History
Folklore and Death Positivity Affect How Americans Deal With Our Departed— and Our Ghosts
Changing headstones, Duffy’s Cut and podcast recommendations for understanding the importance of ghost legends at home and abroad
A town’s foundations lain around the bones of Irish victims.
A procession of corpses.
Shifting headstones, and lingering ghost stories.
Humans create folklore especially in times of great uncertainty. Liminal periods or in-between times spook us. We need stories to get us through the frightening hours of the morning, changing seasons, and the time before a corpse is laid in the ground. These times are scary because they signal a change. This in-between time is not easily labeled, and that makes all humans — no matter your ethnic background — uncomfortable.
How do we deal with this uncertainty?
We tell stories, of course!
Funeral Folklore
In Estonian and Jewish tradition, family members watch over the body of the recently departed. This helps the family come to terms with their loss, but it also prevents anything suspicious from happening during this in-between ‘liminal’ period before the body is put to rest.
Death doesn’t always have to be a somber affair. Irish families hold ‘merry wakes’ for their dead, jovial gatherings where family members might recall stories about their loved one’s past or share lighthearted pranks with unsuspecting guests.
For example, the popular folk song “Finnegan’s Wake,” takes a dramatic turn:
“One mornin’ Tim was rather full
His head felt heavy, which made him shake
He fell from the ladder and he broke his skull
And they carried him home his corpse to wake”
And yet, surrounded by liquor and loved ones at a ‘merry wake,’ poor Finnegan isn’t dead. He rises from his coma when a fight breaks out and a barrel of whiskey spills all over his open coffin. He’s ready to dance at his funeral ceremony, having been re-baptized in his drink of choice.
In pre-communist China, the dead rose from their resting places and traveled miles through local neighborhoods on their way to the next life. The living gathered to observe the procession but would not dare look at the travelers because this might allow the dead to steal their essence of life or Chi.
This ‘corpse parade’ served two purposes: it helped families believe that their loved ones were returning to their original homes (thus preventing wrathful ghosts,) and it created an aura of mystery that helped build respect for Taoist priests.
The corpses weren’t walking themselves home; each corpse had a carrier that would hoist the body onto his back and follow the Taoist priest’s lantern as the procession moved through town. Townspeople heard the procession’s echoing gong and shut themselves away in their homes, grateful that their deceased would find rest at the end of their journey.
Americans, on the other hand, don’t like to think about death in this way. Certainly, we tell ghost stories and warn meddling teenagers not to wander into graveyards at night. But today, our cemeteries are intentionally designed so that we don’t have to think about death — even though each of us will eventually have to face our bitter end.
American graveyards are lush spaces that avoid depicting the deceased. While mid-1600s gravestones in Eastern Massachusetts depicted winged skulls or memento mori crossbones, mid-1700s gravestones changed. These grave markers moved away from grim imagery to show winged cherubs, a symbol of eternal life. By 1800, most gravestones depicted flowers or an urn. This change made sure visitors would not have to think of death… as they wandered through a graveyard or necropolis, literally ‘a city of the dead.’ ¹
Death-Positive Movement
Today, death is almost a taboo topic in America.
Caitlin Doughty, death advocate and co-founder of the Order of Good Death, hopes to change that.
Caitlin Doughty began working on her YouTube channel ‘Ask a Mortician’ in 2011 after she realized that many Americans want to learn about how our funeral industry works. Since then, she’s written three books, founded a Los Angeles funeral home and challenged audiences to think differently about death. She encourages death positivity and healthy grieving practices. Doughty has worked with co-Founders Sarah Chavez and Louise Hung to create the Order of Good Death and the podcast Death in the Afternoon.
Yet amidst this culture of death acceptance and death positivity also often comes insatiable curiosity, and the two movements are not the same.
Death positivity means that individuals should research burial options and discuss end-of-life plans with family members. We should know what end-of-life options are available and honor the wishes of the departed. We should feel empowered when speaking about death and end-of-life options.
Morbid curiosity is not the same thing as death positivity. But individuals with morbid curiosity can be respectful proponents of the death positive movement.
And yet, listening to the episodes in the Death in the Afternoon podcast and similar history podcasts that include ghost tales, it becomes clear that conversations about death and ghost stories help us better understand how individuals around the world cope with loss and the fear of death. Talking about ghosts helps us discuss insecurities, oppression and how the news has changed how it talks about the friendly (or not-so-friendly) dead.
What does Death Positivity Have to do With Ghosts?
Today, local governments are not likely to change policies because of a ghost or ghost legends, but belief in helpful ghosts is not a black-and-white issue.
America has a long history of oppression. Death positivity can help us improve lives today by digging up past injustice or forgotten mysteries and creating spaces for conversations about ghosts.
Where do alleged ghost sightings occur?
What does history say about these ghosts? Did these ghosts receive a ‘good death?’
The ghost might not be a ghost at all — does telling a particular ghost story represent civil unrest and community struggle?
Might the ghost represent marginalized communities today?
We can help the living questioning how our funeral customs help grieving family members and struggling communities, and we can temper morbid curiosity or ghost stories with the question, What happens next?
Can Ghosts Influence the Present?
Can a ghost create change in the Twenty-First century?
Yes, they can. In the early 2000s, Reverend Dr. Frank Watson and his brother Dr. William Watson inherited local railway documents for the town of Malvern, Pennsylvania. They knew local legends told of glowing lights around the area of town called Duffy’s Cut. They also knew that Malvern had been home to Irish Immigrants in the 1830s. What they didn’t know was that there had been a massive cholera epidemic, a series of murders and a mass grave near the railroad tracks.
The pair found evidence that Irish residents in Malvern had been killed when they attempted to receive medical care during the 1830s cholera epidemic, and they created a documentary The Ghosts of Duffy’s Cut in 2006. In 2009, the pair uncovered more than 80 bones that further supported their research.
While this pair did not cite ghost stories as their inspiration for uncovering the mass grave at Duffy’s Cut, these legends caught their interest. A common interest in ghost tales and local history led the pair to research this area and uncover its secrets. Might similar ghost stories lead other researchers to investigate crimes against other historically marginalized Indigenous and Black communities in the US?
Death Positivity and Not-So-Spooky Stories
Eighteen percent of Americans say they have seen a ghost. Ghost stories and funeral rites teach us a lot about our culture and individual experiences. World ghost stories are closely linked to our stories about death and grieving.
In every ghost story, it is important to ask: Who does the haunting? Who comes to visit, and when? What does this story say about politics, gender, grief and self-expression in the location this story takes place?
Ghost stories are more than a spooky warning — they communicate how different cultures deal with the unknown. They communicate lessons from the past. And the stories that remain in circulation tell us what problems we need to change to put these spirits to rest.
Further Listening: The History Behind World Ghost Stories
Learning more about death makes this macabre topic less daunting. It also helps us understand how different groups grieve, and what we can learn from funeral folklore. Here’s a list of podcasts if you’re interested in learning more about ghost stories and their impact today:
- Ghosts of History: Versailles spins a tale of academic intrigue when two 18th century professors document their strange experience at Versailles. This episode briefly addresses LGBTQIA issues and the role of women in academia during this time (Podcast: Stuff you missed in History Class)
- Chinese/Scottish Folklore: The Great Beyond tells a story of what happens when a Chinese fisherman befriends a ghost who escapes reincarnation to become a local god. This podcast, Myths and Legends, explores world folklore through humorous retellings and entertaining commentary.
- The Greenbrier Ghost is the only case in the U.S. when a ghost’s testimony convicted a murderer. This episode discusses differences between modern and late 1800s legal procedures, and when it’s okay to convict a son-in-law of murder based on reoccurring dreams. (Podcast: Stuff you Missed in History Class)
- Ghosts of History: A Haunted House Tour includes more historical ghost stories and their impact on their communities today. (Podcast: Stuff you Missed in History Class)
- William Mumler’s Spirit Photography in a live event recording, Stuff you Missed in History Class hosts explore grieving family members in the 19th century would go to great lengths to see their loved ones one last time, even when these photographs were exposed as fakes.
- Ring Ring, Corpse Phone discusses how one grieving friend paired her colleague’s past texts and machine learning to create a digital monument that allows anyone to text him from beyond the grave. The app is clear that the responses use the deceased person’s language and speech patterns, and that it serves as a digital memorial. (Podcast: Death in the Afternoon)
- Or Maybe It’s a Ghost? This episode talks about why we tell ghost stories, and how this affects how ghosts are represented in popular culture. (Podcast: Death in the Afternoon)
- It’s OK not to Decay discusses why humans keep corpses around, and why people from all over the world still visit corpses rumored to grant miracles today. (Podcast: Death in the Afternoon)
Ghost stories are more than a nighttime scare or a curious local attraction — they tell us where the dead were not lain to rest, and where social unrest remains today. I encourage you to learn more about your local ghost stories. who lived in your town before you lived there?
Does anything need to change before you can put these spirits to rest?
Works Cited
[1] Simon J. Bronner. “Folk Objects” In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction, edited by E. Oring, 199–224. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1986.
For more information on Estonian funeral folklore and the connection between ghost stories and the fall of communism, see:
- Ülo Valk. “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore.” Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 43, no. 1, Indiana University Press, 2006, pp. 31–51, doi:10.1353/jfr.2006.0009.
