science

Procession of the dead

Procession of the dead is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Procession of the dead rather than just read about it. In short: Procession of the dead is a motif present in the folkloric traditions around the world. It mostly refers to a march of ghosts, phantoms or souls, sometimes commanded by a creature related to the Otherworld, the Underworld or the Afterlife.

Key takeaways

Procession of the dead belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Procession of the dead to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Procession of the dead from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Procession of the dead is a motif present in the folkloric traditions around the world. It mostly refers to a march of ghosts, phantoms or souls, sometimes commanded by a creature related to the Otherworld, the Underworld or the Afterlife. The concept is taken to be of considerable antiquity, and is classified in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature as Motif E491, "Procession of the dead".

Overview According to Carlo Ginzburg, the procession of the dead, as described by Orderic Vitalis, comprised a march of sinners and damned people, being punished for their wrongdoings in life. Professor Christian Abry listed several alternate names for the phenomenon in Alpine, Southern France and North Italy tradition: curs dj’ànime; La processione dei morti; Tòtòprossenziò (from German Totenprozession); kór di trapacha (trépassés); procession des revenants; cours di mort; lou cours de i anime (Occitan language); Lou cours d’li mouòrt (in Balme); il corso delle anime (in Traversella); il corteo dei morti. Professors Fabio Armand, Marie-Agnès Cathiard and Christian Abry suggest that "the procession of the dead", as described in Christian mediaeval literature, is a "remythification" of the Wild Hunt phenomenon.

Europe

Continental Europe There are various myths of processions of the dead, most related to the Wild Hunt. A Croatian storyteller provided a tale with the motif of the "procesija mrtvih" ("procession of the dead") in the 1970s. In a Raeto-Romance tale, a man sees a procession of the dead and the last person is the soul of someone about to die.

Iberian Peninsula In Galicia and Asturias, it is known as Santa Compaña. In Portuguese tradition there exists tales about one's double that take part in this procession. There are also tales about incomplete baptized individuals that join this cursed retinue.

Italy The Benandanti in the Friuli are said to participate in these processions. Female benandanti were seen as connected to the processions of the dead, as beneficient protectors against the malandanti.

Ancient Greece In ancient Greece, the festival of Anthesteria was performed to honor and placate the dead, who were thought to walk freely among the streets.

Pacific Ocean Islands

Hawai'i The Nightmarchers of Hawaiian mythology are also considered to be a version of the "procession of the dead".

Asia

Nepal Professors Fabio Armand, Marie-Agnès Cathiard and Christian Abry state they have found an occurrence of the theme of the procession of the dead "in the rural areas outside the Kathmandu Valley of Central Nepal". This retinue, called panchabhāya (from pancha 'five', and bhāya 'younger brother') manifest as "five or more spirits" riding on horses and dressed in white.

Americas

Brazil The motif is also present in cultural traditions of Brazil.

References

Further reading Abry, Christian; Joisten, Alice. "De la migrance ä l'errance ou les Italiens entre «La Mort du Grand Pan» et «La Procession des Morts»". In: Histoire des Alpes = Storia delle Alpi = Geschichte der Alpen. Band 3. Internationale Gesellschaft für historische Alpenforschung IGHA. Zürich: Chronos Verlag. 1998. pp. 75–90. Belsey, Catherine (2019). "All in the Mind?". Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 175–194. ISBN 978-1-4744-1738-9. Bennett, John; Eichelberger, Julia (2020). "The Doctor to the Dead". The Doctor to the Dead: Grotesque Legends and Folk Tales of Old Charleston. University of South Carolina Press. pp. 1–55. ISBN 978-1-64336-137-6. JSTOR j.ctv10tq38h.5. Canziani, Estella (1928). "Abruzzese Folklore". Folklore. 39 (3): 209–247. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1928.9716783. JSTOR 1256186. Hutton, Ronald (2014). "The Wild Hunt and the Witches' Sabbath" (PDF). Folklore. 125 (2): 161–178. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2014.896968. hdl:1983/f84bddca-c4a6-4091-b9a4-28a1f1bd5361. JSTOR 43297752. S2CID 53371957. Hutton, Ronald (2017). "The Hosts of the Night". The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present. Yale University Press. pp. 120–146. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1bzfpmr.11. ISBN 978-0-300-22904-2. JSTOR j.ctv1bzfpmr.11. Lecouteux, Claude. Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and Ghostly Processions of the Undead. Translated by Jon E. Graham. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. 2011.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Procession of the dead

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Procession of the dead claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Procession of the dead before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Procession of the dead ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Procession of the dead

In research: Procession of the dead appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Procession of the dead in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Procession of the dead is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ghosts, Souls, Underworld, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Procession of the dead outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Procession of the dead in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Procession of the dead means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Procession of the dead out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Procession of the dead in simple terms?

Why does Procession of the dead matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Procession of the dead?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Procession of the dead.