Why Does Autumn Remind Us of Mortality?

Leaves fall, days shorten, and many people feel their thoughts turn to the people they have lost. That feeling has company in the calendar: a large number of festivals of the dead are held in the autumn. This article looks at why, and at what historians do and do not know.

Why are festivals of the dead in autumn?

Often because autumn is the end of the agricultural year. The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities asks why Halloween and the Mexican Día de Muertos are both held at the end of the agricultural year, with the autumn harvest. It notes that offerings of food for the spirits form an integral part of many fall festivals of the dead around the world.

What was Samhain?

A Gaelic festival at the end of the harvest. Wikipedia describes Samhain as a festival on November 1 marking the end of the harvest season in autumn and the beginning of winter, with traditions that include feasting, bonfires, and veneration of the dead. But historians do not all agree it was a festival of the dead. Catholic World Report states there is no indication Samhain was a festival of the dead, and that it simply marked the end of the harvest season.

How did All Saints and All Souls get their dates?

Over several centuries. The Boston Public Library says the November 1 feast of All Saints can be traced to the 8th century, when Pope Gregory III built a chapel in Rome dedicated to all the saints. It adds that Pope Gregory IV and Emperor Louis the Pious extended the feast through the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. Catholic World Report says that in 998 Odilo, abbot of Cluny, added a memorial for all the faithful departed to the calendar of the Cluny monasteries. This built on an earlier practice of praying for the dead. Historian Kyle Smith writes that Odilo chose November 2, and that his date was soon widely adopted.

Did the Church simply replace Samhain?

That is disputed. The NEH says the Church attempted to subsume the festival under the celebration of saints and martyrs, with November 2 as All Souls’ Day. Kyle Smith, writing for University of California Press, argues that Pope Gregory IV did not move All Saints to November 1 to thwart Samhain. He says the pope simply made official what was already observed in many parts of Europe. A Lone Star College guide lists Fèt Gede in Haiti on November 1 and 2, a day of the dead in Sicily on November 2, and Pchum Ben in Cambodia. The NEH describes how, after the Spanish arrived in Mexico, celebrations of the dead were brought under All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2). See Mexico’s Día de los Muertos.

So does autumn really make us think of death?

For many people it does, and the calendar of festivals gives that feeling a shared form. For the other half of the cycle, see Why Does Spring Represent Rebirth?, and for aging, What Does Dying of Old Age Actually Mean?.