Why Do Some Cultures Cover Mirrors After a Death?

Walk into a house of mourning in some families and you will see the mirrors covered with cloth. It is a quiet, striking sight. This article explains where the custom is found and why people do it. Practices and explanations vary, and no one reason fits every family.

Where is it practiced?

Most famously among Jews. My Jewish Learning says many people know the Jewish custom of covering mirrors in a house of mourning. Funeral.com adds that it also appears again and again in 19th-century mourning customs in Britain and America, usually with other household rituals, such as stopping clocks and drawing curtains, to create a stillness in the home. Hazlitt calls draping or covering mirrors a recurring feature of Victorian mourning culture. For that period, see Victorian Mourning Customs.

What reasons are given?

Two main ones. My Jewish Learning says that some people thought the soul could be trapped in the reflection, or that the dead person’s spirit lingered and might reach out. It then explains that the rabbis reinterpreted the folk custom, saying mirrors should be covered to discourage vanity and encourage inner reflection. Funeral.com says that in Jewish mourning, a consistent theme is that mourning is not a time for self-focus or adornment. The same page notes that covering a mirror is a clear visual sign that this is not an ordinary time.

Where did the custom come from?

That is not settled. A publication of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform rabbinic body, says the custom has so little grounding in Jewish literature and is so widespread that it must have been borrowed from the folklore of surrounding peoples. It says the custom of turning mirrors to the wall, apparently to avoid seeing the evil spirits that cause death, started among the early Irish and spread widely. That is one scholarly view, and others may differ. My Jewish Learning also notes that in Jewish folklore, mirrors are often treated as doorways to the spirit world.

How long are mirrors covered?

It depends on the tradition. In the Jewish custom they are covered during shiva. See Sitting Shiva, Day by Day. Families in other traditions follow their own custom.

Should I do it?

If your tradition has a custom, follow it, or ask a leader you trust. Funeral.com suggests that if you are explaining the custom to children, you lead with its meaning rather than a threat. For the wider tradition, see Jewish Funeral and Mourning Traditions and The Irish Wake.