The Huron Feast of the Dead

The Huron Feast of the Dead was a mortuary custom of the Wyandot people of what is today central Ontario, Canada, which involved the disinterment of deceased relatives from their initial individual graves followed by their reburial in a final communal grave. A time for both mourning and celebration, the custom became spiritually and culturally significant.

Early in the custom's development, as whole villages moved to a new location, other Wyandot would travel to join them in arranging mass reburials of their dead, who were transported to the new location. The people would take dead bodies out of their first graves and clean the remains in preparation for reburial in a new location. Customs evolved over the centuries as populations migrated and increased. They continued to follow traditional beliefs about the afterlife. The arrival of Europeans added new aspects to the process. The Huron adopted a practice of exchanging material gifts as a central part of these festivals. Some among the Wyandot criticized these practices. The French missionary Jean de Brébeuf discussed such a ceremony which he saw in 1636 at the Wyandot capital of Ossossané. (now in Simcoe County, Ontario). Twentieth-century archeological excavations revealed and confirmed information about these traditions.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Wyandot communities rapidly expanded in population and in the territory they occupied. Settlements were small compared to later standards and their ossuaries were small. Ceremonies were carried out independently as each village would separately rebury their dead when they moved. In contrast to later examples, no ossuary ever held more than thirty individuals. The survivors left modest grave offerings made of non-durable materials. Burials were communal, a characteristic that persisted as other aspects of Wyandot culture changed.

By the 1500s Wyandot population growth began to stabilize. With this demographic change, well before European arrival, the traditional mortuary customs started evolving into what are more recognizable as Feasts of the Dead. With the increase of population, it became the norm to wait for a period of several years between the first and the second burial. This change considerably increased the size of the ossuaries, as the extended period meant that graves held several hundred individuals.

Huron communities changed the location of their village every ten to fifteen years. They believed that they had to protect their dead when they moved, and they started to rebury them every time a large village migrated. The ceremonies occurred at the end of the winter months, before the Huron had to undertake tasks associated with agriculture and spring hunting. The symbolism of the end of winter and start of spring fit into their beliefs that separated the living and the dead.

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