Dying in Germanic times

I have written a post before about the funeral rites of the Germanics and their bronze age ancestors. Now I want to give some information about the way of dying and what happened directly to the body after death.

Moralities concerning death barely changed throughout history because a change was seen as dangerous. A dead person who was not burried properly according to one’s culture could take revenge in the form of being a malicious spirit. Think also of the Norse legends surrounding the Draugr.

Death was not seen as a final goodbye. A dying person was seen as a crisis to the ones around them because it is the job of the living to make sure that the dying can continue their existence in the next realms.

Sometimes during extreme circumstances like famine and war, old people were killed by their own people. To prevent them from starving to death in their beds, they could still get a change to meet Wodan/Odin. Dying in bed of old age or disease was not seen as a peaceful way of passing. The spirit would lead a sad existence in Helheim. The killings of old people in times of need have been described.

Valerius Maximus, a Roman writer from the 1st century AD, describes this practice in his work about the Cimbri tribe. I highly recommend reading Valerius'works since he wrote 9 books about the morality of the Romans, comparing them to the ones of other cultures. Not only old people might have been killed during severe times of distress. Valerius also mentiones in his works how the Romans demanded 300 married women of the Teutones to become sex slaves. The women all killed themselves and their children in the night, having strangled each other.

The manner of killing unwanted people or people during extreme cases of crisis is quite similar to that of the Greeks. The most known way of killing was throwing oneself from a rock or be thrown off a rock. Unwanted infants however could be slain directly if they have never eaten before. Whenever a baby got its first meal, it was seen as a living being and slaying it was considered a crime. When people wanted to dispose of their unwanted children, because of a birth defect per example, they were often left to the elements so it was not considered as a murder.

Once someone died, the mouth was immediately closed to prevent the soul from returning into the body. Closing the mouth is still a practice that happens until this day. The eyes were closed as well for fear of the evil eye. The body was placed on hay and all the neighbours were informed of the death.

A death vigil was held to honour the dead person in question and to protect him/her from evil spirits. People sang happy songs and danced most likely to celebrate the new life of the dead person. The Church desperately wanted to ban this practice called, Dadsisas, from the proto-Germanic word dauþa (death) and sisu (song), it was seen as a devilish practice by the Christians.

After the vigil, the dead person was removed from his/her home and given grave gifts. The dead person was usually disposed with 1/3 of their possessions. The other 2/3 was given to the surviving family. The body had to be carefully taken over the threshold of the home to make sure the dead won’t return back home. Bodies of criminals were sometimes surrounded by wickerwork, seen as a banishment even after death. This was a practice of the Alemanni.

After this the dead person was carried on the death roads about which I have made a post before. The dead body was taken to the burial mounds and buried, after cremation.

When the funeral was done, people held a feast. Animals were sacrificed, people danced, sang and were generally in a happy mood. This practice was also banned by the church in 738AD by pope Gregorius, it is mentioned in the Indiculus. Death meals were held after the 3rd, 7nd and 30st day of the burial. These meals strengthened the bond between the dead person and the rest of his/her sibbe. It also improved the general mood of the sibbe and lessened the fear of death.

This is a practice that has most likely its roots with the proto-indo Europeans since it is also practiced by the Greeks, Indians and Romans. We have archeological evidence of these meals in graves of the Alamanni and the Franks.

Because it is Halloween today (when this article was written - ed.), I also want to tell you about certain days of the year in which the spirits of the dead could enter the world of the living. Almost each culture has such a day like the Greeks have Anthesteria, Romans have Parenteralia and Caristia, Celts have Samhain, The Germanic version of such a day is most likely the Yule fest, this fest was Christianized and moved to the 2nd November around 1000AD, now it is called all souls day and it is still celebrated in my town. It was a common practice to leave food and drink on the grave of the person in question and inside the house. Fires were also lit on burial fields.

Now of course there are a lot of debates about the Germanic version of Halloween with everyone having a different opinion about it.

Here are photos of a death meal, feast and several ways of burial in the Netherlands.

Source