(I’m an admirer of these traditions, not an expert, so think of this as a tasting menu. Go learn more from the people who live them.)

Samhain (Ireland)

I’ll start with my Irish ancestors. Samhain (pronounced sow-in) is the Celtic festival Halloween grew out of. It got Christianized into All Hallows’ Eve around the year 1000.

The ancient Celts believed the barrier between worlds could be crossed at Samhain, so the dead could visit. People lit bonfires and dressed up as animals and monsters so the faeries couldn’t kidnap them (a reasonable concern). They feasted, and left food out for the dead and the faeries. In some places, they held a quiet “dumb supper,” with a place set for the ancestors. (“Dumb” here means mute or silent, not “bad idea.” Nobody was calling the ancestors dumb. They were just asking everyone to keep it down.)

And in parts of Britain and Ireland, people went door to door singing for the dead in exchange for cake. Trick-or-treating is basically that, minus the choir. See the evolution?

Dia de los Muertos (Mexico)

Dia de los Muertos is the best known of the bunch, and I love that it’s about death and bursts with colour and joy at the same time. The dead are still part of the family, so for a couple of days each year, they come home.

The celebration is split across two days. November 1 is for children who have died (sometimes called Día de los Angelitos, or the day of the little angels), and November 2 is for adults. Families often include toys and sweets on the altars for the little ones.

Families build altars called ofrendas and fill them with marigolds (said to guide wandering souls), candles, photos, and the favourite food and drink of the person who died. Then there are the sugar skulls. They carry an idea often credited to the printmaker José Guadalupe Posada: under all our makeup and designer labels, todos somos calaveras. We’re all skeletons. I find that weirdly comforting.

The Hungry Ghost Festival (China and beyond)

In Buddhist and Taoist traditions, a whole month is set aside when the bridge between the living and the dead is open and ghosts wander the earth looking for food. (Apparently you’re hungry in the afterlife no matter where you live.)

Families burn paper money so the ghosts have some pocket cash (every ghost needs some, obviously). They build altars with food, incense and photos, and on the feast night it’s common to set a place at the table for a relative who has died.

Gai Jatra (Nepal)

This is the one that got me.

In Kathmandu and nearby towns, people spend several days remembering those who died in the past year. It starts with a parade. Families who lost someone that year dress up a cow, which is sacred in Hinduism and believed to guide souls onward. If you don’t have a cow, a young boy in the family dresses up as one. Resourceful. The rest of the day is for singing, dancing and telling jokes.

The story of how it came to be goes like this.

In the 17th century, King Pratap Malla’s second son died. His queen fell into a deep depression, and nothing he tried helped. So he asked everyone in the kingdom who had lost someone that year to parade past the palace in colourful clothes. He even gave them one day of free speech, so they could tell jokes that might have gotten them in trouble any other day. (Possibly the birth of political satire?)

As the procession passed, the queen looked out and saw a street full of people who were grieving and still smiling, still laughing, still showing up. She realized she wasn’t alone. And she smiled.

The festival has changed a lot since, but it’s still celebrated today. How lovely is that?

What they have in common

Look at the common threads. A date on the calendar. A ritual. Food (no good celebration skips it). Colour, costumes, dancing. And permission to be close to the people we miss, in public, with company.

That last one is what many of us are missing. We live in a culture that doesn’t teach us how to grieve. We get a casserole and a few days of bereavement leave, then we’re expected to be fine. Nobody hands us a parade.

That queen didn’t need advice. She needed to see she wasn’t alone.

Borrow what works

There’s no wrong way to remember someone, so steal shamelessly. Try one of these:

Set a place at the table for someone you miss. A real plate. Yes, it will feel strange. Do it anyway.
Cook their favourite meal
Light a candle in their honour
Write them a letter telling them everything that’s happened since they’ve been gone (gossip included). It’s a great reflection tool and keeps you feeling connected
Create a small altar with flowers, photos and candles
Call someone who’s grieving and let them know they aren’t alone

And if the loss you’re carrying doesn’t come with a grave, like a divorce, an estrangement, the body you used to trust or a version of yourself you’ve outgrown, the same rules apply. Light the candle anyway. Grief isn’t reserved for death.

Maybe we’re the bridge

Here’s some food for thought. Maybe we are the bridge between the living and the dead. Maybe we keep it open as long as we remember and honour the people who’ve died. And maybe we can mark loss the way these cultures do, with colour and joy, dancing and great food.