From: burke@tss.com (Jim Burke)
Subject: Re:    RE:Death traditions
Reply-To: burke@tss.com (Jim Burke)
Organization: Teknekron Software Systems. Inc.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 21:26:08 GMT

In article <92253.083815AQMPH@ASUACAD.BITNET>, <AQMPH@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:
|> I read about Marie Parsons' research in the Charleston (WV) Gazette when I was
|> home for a visit a couple of weeks ago.  She teaches at Prestonburg Community
|> College and studies mountain traditions and lore surrounding funerals.  She
|> talks about wakes (the most common of these traditions) where someone sits up
|> all night with the dead.  She said "A group of people would sit up all night.
|> In many cases they would let th emost immediate family go to bed.  It just
|> didn't seem right to leave the dead alone.  It was out of respect."  Today some
|> funeral homes in the mountains and some churches still arrange to have families
|> remain all night with the bodies. 

This is the tradition in the Old Regular Baptist church, which I described
in an article a couple of months ago.  This tradition is maintained even
among Old Regular Baptists who have transplanted from Appalachia to other
areas of the country.   After my family moved from
Pike County, KY to the Detroit area my mother occassionally still attended an Old
Regular Baptist church that had been established by "transplants" in that
area.  There are a number of them in the Detroit area.  When she died in 1984,
we had her body at the funeral home for 1 day for friends to come and pay their
respects.  After that, she was taken to the church for two more days until the
funeral.  The funeral director was used to the ways of the ORBs and was quite
good about allowing folks to stay all night at the funeral home.  I stayed one
of the nights at the church simply because it seemed like something I wanted
to do.  However, some of the people who stayed did not know my mother that 
well.  They knew other members of our extended family.  Still, they sat up
all night at the church because that is what they do.  It was a fairly large
group of people, perhaps 12-15.  I think this is all a part of the mourning
process for this group.  It felt right to me, somehow, even though I'm not
a member of their church.  But the way the group helps to mourn the loss of
a loved one seems good to me, the way people ought to feel for one another.


|> She also mentioned the feather crown.  She
|> said the objects are said to mysteriously form -- supposedly with no human
|> involvement -- in connection with a soul's departure for heaven.  She said
|> she has seen one of these crowns.  "It's a round object made of feathers.  The
|> feathers are not just randomly knotted together.  It looks like an artistic
|> creation.

This is really interesting.  My family comes from an area not very far at 
all from Prestonburg, yet I've never heard of a feather crown.  I'd love to
know more about it though.  


|> Other customs include burials in family cemeteries and placement of headstones
|> facing east.  The latter is because "A lot of mountain people put faith in
|> a literal resurrection.  When Christ returns for the second coming.  He will
|> split the eastern sky.  They want to be facing Him when they rise".

This is still the tradition in many cemeteries, and in some states I believe
it is even a law as to which direction bodies are buried.  No one wants to 
bump their head on their tombstone when they are resurected, I suppose (no
disrespect to anyone's religious beliefs intended).

|> 
|> In the article she also mentioned ghost stories in the mountains.  She said
|> few mountain people believe in ghosts, though stories abound.  Parsons said
|> one elderly Floyd County woman interviewed for the project told how her father
|> went out in the middle of the night and saw a neighbor who had been on her
|> deathbed the day before standing across the river.  The father went in and
|> noticed it was 2 a.m. The next morning there was a knock at the door.  It was
|> grim news:  The neighbor had died at 2 a.m.  These are fascinating stories that
|> need to be remembered.  They're such a part of who we are".

I have several hum-dinger ghost stories in my family, told by actual witnesses
(my grandmother, aunt, uncle, and mother).  Most of them will say they don't
believe in ghosts, but there was something about that house...  well, that's
another post later on...

-- 

	Jim Burke	"Life is uncertain - eat dessert first!"
	Teknekron Software Systems		... burke@tss.com
  	phone:(415) 617-2432			... uunet!tekbspa!burke