The Quick and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Aschura and Carnival

Transcription

1 Comparative Civilizations Review Volume 9 Number 9 Fall 1982 Artile The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carnival Franesa Sautman Seton Hall University Follow this and additional works at: Reommended Citation Sautman, Franesa (1982) "The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carnival," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 9 : No. 9, Artile 5. Available at: This Artile is brought to you for free and open aess by the All Journals at BYU SholarsArhive. It has been aepted for inlusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU SholarsArhive. For more information, please ontat sholarsarhive@byu.edu, ellen_amatangelo@byu.edu.

2 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 45 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD IN THE COMMUNAL FEASTS OF C ASHURA AND CARNIVAL FRANCESCA SAUTMAN The 1580 Carnival of Romans began on Candlemas (February 2nd) and on the 3rd, St. Blasius' day, groups of daners roamed the town streets. They were sword daners with bells attahed to their feet, threshers arrying rakes and flails and a group dressed in mortuary garb. The agriultural implements onnoted the end of a yle, when grain is threshed before the spring sowing period. Ladurie, who made an exhaustive study of the Romans Carnival, defines them as daners of death mimiking the yle of grain that is sown, germinated, harvested and finally beaten to death. 1 The wearers of mortuary robes were aompanied by people announing that' 'before three days Christian flesh would be sold for six deniers a pound," a fearful threat of annibalism and a shoking inversion, sine human flesh, should, aording to soietal and anonial norms, be the most valued. The mortuary robe is the dress of the Fraternity of the Holy Spirit, in harge of alms to the poor, and whih inludes the dead among the living. In this assoiation, the dead who paid their ontribution during their lifetime ontinue to be members and are invited to the feast of the group, bodily represented by paupers. Thus, on St-Blasius' day, patron saint of the Fraternity, artisans, paupers and dead souls gather for the elebration of Carnival. Ladurie omments: "These three primitive (agrarian, warlike and sared) manners of treating the initial theme of arnivalesque death are essential." 2 The Romans Carnival is indeed essential beause it allows us to envision, in a speifi, datable and doumented ontext, the workings of a popular arnival where the dead and the living oexist within a omplex symboli and gestural framework. Here Carnival revelers inlude in their semioti apparatus and in their rituals the memory of the ommunity's dead and the remembrane of death. It is believed that the dead an atually wander among the living at ertain times, in partiular on their feast of November 2nd. The repast given in their honor aquires a linking funtion with the ommunity of the living: in Montaillou, from the XHIth to the XlXth enturies, the Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

3 46 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 living onsume the meal prepared for the dead on All Saints day. 3 In XlXth entury Languedo, the night between November 1st and 2nd, people leave a light on when they go to bed: a little lamp made with a piee of andle is lit for the dead who ome bak and visit the plaes they used to love. 4 On All Saints night the dead souls return in a proession around the village and in the Montsegur region one finds again the ritual meal and the andles: one for every plae set. 5 Ginzburg mentions that throughout Italy on November 2nd the souls also arry andles in a proession; they enter their former houses where the living have prepared food, drink and fresh beds for them. One of the XVIth entury peasants aused of being a Benandanti laims that on Fridays and Saturdays one must make the beds early in the morning beause the dead return home tired and needing a rest. 6 The population of late medieval Montaillou also believes that the dead visit their houses on Saturday and that the rooms must be kept lean in their honor: on those visits, the dead protet the sleep of their loved ones. 7 On the other side of the Mediterranean, the people of Tlemen hold twelve neqfas a year (2 at Ashura) in honor of the reent deeased: on that day, the souls of the deeased ome home, a ommon funerary meal is served to whih everyone ontributes as "alms for the soul of X." 8 The ommunal meals of the feasts of the dead remind us of the Romans Fraternity of the Holy Spirit's banquets, as do the alms of Tlemen. The andles of November lst-2nd remind us of Candlemas whih, as in Romans' ase, may be the first day of the Carnival elebration. In the liturgial year, Candlemas is the feast of the Presentation and of the Purifiation of the Virgin: the proession with lit andles whih traditionally ours that day is atually a ritual of penitene, of atonement taking plae during the old Roman month of purifiations and, at the same time, onnotes a joyous moment. 9 The liturgial Candlemas is at the outset under the double sway of mortality and eternal life, a meaning whih underlies Honorius of Autun's explanation of the andles whose wax would represent the humanity of Christ (the transitory and perishable) and whose light represent his divinity (resurretion and life after death). 10 All Saints is a set date, while the Carnival elebration (Mardi Gras- Fastnaht) is a variable moment within a flutuating period. However, through the inorporation of Candlemas to the Carnival period, the seemingly impossible paradox of Carnival's relationship with All Saints is made possible. That relationship is expressed in the Catalan proverb "Candlemas wedding, the fruit of it at All Saints." 11 In pre-modern arnivalesque literature allusions to All Saints are far from infrequent

4 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 47 Paradox? Maybe not, for All Saints is the atonement period preeding the "mini-carnival" of St-Martin's day, ushering in pre-christmas Lent, the prelude to the full swing of the ruial, Easter-oriented, Winter Carnival. 13 Beause Carnival is not a single day and, for that matter is not atually always known by that name, even in Frane, 14 saying "goodbye" to meat before the onset of Lent is merely one aspet of the elebration and annot serve to define it. The period may begin at a number of dates, inluding January 1st, Epiphany, January 14th, Candlemas or even Christmas. It does not even end abruptly with Lent, sine the revels often inlude Ash Wednesday itself, the first Sunday of Lent and Mid-Lent (Mi-Careme). 15 The fundamentally polysemous nature of Carnival annot be understood unless it is integrated into the seasonal, alendary and mythial spae in whih it belongs. The Roman Carnival stresses an aspet whih is generally overlooked beause of the many overt manifestations of joy and amusement. Romans brings out the strutural importane of the theme of death and the wandering of souls, with attendant rituals aimed at propitiating and proteting them. Finally, Romans links the funerary aspet with speifi agrarian ativities, establishing a muh more solid agrarian onnetion than those suggested by vague Frazerian vegetation or orn-spirit shemes. There is no question that Carnival, and in partiular its Oitan variety whih will be the fous of this disussion's European omponent, an be haraterized as a boisterous, rauous, rowdy elebration with outlandish food onsumption. It is also true that the importane of foodstuffs and eating at Carnival has muh to do with the proximity of Lent, espeially sine pre-modern Lent was quite a bit striter than today, requiring the removal of even traes of animal fat from ooking utensiles. 16 Beause of these elements, the founder of sientifi Frenh folklore, Van Gennep, ompletely rejeted the presene of atonement and sadness aspets of Carnival, underlining that with even Ash Wednesday as a day of joy rather than penane, the entire period was one of joyous liense. 17 However, parallel traditions point to the funerary aspet of Ash Wednesday, as XVIth and XVIIth entury Languedo wills indiate that the "feasts of souls" take plae on Easter Monday, Penteost Monday, Ash Wednesday and Good Thursday: they inlude religious eremonies and olletive visits to the dead. 18 Furthermore, Van Gennep onfused the presene of funerary themes and myths with atual mourning; the two are very different expressions of human emotion and the former is not in the least antitheti to joyous motifs as well. The fat that Carnival an ombine the omial and the funerary is Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

5 48 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 quite apparent from studying faetious arnivalesque literature of the XVth, XVIth and XVIIth enturies. A series published in 1610, for instane, ontains several pseudo-wills and legal delarations. The "author", Bredin le Cou (the horned ukhold of Carnival 19 ) announes that these douments were oneived at the oasion of Mardi Gras and that the folly he embodies is highly ontagious. 20 In a farial "attestation" appears a group of old belles whose names belie the apparent timidity and fearfulness they display in a fake inident whereby a dangerous spirit invaded their house during the night. The fat that the "spirit" is none other than the lodger's paramour disguised as a woman provides a omi senario of transparent misunderstanding. However, the theme of the wandering spirit at Carnival time is nonetheless rendered with details whih are noteworthy to the folklorist. Seeing this "visible and tangible spirit" the old women deide to stay together, reiting prayers and orisons, one onjuring the "spirits that wander at night", and the others singing the litanies of Saint Brigid, a Carnival period Saint whose protetive funtions link her to winds and swelling. 21 In the "Transation entre la Mort et 1'Amour, la Jeunesse et la Vieillesse" appears the rivalry between age groups and the predominane laimed by youth whih is harateristi of the medieval Carnival. 22 In this ontext, Death herself is ontending with Cupido as eah one has usurped the other's funtions. Death ruelly attaks the young, while old men are subjet to the "follastre" Cupido's arrows. Agreement is finally reahed between the parties, to be ratified at the upoming "feast of the Dead". 23 Carnivalesque wills inlude a "Donation a ause de mort" where Jean Coquesigrue, whose bird name again onnotes the various "reinages" of youth, 24 is giving away his vineyards in the parish of Nowhere (Nul Lieu) in the territory of "Sniff-Wind" (Hume-Vesse, a satologial play on a type of legume and the "wind" aused by its exessive ingestion), loated at the intersetion of four ompletely inverted ardinal points. 25 Jean Goguelu's "Testament nunupatif" made in front of Hylaire le Joyeux takes the joke a step further, as he presribes the minutest details of his funeral and beseehes the Creator to reeive his soul in heaven until the day of general resurretion. He then proeeds with a list of useless, satologial, insulting or insuffiient donations in the style made famous by Villon. 26 Comparisons are drawn between the buthering of meat (an essential Carnival omponent) and untimely death whih hits all ages. His witnesses inlude familiar figures from Rabelais' Underworld suh as the "rieur de saule verte" and assorted bums. 27 The Underworld, the Carnival period and Rabelais turn up again in 4

6 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 49 another XVIIth entury piee in whih Tabarin, ator of fares, harrows Hell, where he ures the demons' health problems, in partiular, burns and venereal disease, and meets Rabelais, the president of the "fareurs", during Lent. 28 Two XVIth entury Carnivalesque works reinfore the link between outright fare and the remembrane of the dead. Very important in that respet is the "Conferene des servantes de la ville de Paris sous les harmiers Saint Innoent ave Prestation de bien ferrer la mule e Caresme. " 2 9 Dame Lubine, the oldest of the fishmongers, gives a speeh to her followers on the art of getting rih. The meeting takes plae at the entrane of Lent and in the sared spae of the emetary, in the setion where the bodies of the poor are piled together. Signifiantly, Lubine is the female fool, the name Lubin (.f. the Frenh "lubie", an absurd, unreasonable idea) designating a silly, foolish and ignorant person. 30 Aording to Menage, the name may also refer to Louvel-Lupus and hold a somewhat ominous, threatening value. 30 Lubin is also definitely eroti, as Frere Lubin portrays an obsene and inveterate leher, 31 adding a further dimension to this omposite Carnival figure, as did the afflited demons aided by Tabarin. In "Les de Relais ou le Purgatoire des Bouhers, Charutiers et..." the satirial mode is used to heap abuse on a variety of trades whih are inompatible with the gravity of Lent. The malevolent tradespeople are sent to Purgatory, the zone of the in-between, rather than straight to Hell. 32 For them Lent will be a period of figurative sojourn among the shadows until they an reintegrate the earthly Paradise of the Easter period whih prolongs Carnival. 33 These themes of arnivalesque literature translate the interpretation of Carnival and Lent. Carnival and Lent exert reiproal influene on eah other: Carnival arries with it some of the mortuary aspets of Lent and Lent is not as thoroughly somber as one might imagine. It would also be overly simplisti and inorret to assume that, sine Carnival is a period of joy, its representatives embody the positive onnotations of spring while Lent is equivalent to death and winter. Atually, it is quite the opposite. It is the rotund, jovial Carnival whih represents winter and will be short-lived, hene the many versions of his publi trial and destrution. 34 Lent, on the other hand, will be alive and well for 40 days. Faetious poems relating the battle of Carnival and Lent 35 an show Carnival winning, but that onlusion defies all the rules of the alendar and touhes on another series of problems: the world upside down, Utopia and the land of plenty. In the ourse of the battle, the nature of the antagonists' troops onfirms that it is truly the lean, austere Lent that Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

7 50 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 personifies spring. While Carnival leads ohorts of edible beasts into the fray, Lent is followed by many varieties of fish and vegetables. Thus Lent symbolizes both life and death through the fresh green of the new vegetables and the dessiated foods suh as salted herrings. This onnetion between the Frenh Carnival and mortuary themes, inluding funerary rituals and the myths of the souls, already apparent from the above data, has been aepted by a number of Frenh ethnologists and folklorists. The question, whih they generally do not 36 address, is just how the onept of the return of souls is onveyed from atual belief to a language of gestures and metaphors whih also partakes of its own arnivalesque thematis. Another problem is the degree of literality whih must be asribed to the arnivalesque renditions of belief omplexes entered around the dead. In his groundbreaking analysis of Carnival, Claude Gaignebet responded to the first question by bringing together a number of speifi omponents. Human souls, kept in hiding inside the hibernating bear are freed by him at that time. The winds of bagpipes, bladders and bellows ontain and transmit the souls as pneuma, ontrolled by the Carnival fools who thus onserve and bring to a new life the souls whih are welded into the universe. Carnival ostumes not only represent human 37 but animal souls: these souls appear at a very speifi time, guided by the phases of the moon, the "door" through whih exhanges an be made between earth and heaven. The most propitious moment for that transfer is when the sun finds itself in the Milky Way, and the moon at a new phase. That is preisely the moment of Carnival, onludes Gaignebet. 38 One that theory is aepted, one will not be surprised to find that the foolish ompanions of Dame Lubine have names pertaining to wind and swelling: Marion Soufflee, Alizon Gros Pet, Ianneton Bousouflee. 39 Neither is it surprising that the arnivalesque legal texts inlude a "Testament solonnel" of Cohon le Groignard, 999'/2 years of age, who bequeaths parts of his body to his relatives and various humans: his tongue to lawyers, bladder to hildren, tail to the girls and testiles to the women. 40 In order to further understand how remembrane of the dead and onern over the wandering of souls an be inorporated into a feast hallmarked by publi expression of joy and rauous behavior, it is extremely helpful to attempt a omparative analysis of a similar elebration in a different ultural ontext. To that end, the treatment of funerary themes and myths of the dead in the Berber elebration of the Moslem feast of Ashura, will be examined. In both ultural zones Southern Frane (Oitanie) and Berber 6

8 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 51 North Afria beliefs pertaining to the reintegration of the souls into the human plane of experiene, outside of any partiular festive time, are well attested to even into the modern period. They afford us some measure of pereption as to how traditionalist soieties envision the permeability of one world to the next, and through their regular praxis asribe to the dead another way of being, rather than simple disappearane. In XlVth entury Montaillou, the dead souls are thought to wander freely among the living. They are orporeal, appearing as ghosts, phantoms or "doubles" who mostly hide out in the mountain. A member of the ommunity alled the armier (person of the souls) establishes ontat between the dead and the living. An armier an give elaborate desriptions of what ours in the land of the dead, whih inludes an apparent rivalry between age groups, 41 strangely reminisent of arnivalesque soietal parameters. The dead souls of Montaillou are far from all-powerful. They are onstantly old and deprived of all earthly pleasures exept for drinking. They indulge in that pastime in the ellars full of barrels, in the ompany of ghosts 4 2 It is interesting to note that the Benandanti laimed to repair from their noturnal voyages to the village ellars in the ompany of the withes whom they had just fought. 43 Also urious is the apparent relationship between the dead and the ingestion of wine. 44 A very important aspet of the Montaillou souls is that they need protetion. That is beause there are two deaths. The first is the visible, orporeal death. The seond is the entrane to the eternal "plae of rest". Thus, the living must at in a ertain manner during the ruial transitional period begween the two deaths. One of the ations demanded from the living by the dead of their ommunity is the giving of alms to the poor. 45 Here we enounter again the role of the poor as intermediaries in the proteted passage of the souls to their final destination, whih was manifest in the Romans Carnival and with the bums/witnesses of Goguelu's arnivalesque will. 46 As late as the end of the XlXth entury, Languedo peasants believed in suh ommuniation benefiial or noxious with the dead. For instane, a Carasses farmer, born in 1885, gave the ethnologists Fabre and Laroix a thorough aount of suh traditions. 47 Aording to him, illness was sent by either the dead or the withes. If the dead were felt to be ausing some harm, one had to have reourse to the with. His father used to go to someone who ould reveal the dead to the living. If something would go wrong in the house, it was felt that one of the dead was thus manifesting a request for more prayers. Throughout the Languedo, it was felt that, with the exeption of the Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

9 52 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 dead of Good Friday, the souls ould maintain their ontat with the living during their sojourn of variable length in Purgatory, whih plays a ruial part in the myths of the Carnival and Easter period. In Ariege, legends onerning the "ar de las armas" (hariot of the souls) flying through the airs and of youth daning with ghosts on the road and disappearing are well known. The dead who feel that they have been improperly honored manifest themselves with various signs and may, if suffiiently irritated, attak the living. 48 Before 1900, every village in the Causse du Blandas had its armier, marked by birth for his task (another reminder of the Benandanti beliefs that they were destined by birth for their ativities). Atual attempts to get messages to a reent departed are doumented in the XlXth entury Vallespir. 49 Even in the XXth entury, the Languedo is full of stories of the dead feeling insuffiiently propitiated and seeking revenge. 50 Indeed, it has been found that far from delining in the XlXth entury, the belief in the ongoing ommuniation with the dead gained renewed importane under the influene of an exogenous movement, imported with great suess into rural areas: spiritism. Thus the tendeny to attribute a myriad of phenomena, many of whih would have previously been explained diversely, to the influene of the dead inreased. As a result they beame the sole soure of the supernatural and began to breed more fear. si Medieval Islami eshatologial writings speak of the soul sharing a ommon experiene with the dead during sleep. God is said to take both the living and the dead to himself at that time. A1 Tabari says that the spirits of the living and the dead meet in sleep. Aording to other writers, the zone of meeting is the barzakh, the barrier between the living and the dead. In a hadith there is mention that the dead irle around their house for a month and around their grave for a year before being raised to the plae in whih the spirits of the living and the dead meet. 52 The ity dwellers of Tlemen express beliefs whih are not that dissimilar from those enountered in southern Frane. 53 During forty days, the soul of the dead omes bak to visit its house just before sunrise and also visits the grave. But after the fortieth day, it only visits the grave one in a while. As in the rest of North Afria, many legends and rituals enter around the elusive spirits alled the djennun who an either be inoffensive or extremely malevolent. There are ertain plaes whih these spirits partiularly like to reside in and one must avoid walking in them for fear of hurting and angering a djennun. These plaes, whih onnote deay and funerary rituals, are pools of blood, latrines, garbage and manure piles, humid plaes suh as wells, fountains, isterns and 8

10 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 53 aves and plaes where fires are built. The djennun also reeive invitations to a speial meal in their honor. 53 Ashura and Carnival: Calendary Parameters The feast of Ashura warrants omparative approahes to the Frenh Carnival beause of a number of similarities in the strutural apparatus of both elebrations, a onnetion made some time ago by Van Gennep and others. However, although Ashilra is, among other things, a feast of 54 the dead, omparative work has not yet entered on a ross-reading of that fundamental omponent. Superfiially, the alendar framework seems to be so different in both ases that a omparative analysis might seem surprising. Sine the Moslem alendar is lunar, a feast is asribed to a set month, while the plae of that month in the year, relatively to Christian alendars, is always variable. Thus, for the Berber farmers of Algeria, the 55 month is atually identified by the name of its partiular feast. AshUra 56 is to fall on the 10th day of the month of Muharram, a word whih ontains the notion of sared, forbidden, but the month's seasonal plae will always vary. It has been said that agrarian and seasonal rituals, displaed by the lunar alendar, have been absorbed by Ashura. Whatever the ase may be, Muharram marks the beginning of the religious 57 year and Ashura is a partiularly sared form of New Year, nevertheless linked in some aspets to En Nair, the first of the year in the old Julian alendar brought by the Roman onquest, and still observed by Berbers with respet to agriultural dates. 58 'Ashura is not just a sared beginning, but, aording to one author, a feast of passage, absorbing all the rituals pertaining to women, hildren, to feundity and to the dead. There is a ontrat between Man and the Invisible, stipulating that the dead and the living have an equal responsibility in insuring ontinuity between death and life. This onnetion 59 beomes quite obvious in a ritual whih is partiular to Marrakeh, the daqqa, performed on the eve of Ashura. At sundown, in every neighborhood, the men gather and form a square, eah holding the small drum alled t'arija. Inside the square two musiians and two oryphees move in irles. The drum players are divided in two: the east, the side of the mat and of life, and the west, the side of the shroud and of death. Two key-moments, the opening and the entrane whih takes plae at dawn, mark the transition to the new year. They play and sing throughout the night, the rhythm intensifies, and a white-bearded old man appears in the irle: he is ba' ashur of whom more will be said later. Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

11 54 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 The sky begins to fade, and the solemn, profoundly sared moment of the entrane has ome: both sides of the hoir must ombine their voies in one single all to life. It is ruial that the two sides sueed in meeting exatly, otherwise, it is a very bad omen. Men have been known to ry for missing that oming together. 60 The feast of Ashura is supposed to have been a day of fasting and almsgiving set by the Prophet in emulation of a fast held by the Jews of Medina on the tenth day of the first month in honor of Moses' parting the Red Sea, an explanation unknown to Jewish tradition. In Sunnite Islam, on the whole, Ashura beame an optional fast day sine the institu- 61 tion of Ramadan, and a rather bleak feast. With the development of Sht a, however, the 10th of Muharram beame inseparable assoiated with the death of Al-Husayn ommemorated by the Shi ites as a divinely appointed martyr with proessions, estati gatherings and passion plays, giving the day a harater of solemn mourning. Not only does this value 62 of atonement appear to be extremely variable among the Berber population, depending on the extent of the influene of Sh! a, but medieval Moslem writers had already desribed the apparent shift to a day of feasting, with enormous onsumption of food, ostentatious almsgiving, and in the XVIIth entury, it was known for its spirit of largesse, overspending and feasting. 63 More reent aounts of the elebration of AshUra among the Berbers show it to be a omplex of values and meanings, muh in the way the Frenh Carnival is, but maybe in a somewhat more "readable" version. Thus, a look at the 1909 Ashura elebration in Kairouan from January 30th to February 2nd, tells us how the seemingly dissimilar omponents were integrated in a week of elebrations: On the first day, Tessoua, speial foods were prepared. On the seond, Ashura proper, only nonleavened bread was eaten and visits to the dead took plae. On the third day appeared the first bonfires and alvalades, and on the fourth, the emetaries were empty and Carnival manifestations began. The fifth was devoted to masarades and bonfires and the remaining days to bonfires, games and parades. 64 In a way, Carnival an also be oneived of as a beginning. Carnival not only is a neessary step in the ushering in of spring, but, as a period, it falls lose after or right before the various dates whih have been used to mark the New Year: besides January 1st, these are Christmas, Marh 1st, Marh 25th and Easter. 6S Within the Carnival period, however, ertain moments are of privileged importane. Ash Wednesday is a fous beause it begins lenten fasting. Thus, the preeding "days of meat" are ompletely depen- 10

12 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 55 dent on the variable pashal omputations. Ash Wednesday must be forty days before Easter, or the first spring full moon. That interval orresponds to one and a half moons and starts at the onset of the new moon. As a result, the day preeding Ash Wednesday, "Fat Tuesday" is not only theoretially the last day of meat but a ruial point in the satisfatory unfurling of the alendar and the seasons. It is also a lunar festival, anhored by the disappearane of the old moon and the oming of the new one, and projeted towards the full moon of Easter. In that ontext, Candlemas, a frequent first day of Carnival proper, as it was in the Romans Carnival, aquires a speial meaning in the myths of Carnival. In a tradition well represented throughout Europe, the bear has a meteorologial funtion on Candlemas. On that night, he is to leave his den after a winter of hibernation, and look at the sky. If the sky is dark, the new moon is on its way and the bear an ome out of hibernation, heralding the arrival of spring. On the other hand, if the sky is light, that indiates that the old moon still rules the skies, the bear then returns to his den for another forty days, thus delaying spring. 66 The bear's presene at the Carnival revels therefore omes as no surprise. Numerous were the villages in the Pyrenees region whih inluded bear hunts, with the athing and shaving of the animal, as did Ceret, whose bear was gone in In Vallespir, after Candlemas, there was the eremony of the bear and the "maiden" Rosetta, made famous in Arles-sur-Teh. The animal kidnaps Rosetta and tries to run away with her; sometimes he is shut up in a age with his prey. 68 This episode an be traed to a orpus of stories well attested to in Europe sine at least the XVIth entury. 69 A Spanish onfessor's manual, apparently a Xth entury translation from a Frenh text, forbids the representations of "Orus and Maia", in whom, without strething the imagination too far, one an reognize the bear and Rosetta. 70 Despite variations, most of these tales agree on the following senario: a bear aptures a young woman, keeps her in his ave and sires a son by her, a hild of extraordinary strength who is half-bear, half-man. In its reent version, the tale, known as "Jean de l'ours", has gained immense popularity throughout Oitanie, where many versions of it an be found. 71 In the story type, another signifiant aspet of the bear appears, beyond his somewhat forbidding sexuality. The bear's son visits the underworld, from whih he frees three aptive maidens. Abandoned underground by his treaherous friends, he wanders in the underworld until he an get an eagle to bring him bak to the earth. In the proess, however, he must sarifie a piee of his body, thus aquiring a physial diformity Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

13 56 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 or insuffiieny (usually of the leg) whih, in folklore, is the mark of an Underworld nature. 72 The bear's human side has reated onsiderable ambiguity about a prototype of anti-ivilization depited in the medieval romanes Valentin et Ourson or the German Valentin und Namelos, where the protagonist kidnaps Rosemonde and does her violene in the forest. 73 This harater is a human of bear-like fiereness, thus lassifiable as a form of wild man. As mentioned before, (supra) the bear an be seen as a soul-arrier. The bear's son, a man of inhuman strength, in a manner of speaking, harrows Hell. Wild men and bears are ators of Carnival. Through the bear, there is a distint link between Carnival and the Underworld, the displaements of souls. Marking the junture between two alendars, the solar (seasonal) and the lunar (variable feasts), the bear must disontinue or further his hibernation. His prolonged sleep is what allows him to enter in ontat with the souls, his underworld harater designates him as their guardian and his alendar role in the Easter yle, as the one who will let them loose. His ritual ativities are a natural extension of beliefs onerning sleep and the souls whih also apply to ordinary humans. The onept of the spirit esaping from the body and wandering on its own, inurring the threat of death if body and soul are not reunited, is found in medieval Montaillou as well as among the Benandanti of Italy. 73 In XlXth entury Languedo, people ontinued to believe that body and soul separated during sleep. 74 Even without the presene of the bear, the analogous onept an be found in the other ultural zone of this disussion. Women and hildren of the Mettidja say that when one sleeps, the soul wanders away, that when a person sleeps well, that means that his soul is in Paradise or in the realm of the angels. Also, the soul of a sleeping person leaves through his mouth as a butterfly and if the inset does not return, the person dies. 75 In its signs, regardless of the partiular ontent given to them by a given population of Carnival elebrants, the Oitan Carnival is onneted to the myths of wandering souls, rystallizing around the figure of the bear. In view of the partiularities of the Christian alendar, whih is a omposite amalgamation of variable feasts and rigid seasonal dates, it will be interesting to onsider whether any funerary themes, protetion or propitiation of souls or onnetions to the latter's ' 'seond degree" manifestations, an be gleaned from the seasonal alendar. This task is made possible beause the variability of the Easter yle is only relative (enlosed within a ertain time period) and not infinite, as in the Moslem alendar. Thus, although the dates of Mardi Gras, Ash 12

14 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 57 Wednesday and Easter move, the probabilities roughly over mid- January to April, with a marked tendeny to assoiate February with Carnival proper, Lent with Marh and April with Easter. Thus, if one 76 examines the alendar of the saints in the later Middle Ages and early modern period extending over the Carnival time zone, one enounters a number of signifiant saints. January 3rd is the feast of Saint Genevieve whose assoiation with Carnival is undersored by ionography representing her followed by a little devil trying to put out her andle with a pair of bellows, dear to the 7 7 Oitan bufoli. Her Latin name, Genofeva, reminds us that she belongs to the realm of thefava, or bean sared to the anients, and still 78 laden with ominous signifiations many enturies later. The XVIth entury writer Guillaume Bouhet omments that the bean is baneful and pertains to the dead. Thus, he adds, people used to and, in some plaes, still do eat beans at funerals. For it was believed that the souls of the dead sought refuge among the beans, thus the popular belief that eating beans ould be as grave a matter as "eating one's father's head". Nevertheless, they also onnote life for they are "prolifi and genital". Their female aspet is alsosarus: left out under moonlight, they turn to blood. 79 The 6th is Epiphany, when some form of ake with the famous bean is eaten (Northern galette, Southern fougasse). The three kinks, interessors against sudden death, are feasted on that day. Together they represent life and death at one: Melhior, the old man, Gaspar, the beardless youth, and Balthazar, the blak king who arries myrrh as a sign that the Son of Man must die. Rituals of blakening, essential to the Oitan 80 Carnival, may also take plae: at their banquet, the "follin follet' might exerise punitive smearing of the guests' faes. 81 On the 9th, St-Paul the Hermit's day. He fled to the desert to esape perseution. There, St-Anthony finds him, fed by a row. His visit ended, Anthony has a vision that the hermit has died and finds him kneeling, as if alive and praying, but already dead. His grave is dug by two lions. St-Anthony exlaims: "Oh, Holy Soul, thou hast shown in thy death what thou werest in life." On May 1st, there is a "Feast of the 82 Blaks" (Feste des Noiris) of St. Paul in the town of Vienne. St-Hilary, The Joyous, is honored either on the 13th or the 14th. He fores the orrupt Pope to render his soul in the latrine, disemboweled. Through his prayers, he obtains the death of his daughter and his wife. 83 In many areas, the 17th is the day of a major saint, St-Anthony the Anhorite. In the desert, he withstands the repeated assaults of the Satan's troops, so it an be said that he has "seen" the Otherworld. The very extensive ionography of St-Anthony's temptations, abundant be- Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

15 58 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 tween the XVth and XVIIth enturies, often represents him in the harateristi pose of the melanholi, the hild of Saturn. The hildren of Saturn inlude those who dig in the deepest serets of the earth: gravediggers, miners and seekers of treasures, and those who die by hanging. 84 On the 20th is the feast of another important saint, Sebastian. His body is piered by a shower of arrows but he omes bak to life. He is killed a seond time and his body thrown in a sewer: however his spirit reappears to announe where the body should be buried. 85 On the 22nd, St-Vinent, protetor of wine and winegrowers. After repeatedly torturing him, the exeutioners expose his orpse in the fields, to be devoured by the wild beasts. However, he is spared that burial deseration by the intervention of a row who hases away birds of prey and a wolf. Finally onsigned to the waters, with a millstone attahed to it, St-Vinent's body is rejeted by the waves and given proper burial. 86 On the 25th, the Conversio Pauli is elebrated, ommemorating the onversion of Saul, a former perseutor of Christians, an event marked by signs of reversal: Saul riding on horsebak and suddenly thrown to the ground, his sudden blindness and return to sight. St-Paul thus beomes the patron saint of ropemakers, "who work bakwards". 87 Theirprofession also has onnotations of death, for their work produes the hangman's rope. 87 Death itself is a form of reversal: a return to the earth, or the dust, whene we ame. The 26th or the 27th, depending on the alendar used, are under the name of "St-Julian". Several saints and haraters of the Golden Legend have that name. The most famous, St-Julian l'hospitalier, murdered his parents by mistake, and made penane by ferrying travelers aross a dangerous river. 86 In this ferryman, we an easily reognize a soularrier, a Christian parallel to the boatman of Hell, the objet of muh farial omment in the voyages of Tabarin and other ators to the Underworld (supra, p.5). A XHIth entury English legend establishes that aspet of St-Julian in a very interesting way. It tells of the vision of the peasant Thurill, guided by Julian in a voyage to the temporary sojourn of the souls, where he also meets St-Paul. Thurill gives the appearane of being dead on earth, for St-Mihael tells his guide to bring him bak quikly, as those who surround his deathbed may smother him by throwing old water on his fae. 89 The month of February is marked by similar omplexes of legends surrounding ertain saints 90 but the first 5 days, whih are so entral to the elebration of Carnival, overshadow by far the rest of the month by their importane, and the seond, third and fifth are the most signifiant. 14

16 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 59 The first is the day of St-Brigid whose onnetion with winds and swelling makes her a likely soul-bearer. 91 The seond is Candlemas, a day of joy and atonement. In Languedo tradition, on "Nostra Damadels Candelous", small andles are brought to Churh to be blessed and will be used in the room of a dying person to failitate the soaring of the soul. 92 The third is the ruial day of St-Blasius, the patron saint of the Romans Fraternity of the Holy Spirit. By giving the poor widow bak the pig whih a wolf had stolen from her, Blasius beomes a protetor of animal as well as human souls. Candles, whose importane in rituals of the souls have been already disussed (supra p.2), are heneforth onserated to him every year. He also is thrown bak alive by the waters. 93 The 5th, is the feast day of St. Agatha, in many plaes elebrated by women. Her name signifies "the good", but in folk tradition, she aquires an ambiguous nature and beomes a kind of with. To those who spin on her feast day, she appears as a very fast spinner who terrifies the woman at fault. To hase her away, one has to shout: "le fuo es al ementeri" ("the emetary is on fire"), otherwise, aording to one legend, the woman would have ended up spinning her own shroud. Washing is also forbidden or she appears as a blak at ("gata"). Agatha ' 'frightens the woman who might perturb time by winding it in her thread or by troubling the water in whih the sky is refleted." 94 Ashura, Feast of the Dead At the outset, Ashura has a somewhat ominous value. Misfortune would attah itself to a hild born on that day. The boy would grow up to be a good for nothing. The girl would never be onsidered a true virgin and would bring no luk to her husband. Marriages are also forbidden during the month of Ashura. 95 In Tunisia, a feeling of uneasiness pervades the entire month, onsidered as nefarious in the Kef area and even in the ities. There also, people are unhappy about births and marriages at the time. 96 A number of Catalan proverbs suggest that February, the most frequent Carnival month, might have negative or threatening harateristis. 97 Both elebrations have elaborate fire rituals whih ombine purifiation with elements of fertilization for human beings and rops. Their purifiation aspet may well have a funerary ontent. In Frane the "feux des brandons" extend over a very large area. Ativities inlude arrying torhes, throwing blazing objets, building Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

17 60 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 bonfires and leaping over them for protetion against disease and to help the rops. The many names given these bonfires an be diretly related to popular revels suh as the "harivari". 98 During Ashura, bonfires are built by women and hildren. 99 Children who jump three times over the burning embers of the Ashura bonfire are made strong. 100 At night, a haala is ablaze in every ourtyard, surrounded with lit andles. The women and hildren dane around it and leap through the smoke. The sared ashes are kept to preserve from illness. 101 In parts of Moroo, the elebration was still ative some fifteen years ago. Among the Ait Seddrat, at Tamkasselt, the feast begins with the appearane of the thin resent moon and lasts until the day after the full moon. Everywhere there is the glowing light of blazing torhes and sparklers. Here, the little girls jump over the bonfires. 102 It would seem odd to attribute these ativities to the expression of "solar ults", as most authors on the subjet do, sine they take plae at a lunar festival. There is, however, the possibility of a ritual "onneting" of the two alendars on a purely symboli plane. On the other hand, the linking of the blazes, the moonlight and remembrane of anestors does appear in the Ashura Carnival of several tribes. For instane, among the Hanatia of the High Dra, at Tamelaltes, the boys greet the Ashura moon's appearane with proessions. They arry long burning palm fibers whih they twirl around, as they sing: "O Baba Ali bathebat, he beats the drum and thinks he's still young". 103 Among the Ait Ben Naeur (of the Imejjat), the harater known as Boulefdam is entirely dressed in palm fibers and wears ow horns, presenting the appearane of a wild man and a "lunati." His ostume is set on fire at the end of the eremony. 104 In other versions, the ogre of Ashura wears animal skins and holds a long burning torh. Among the Mezguita of the Dra, he wears rags and a hollowed pumpkin on his head with a dangerously blazing rown perhed on it. 105 Even in the pageants whih aompany the olletion of materials for the bonfires, a task assigned to the hidlren, a mortuary aspet an be inluded. In the Atlas, groups of hildren tour the villages. To get what they need, one will fall down and pretend to be dead until he reeives the desired gifts. 106 The bonfires are not the only omponent of 'Ashura festivities to be polyvalent, pivoting on the axes of life and death. Although Ashura is a feast of honoring the dead, when they are questioned on the origin of the day, Kabyls say that the 10th of Muharram ommemorates the rea- 16

18 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 61 tion of earth, the healing of Job, Jonas oming out of the whale, the birth and death of Jesus (Isa). In other words, they give it a value of birth, 107 resurretion and regeneration. In Tlemen, there is no Carnival; on the IVth, mourning is presribed to^ all the sherifs but not really observed. Generally in Algeria, Ashura 108 is a day of mourning: women do not wear make-up and visit the graves. The ban is lifted on the third day. 109 In Merrakeh, whih on the other hand has a very rauous Carnival, emetaries are visited by rowds of people on 'Ashura, tombs are doused with water and planted with myrtle, also used in Mazouna. In parts of 110 Moroo, sterile women steal that myrtle from the graves of unknown deeased, whose forgiveness and protetion they first invoke. At home, they grind the leaves and eat them with their husbands before interourse. 111 If a hilds fortieth day falls on'ashura, his mother will douse him with the rose water of funerary rites so that Death will be satisfied and leave him alone. 112 Elaborate rituals of inundating graves with water take plae throughout the Maghrib. Children are given little jugs to perform the lustrations: it is said that their souls will refresh the burning lips of the donor on the Day of the Last Judgment. 113 In Tunisia, on 'Ashura day, the women tend to the graves. They spend the whole night in the emetary where they invoke the female spirit 114 Lalla Kerraba (Moroo). 115 In Rabat, the mourning rites are observed until the 20th of the month with all the trades easing work, a ban on dying one's body, whitewashing houses, washing oneself and one's lothes thoroughlly. 116 Legends of the ' Ashura period onfirm that dead souls are felt to be surrounding the ommunity of the living. The Beni Hawa believe that Ashura is preeded by a meat market where the djennun, with their fire-red faes, hissing voies and fear of salt and iron, ome to buy enormous quantities of meat. 117 In other areas, Carnival inludes the proession of Lalla Man oura who must not be unveiled. Whoever dares to lift the veil overing her palanquin would be blinded. She is the ghost-fianee who disappeared from a losed arriage, in the middle of a rowd, as she was being arried to her husband's home. 118 Although the diret relationship to the dead, whih is part of 'Ashiira, is not present in the Oitan Carnival, ertain mok elements do play on funerary allusions that are quite expliit. The numerous existing versions of Carnival's funeral, with the judg- Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

19 62 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 ment and sentening of the Carnival representative (ator of dummy) and his subsequent destrution are, on the whole, tangential to the issue at hand. However, in some versions, allusions to atual burial rites are so present as to be noteworthy. In a XVIIth entury Carnival text, Caresmeprenant's funeral is extremely detailed and follows all the neessary presriptions. 119 In Vallespir, Gregoire, the Carnival mannequin is tried, burned and buried. Nuts may be thrown in the grave, to give him something to eat, some say. At Amel ie, suh a burning inluded partiipants in the dress of the old burying fraternities. 120 In Spain also, Carnival features "Cofradias de la Animas", the other side of the "Comparsas de loos". Spanish illustrations of Carnival's funeral have inluded skeletons bearing sythes. 121 Lunar Masks Moon rituals involving magi an be part of the sared time of Ashura. On the night of'ashura, the Moroan with goes to the emetary to gather the "moon water" needed for her onotions. She digs up a orpse, holds its hands in her own and makes it knead the semolina grains wet with moon water. This same ritual has been noted among the Beni 122 Snous at En Nair, whih, in Tlemen, has mourning rites very similar to those of Ashura. The withes bring the moon down from the sky into a dish of water, paint a rooster's eyes with kohl, knead semolina in the hands of a orpse. 123 Loks made on Ashura night ause sexual impotene. In the morning, before sunrise, the smith, alone in his shop, naked and standing on 124 his left foot, forges amulets, moving from left to right. 125 As mentioned previously, stages of the moon are basi to the rituals of the Frenh Carnival. Gaignebet pointed out that suh rituals involving fored blakening and smearing of partiipants and observers are an initiative proess designed to enourage the transition to a new moon, announed by a temporarily dark sky. Eating flapjaks, a food assoiated with Carnival in many zones of Frane, is a way of swallowing the moon. Conversely, dousing or overing with white substanes, whih 126 also ours frequently and is known as "farinage", is a mimeti referene to the upoming full moon of Easter. Thus, an "Easter Fool", his fae as white as halk, oupies the enter of Bruegels' "Battle of Carnival and Lent". This white fool's onnetion to spring is visible in the ostume 127 of one of the bear's ompanions in Gedre (Pyrenees): his fae smeared with white, he wears a white shirt and a bunh of green leaves on his bak

20 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 63 "Blak and white" symbolism is very important in the arnivalesque ode: in the Pyrenees, there is a sene with a miller overed with an oxskin, who pretends to grind flour while men dressed as women sprinkle him with ashes. 129 In the Andorran bear hunt at Enamp, the agrarian and funerary ontent of that hromatism is manifest with two mowers, one in white and one in blak, who aompany the hunstmen. 130 Lunar disguises, in both Ashflra and Carnival, are not only refletions of the alendar but may partake of magial operations, favorised by the elusive presene of the dead souls. The magi of the Berbers underlines again that the moon is the mirror of Heate, the with goddess of lassial times, the bith of Hell, allgiver and fearful taker. Blak magi, neromany and apparitions from the Otherworld take plae at the rossroads where she reigns. I n medieval ionography, rossroads are often the lous of memento mori ompositions suh as the "Dit des trois morts etdes trois vifs". 131 In the system of the Four Temperaments, blak is the olor of the melanholi, related to the hildren of Saturn (supra). Conversely, melanholia is related to lunay. 132 The fat that blak is also the olor of Carnival lunar masks brings out the omplex system whih links the withes to the moon and to the spirits. The main Carnival ators in Prats-de-Mollo (Pyrenees) disguise themselves as bears. They wear furry ostumes and over themselves with soot whih they proeed to smear on everyone, espeially women and the opposing group, barbers in white hemises and floured faes who eventually shave the bears. 133 This ativity is alled "blakening", "mashurage", 134 the overing of semi-willing vitims with substanes suh as soot, wine sediment, mud or ashes. Several authors point out that it is equivalent to wearing a mask. In the XVIth entury, Guillaume Bouhet ommented: "those who invented masks smeared themselves with wine sediment out of whih ame mashurez, in Italian masquarati"- 135 XVIth entury Protestants also applied the term "masquerade" to the Blak Virgin of Le P Uy 136 If one examines Claude Noirot's treatise on the origin of masks, one finds that the distintion was then made between these improvised masks made of natural substanes and the more elegant, ornate and artifiially made ones worn by the aristorati youth who used masks to avort with the ladies. In his disussion, Noirot expresses his profound disapproval at the "arrests d'amour" whih laim to regulate the wearing of masks. These texts, earlier than 1609, the date of publiation of Noirot's work, aknowledge the existene of distintive disguises of the lower lasses, Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

21 64 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 suh as lothes turned inside out, faes overed with flour or oal dust and humble paper masks. 137 There is another dimension to the word "mask" in pre-modern and traditional soieties. "Masque" in Frenh, "mas, masa" in Provengal and Oitan, designate a with. 138 Noirot again onfirms that aeption of the term "in ertain regions of Frane". It is very interesting that he should quote Olaus Magnus' famous work on the withes of the North. The terms he uses in his own translation of the text are very refletive of some of the beliefs nd praties onerning the wearing of masks whih we have enountered so far. The withes "draw out the subtle and tenuous substane of the air" to reate horrifi masks, "full of a leadolor filth", from whih they ould remove "the dark and gloomy substanes" whih they had employed. 139 The air as vetor for substanes whih are not of this world, the word ' 'tenebreux" designating omplete, intense darkness, the "outland" region of ivilization and human experiene, and the notion of filth ontaining something more than the soially unaeptable, something ominous (and here one must reall the role of lead in magi, suh as the making of defixiones or tablets to ause harm), all of these onstrut a omplex of ideas whih parallels Carnival smeared masks, but on the plane of the invisible, the hidden and the sared. Wearing a mask an signify passing into the zone of the dead. In Bas-Languedo, there is a belief that if two youths wear masks, they would see themselves as "three", given the right irumstanes, whih suggest the appearane of a soul or "double" among them. 140 When Violet Alford gathered her material on Carnival in the Pyrenees, a story was irulating about a young man who dressed up in a alfskin on Carnival and, said the storyteller, "This was so impious that it stuk to him and prayers had to be said before he ould take if off." 141 A legend from the Barzaz Breizh, whih might be medieval, is based on a type of exemplum, presented as a Carnival sermon aimed at warning the population against the evils of wearing masks. The young men of the village had defied the priest's ban and paraded around in disguise. One youth borrowed a skull from the emetary to use as a Carnival mask. When he returned it to the orpse, he jokingly invited it to dine with him. In the middle of the night, he heard knoking at his door and there was the grinning orpse, honoring his invitation. Terrified, the young man fell dead right through the floor. 142 Thus, he had beome one of the dead souls by donning their appearane. It is quite interesting to note that although this legend belongs to a ultural ontext whih is not onneted at all to Southern Frane, Carnival masks are treated in a similar manner. 20

22 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 65 Another Breton text, the "Gwerz of Skolan" establishers more rossultural links between returning souls and wild men who are entral to Carnival mythology, both in their relation to the bear and the leader of souls, Harlequin (see infra). The song tells of the return from Purgatory of a furious sinner, Skolan, who appears with a blak fae on a blak skeleton, mounted on a blak horse. Using omparative analysis, D. Laurent was able to show that he is a form of the Welsh Ysolan, whose tale is in the Blak Book of Camarthen. These sinners are, in turn, avatars of the wild man Myrddin-Merlin who must endure the iy old and of the Irish Suibhne, who lives in the wild, perhed at the top of the trees, in freezing weather: eventually he grows feathers. Wild men perhed in 143 trees and bushes are known to medieval and XVIth entury ionography and in the Herault region of Southern Frane, the wild man is 144 sometimes known as the "plumeux" ("the feathery one"). As we 145 shall see, the ostume of the Cournonterral wild men inludes feathers. Thus, having returned to our point of departure, we an admit the probability that Carnival masks onnote ontat with the dead, and that a Carnival disguise, the wild man, also has something to do with the symbolization of the souls' return. Blakening for purposes of disguise or ritual pratie is known in North Afria. The substane alled khol is not only used for make-up purposes but also has a purifiation and preservation value. In many parts of the Berber area, Ashura is the day for the preparation of kohl for the rest of the year. Men and women alike put it on their eyes for yearly protetion in the Souss of Tunisia. In parts of Moroo, the year's 146 supply is prepared at Ashura with magial as well as darkening substanes. In spite of orthodox disapproval, kohl and henna are om- 147 monly applied for purifiation. On Ashura, Moroan hildren were sometimes taken to the dyer's shop to have their right arm and leg immersed in blak dye. 149 The Ashura Carnival elebrations usually involve some form of blak mask, hairy or not. In Tunisia, ostumes varied but many would blaken their fae and hands. Among the Beni Yenni Berbers the 150 youth would dress up one of the group as Bou Afif; wearing a blak mask, armed with a big stik, he was sent through the village to enter houses and demand flapjaks. The Kabyls also say that he is Azrael, the Angel of Death. 151 In muh of the area, Bou Afif is the name of the 'Ashura old man whose violent, undeorous and unpreditable behavior is paralleled in Europe by the destrutive antis of Carnival fools, wild men and Harlequins armed with bats. Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

23 66 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 Blakness and the protetion of souls are linked in beliefs of Algerian Berbers: among the Beni Snous, a blak woman protets the sared pigeons whose ooing is the moaning of the souls and a blak man guards the partridge fields of the At-Yenni. 152 Shakh ba-mennan, the Carnival old man of the Beni Snous, wears blak rags whih are to symbolize the sky before a storm and a mask whih is a blak fleee. 153 Throughout the area, the Carnival ators inlude groups of "blaks." Sometimes entirely naked and smeared with darkening substanes from head to toe, the Carnival "blaks" hase the women with a long stik held like a phallus. They sing: "We want to forniate". Another of their disguises is a oat full of holes and an enormous fake phallus. When they turn around to pray, their bare rear is exposed, a lunar metaphor. Entering houses, they break everything in sight. They attak the women and even defile them with urine. 154 The wild men of Ashura are often old men, anestor types, who ombine age and fertility. Herema, "the derepite", has an animal skin ostume and a long burning torh, his fae is blakened, he wears horns, branhes of greenery and a neklae of snail shells. He hits all those he an reah with a long stik and reeives gifts from the villagers. His blows are supposed to protet from disease. In fat, in spite of his name, he sports enormous fake genitals. 155 This figure, often known as Boujloud, is universal in the Maghrib Carnival: he is alled "the King of years". His retinue onsists of ators disguised as old men and women in rags, their faes overed with hairy masks. They all throw ashes in passers-by. In Rabat, he is Baba Ali and, on Ashura, the hildren sing him a ditty replete with allusions to the deaying, diseased and satologial: 156 O Lalla Mannana Khaddouj the poppy's daughter the rivulet gives me water to drink And the river will not arry us away Baba Ali with your head like a jar His hat is full of holes The row flies by and says Where are you going? To see my sons Where are they? In Hell May God send you there! So be it! You will eat the exrements of lepers Praise be to God, master of the world. This type of symboli network is very important also in a Carnival like the Frenh Cournonterral. The aggressive flaunting of putrefation plays a ruial role in bridging the gap between life and death, sine as a proess, it partakes of both. This may be why in some parts of the Maghrib one an see a Carnival daner arrying a rotting donkey's arass with whih he hits and offends all bystanders. 157 All these Ashura Carnival figures are polyvalent and polysemous: 22

24 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 67 they are derepite but highly sexualized, threatening but benefiial. Thus, in the Dra, Akho, the 'Ashura ogre is greated like a saint and alled "Father Ashura." 158 In the Khemis village of the Beni Snous, the onnetion between anestors and loal saints is very lear: the masks spring out of the santuray of Sidi Salah, the protetive anestor, shouting "lion", an animal often represented in masarades. 1S9 In a sense, the illusion that the masks have atually returned from the world of the dead is reinfored by the silene usually observed by the anestor-mask as he roams the village street, performing his part. This silene is also found in parts of Frane: in Gasony, on Fat Tuesday, young men in blak masks toured the farms, announing themselves with songs, but not speaking a word one they had entered the house. They would point at what they wanted in omplete silene. A similar ustom was observed on the night of the Nuremberg Shembart. 160 The interferene of soiling, putrefying materials in Carnival, alluded to in the Rabat hildren's song, takes a somewhat more violent turn in several Carnivals of Southern Frane. In the Herault, masks used to be made of soot and wine sediment as indiated by the late XVIth entury authors disussed above. 161 In the village of Cournonterral, near Montpellier, Ash Wednesday is the day of the Pailhasses, a sort of loal wild man. Their ostume onsists of white lothes overed with a large sak paked with straw, a hat with turkey feathers and branhes of boxtree oming from their shoulders. At the signal, the Pailhasses dunk themselves in a slimy pool of wine sediment whih also fills the rags they will use as weapons. Then they over all those they an lay their hands on with the thik, purplish mud. Their vitims are the "whites" dressed in nightshirts and the young girls, whom the wild men stuff in the barrels of sediment, insuring that all bodily orifies are filled with the stuff. 162 In a 1979 performane, a Pailhasse was seen brandishing the visera of an ox instead of the traditional rag. Indeed, just a few years earlier, putrefying, rotten and smelly materials (organi metaphors of the grave) were used besides the wine sediment: manure, ompost heaps, blood, tripes, deomposed animal orpses and the ontent of stables and lavatories. 163 Loal tradition has it that this ritual goes bak to the Middle Ages, and gives it a historiist explanation. It is quite apparent that the Pailhasses' prerogatives have been respeted year after year for a very long time, regardless of their inongruous harater in our ontemporary system of values. Cournonterral has a song for the oasion: "We are of blood and wine/the more it rains, the thiker the mud We are happy in our filth". Although filth is the element stressed here, the gestures, the symbols and onnotations of the Cournonterral revels onstrut a signifying network Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

25 68 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 whih is diretly related to the disussion of the ' 'quik and the dead". In the 1979 interview of some of the villagers, a member of the elebration ommittee ommented that he felt a mutation operating in all of them. At first, he felt revulsion at the ontat of the stiky substane, but, on the appointed day, he was rolling in it in a frenzy. ' 'One has to be an animal", he added. However, suh heavily ritualized behavior is not typial of animals at all, but of humans. The word "animal" in the young man's statement thus has to be a metaphor for something else, something whih may well not be lear at all any more. What it does indiate, however, is a passage to "another state", both mental and physial, a sort of dissoiation of the person. This animal smaks very muh of the wild man, whose role as a leader of souls has lost its meaning to varying degeees in different miroultures. In using the word ' 'mutation", underlined by the omment "We aren't the same any more! And alohol doesn't explain everything", the ommittee member was aknowledging, on a psyhologial plane, the somewhat awesome takeover of the real body by an alien mind. It may well be that this split is the losest that a ontemporary Carnival elebration an ome to allowing the resurgene of the dead in its midst. 164 Carrier of Souls Anthropomorphi disguises are not alone in enating a symboli presene of souls in both Ashura and Carnival. Both feature a type of hoofed animal used as a means of onveyane (horse, mule, donkey or even amel) in their masarades, and both ultural zones surround this type of animal with legends related to the movements of souls. In Moroo, the mule is present at just about every arnival and it is the most important harater among the Zemmon Berbers. In several Berber tribes (Aith Mjild, Aith Nahir and Iguerrouan), that mule is Byila, the mule of emetaries, a ghost in mule guise. It hases solitary straggling travelers and drags them into the grave or devours them. It gives out loud sreehes and fiery sparks. Aording to holy legend, the Prophet 165 made his asent to heaven on his mule, Bouraq, whih learly ats as a soul-bearer 166 In that ontext, the amel and mule are almost interhangeable. At the En Nair Carnival of the Beni Snous, a amel mask wearing a snail shell neklae and an equidae head is brought out. In a Moroan legend, 167 the amel arried a pilgrim alive to Mea, by its ovenant with the holy Sidi Mhammed Sherqi, and brought him bak dead. 168 There is an Ashura play in the Ouargla region of Tunisia whih 24

26 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 69 ombines the amel mask and a legend of wandering souls. The sokhar, a pauper ondemned to easeless voyages aross the earth, has a right to enter the blissful realm of Sidna Mohammed, after his death, whih is diretly related to the length of his travels. His story is ated out at Carnival with an unooperative amel on whih he tries to ross the bridge whih leads to Paradise. 169 The horse,' 'hibalet" is a majorpresene in the Carnivals of Southern Frane, in partiular in the Pyrenees. At Arles-sur-Teh, on Candlemas, appears a skirted horse with a monstruous head at eah end, possibly a Janus figure onnoting the nearby New Year. At Ripoll, a wild 170 mule-man with a mule mask and bells, pranes around, kiking and pursuing the girls. 171 It would be too long a task to relate all the tales and legends featuring horses onneted to the Otherworld. Propp's morphology, although based on the orpus of Russian tales, gives a suint aount of the horse's soul-bearing nature whih an apply to the Frenh orpus. Three vetors predominate in arrying the hero through the air: the steed, bird and boat. 172 In a XlVth entury exemplum of the Dominian Jean Gobi, the horse ats as an Underworld vetor. It tells of young men who liked to wear masks and ride hobbyhorses. One feast day, as they were daning, a group of demons mingled with them, the earth opened up and they fell into Hell. In another version, they dane in the emetary and hurh in similar array and fire onsumes one of the impious youths. In analysing these texts, J.-C. Shmitt points out that this punishment is a moralized reading of an initiation myth where the youths are atually led to the Otherworld by the horse mask. In another exemplum, by Etienne of Bourbon, a horse arried the body of a pilgrim, dead on the road to Compostella, to the santuary with inredible speed. 173 Harlequin ' 'lord of the spirits of the infernal horde''... In the modern renditions of Carnival in Southeastern Frane, Harlequin ats as a foal point, a lous of onvergene for myths of the returning souls, of the wild men and for a omplex of joyous themes, drawing on sex and satology. Medieval legend, related by the monk Orderius Vitalis, has it that a harater named "Hellekin" leads an army of souls bak to earth from the Purgatory where they were onsigned. This ohort of distressed spirits have beome known as the "Wild Horde" ("Wilde Jagd", "Chasse Sauvage.") 174 Medieval authors diverge to some degree on the Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

27 70 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 nature of this Hellequin but all agree on the Otherworld onnetion. For some, they are devils, 175 or evil spirits (Guillaume d' Auvergne) and even the army of the dead (Helinand de Froidmont). Chretien suggests that this group might onsist of a type of fairy, of flighty, spark-like goblins. Another interpretation is that Hellequin leads souls whih glide by with musi as flashes of light in the wind. 176 A faetious text of the end of the XVIth entury establishes that Hellequin-Harlequin had beome known as a masked figure with a blak, hair-overed, dog-fae. 177 In this text, the lownesque aspet of the ator Harlequin seems to be dominant: oming to the aid of the superprostitute Cardine, the faetious embodiment of all vies, Harlequin sueeds in harming the lords of the Underworld with his arobatis. Nevertheless, his funtion in the text is to harrow Hell. In a seond text of the same period, Harlequin indignantly answers the allegations of the first and sets out for Hell to find and punish the puny third rate poet ("le poetrillon") who dared represent him in suh a light. The guilty poet ats frightened and begs forgiveness. Harlequin sets a peuliar ondition: the poet is not to eat ooked meat for a while. This suggests that the poet has been reruted to the Wild Horde, sine eating raw meat is a feature of wild men's behavior. In his abjet apology, the poet ombines satologial self-depreiaton with praise for Harlequin whih unequivoally refers to his medieval identity, ouhed in lassial terminology: 178 "But King Harlequin ommands the Aheron/He limbs to the heavens, slips by their gate/ He is lord of the spirits of the infernal horde...." Thus, by the end of the XVIth entury, the Harlequin ostume was learly identified as a wild, dark, animal mask, with a loak of rags and a large wooden bat. 179 The loak or tuni ould be streaked with red, as evidened by a very early X Vllth entury text where the Carnival lord of Swallow-Wind is fierely whipped by a band of masks, so that his skin resembles Harlequin's habit. 180 The ostume whih is today assoiated with the Harlequin stage figure, tightfitting leotards deorated with diamonds, a sleek blak mask and an XVIIIth entury hat is the produt of a series of transformations. It an be said that Marivaux "ivilizes" Harlequin with his Arlequin poll par I'amour (1720).' 81 Nevertheless, in the XVIIIth-XIXth entury arnivals of Oitanie, Harlequin retained his former wildness and violent fights between the Arlequins and the dominos (the whites, or lunatis) were quite frequent. 182 Harlequin plays his part in many modern Carnivals, not only in Frane, but also in Spain. 183 The Carnival Harlequin of St-Didier-la- Seauve (Hte-Loire) wears a striped ostume, a foxtail, and arries a bat. 26

28 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 71 He ats as Carnival's lawyer and is a thief like his lient. 184 Interestingly, the protetor god of thieves in lassial tradition, Hermes, is also a habitual traveler to Hell. Finally, throughout Provene, Harlequin is seen leading horses in the horse-danes. 184 In the small southern town of Treves, there is a figure alled the Petassou who wears snathes of variegated loth, has a fae painted like a lown's and arries a pork bladder. He remains anonymous during the elebration and must never speak. He runs about the village, provoking people, hitting them with a large, dusty broom or dousing them with water. As he appears on St-Blasius' day, it seems that his bladder must also be a soul-ontainer. That funtion is even learer in the play of the Candlemas bear at Enamp (Andorra): the bear arries a bladder filled with wine around his nek and falls down dead as soon as it is piered. 18S That the Treves Petassou is really Harlequin is not merely suggested by his ostume but onfirmed by philology. Mistral aknowledges a form "Pedassou" as a synonym of Harlequin. 185 Also, Harlequin used to partiipate in a "spinners' dane", whih was performed at Carnival before it beame a tourist attration. The daners, arrying distaffs deorated with lanterns, would sing "soun abit de pedassa" and "es abiba en Caramentran", in Harlequin's honor. 186 All these elements onur to establish lose ties between a Harlequin leader of souls and visitor from the Otherworld with the variegated Harlequin ostume, and finally, with Carnival itself. Conlusions The integration of the dead into the Carnival rituals of the living on Ashura takes plae in two diret forms: by honoring the dead at their graves and keeping mourning rites, and by symbolizing anestral presene in Carnival masks, around whih are rystallized a ertain number of legends pertaining to the movement of souls between this world and another. The Carnivals of Southern Frane of Languedo, Provene, Ariege, Gasony, Beam do not make suh a diret onnetion. However, many funerary themes are inorporated in the "joyous liense" of the period, and figures of Carnival masarades embody psyhi dimensions through a orpus of legends and beliefs whih are attahed to them. In more general terms, both ultural zones aept the possibility, or have done so expliitly, well into the XXth entury, of the return of dead souls among the living. The validity of this analysis has a very flutuating timespan. Muh of Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

29 72 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 the material onerning Ashura was gathered at the beginning of the entury and it is diffiult to know to what extent these ustoms still prevail. The most reent material used here dates from 1976 and although the Carnival praties were maintained in a very reognizable form (aspersions, games, bonfires, presene of the ogre mask), adult villagers explained them all as hidren's games. Thus there was a notieable 187 distaniation, as ompared to the myths offered as explanations for various aspets of 'Ashura in earlier reports. The most omplex model of 'Ashura Carnival ould be safely, at one time, defined as a olletive endeavour of the "quik and the dead", but it would be unwise to draw onlusions with respet to the ontemporary period. The ase of the Southern Frenh elebrations is even more omplex. From the data examined, it seems that the "quik and the dead" framework applies fully to the late medieval-xvith entury Carnivals and that the XVIIth entury perpetuated this tradition, in its faetious literature at least, with the addition of its own distintive elements. In a disussion of the feasts of Provene between the XVIIth and XVIIIth enturies, M. Vovelle says that the "traditional, unanimist and patriarhal" feast ended after the Revolution. Although onflits had always been a part of these feasts, they emerged in a more aggressive form by the XVIIIth entury and tensions beame obvious in the apparently peaeful ritual of seasonal gestures. He gives two examples whih fit interestingly in one of the older Carnival symboli shemes: the masarade of the poor in Valensole on the day of St. Anthony the hermit or the derisive begging of bands of paupers. 188 In spite of these hanges, we know that for instane the Harlequin figure kept many of his former onnotations fairly late. However, most detailed reports of Carnival elebrations in Southern Frane remain XXth entury and some XlXth entury douments. We dispose of no data onerning the pereption of the partiipants with respet to the apparatus of gestures whih, presented to the folklorist or ethnologist, onjures an amazingly lear and ohesive piture of a Carnival of ' 'the quik and the dead"... whih may be mostly medieval. In the present state of the art, one has to go outside of the Southern region to find a Carnival elebration whih is absolutely ontemporary and reonstruts its own symbolism with elements expliitely related to our model. In Strasbourg, between 1973 and 1977, dialetophoni, unemployed youth planned to revive their own Carnival, in opposition to the offiial "touristi" one, and to the ultural dominane of Frane or Germany. Organized by young skilled workers, it nevertheless appealed to the poor, the jobless, the unhappy. On one of the early posters, a pallid monkey's head, similar to a skull, was wearing an Alsatian head-dress, 28

30 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 73 bright red, with the insription "made in Hong Kong". Thus, from the outset, this was to be a regionalist and somewhat politial Carnival. Later, masks inluded people dressed in blak, with grimaing faes and blazing torhes: the fight between "whites" and "blaks" with soot and flour was to end with a vitory of "life over death". Again, death was reintrodued, but in a highly politiized version. Death, aording to a leaflet, was "order, ivilian and military injustie, atomi danger". Some arried pallid dolls representing vitims of the nearby Fessenheim nulear plant. One of the later versions may be the most relevant to this disussion: the plan was to have a "maabre ball" on the Saturday following the Mardi Gras gathering of vituals. It was announed that "darkness, old ideas, those who smell of death will wake up the ity with torhes, drums and pans." 189 The fat that these endeavours were not greeted kindly at all by the authorities, and that attempts at redisovering the old, somewhat destrutive, Carnivals were met with physial repression, suggests that Carnival itself may be, in spite of the reent revival spawned by regionalist movements throughout Frane, a thing of the past. Then, it is no longer the pereption of oexistene of the living and the dead whih is at stake, but the entire Carnival phenomenon. It is also true that even in its earlier forms, Carnival met with disapproval and inomprehension from the authorities. In the XVIth entury, Jeanne d'albret wanted to ban Carnival in Bearn: she objeted to the "insolent, dissolute, immodest and lasivious" nature of songs and danes and to the wearing of masks. In 1609 the inquisitor De Lanre expressed his indignation at the presene of an Abbe de Maugouverne, a Lord of Misrule, who was onsidered quite ordinary fare in the late Middle Ages and XVIth entury. 190 At the level of gesture, of myth, of representation, even reent Carnivals suh as Cournonterral, allow, at the very least, a metaphori presene of the dead among the living. To what extent this "seond degree" reading orresponds to atual beliefs of the loal Carnival ators, not even today, but, let us say, during the XlXth entury and the first half of the XXth entury, annot be asertained without onsiderable additional work and the intervention of other disiplines. Nevertheless, on the 191 basis of the mental and ritual omplexes presented here, it an be said that through derision, verbal and physial offense and mythiization, a ross-ultural Carnival model has funtioned to different degrees in different ontexts as a partial answer to one of mankind's insoluble problems: if it annot onquer death, it an at least onquer the dead by annexing them to living praties. Seton Hall University Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

31 74 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 NOTES 1. E. Le Roy Ladurie, Le Carnival de Romans (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), pp Ibid., p All translations from the Frenh in the text are my own. 3. E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou; Village oitan de 1294 a 1324, (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), p D. Fabre et J. Laroix, La Vie quotidienne des pay sans du Languedo au XIXe (Paris: HaheUe, 1973), p Ibid., p C. Ginzburg, Les Batailles noturnes: sorellerie et rituels agraires en Frioul, XVI-XVIIiemesieles (Paris: Verdier, 1980), p.68. Giordana Charuty, trans. 7. E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, p A. Bel, "La Population musulmane de Tlemen", Revue des Etudes Ethnographiquee et Soioloques, I, 1908; pp : pp P. Perdrizet, Le Calendrier parisien a la fin du Moyen Age (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1965), pp E. Male, L'Art religieux au Xlle en Frane, 2nd, ed. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1924) pp , shows proessions of the Purifiation feast arrying andles. He quotes Honorius of Autun in Gemina Animae, Migne, Patrologia, CLXXII, "Maridatge de Candelers, Per Tots sants fruite", see: J. Amades, "Dites: Refranys de Febrer", Tramontane 330, 1951, pp See infra note 23, "Transation entre la Mort et L'Amour...", and 29 "La Conferane des Servantes...". The latter takes plae in the Cemetary des Innoents, an important gathering plae in Paris (there is a mid-xvith entury representation of the emetary with a funeral going on as other groups of people play and gossip, inluding hidlren, in: "Musee Carnavalet, "Paris au XVIe siele et sous le regned'henri IV", Bulletin du Musee Carnavalet 32,1979, p.9). Inafaetious alendara. 1500, "L'Advoat des Dames de Paris", the ladies will visit the Innoents emetary on the day of the Dead. In: Montaiglon, Reueil de poesies franqaises des XVe et XVIe sieles, vol.xii, pp.6-36). On further relations between All Saints and Carnival, ompare the following ustoms: In the Southern half of Frane, inluding Bourbonnais, Hte-Vienne, Herault and the Pyrenees, one must not do the wash on All Saints day beause of a onnetion with shrouds. In the Puisay e region, a farm oupied for the first time on All Saints is purified, "brandonnee" on the following Fat Sunday with torhes, fires and gun shots. A. Van Gennep, Manuel de folklore franqais ontemporain (Paris: A. et J. Piard, 1953), 1.6, pp In parts of Languedo, on Ash Wednesday, one must not spin, bake bread (also attested in the North, for All Saints day, supra, Van Gennep) or wet laundry to wash it. Weddings are also banned during the Carnival-Lent period. R. Nelli, "Carnaval-Careme en Languedo", Folklore 58, 1950, 1, pp

32 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni Van Gennep, 1.6, pp St-Martins' day's festive nature is indiated, for instane, by these verse from Montaiglon's Reueil..., vol. VII, "Debat de I'Hyver et de L'Este": "On a grant joye quant je hyver suis en hemin/ Chaun si se gogoye la veille St- Martin". 14. Van Gennep, Manuel...., 1947,1.3, pp Ibid., pp C. Gaignebet, "Le Combat de Carnaval et de Careme de P. Bruegel (1559)", Annates, 27, mars-avril 1972, 2, pp : p. 336, mentions the theologial debates onerning the nature of the egg, as aeptable Lent food or not. 17. Van Gennep, Manuel..., 1-3, p Fabre and Laroix, Vie quotidienne, p See C. Gaignebet, Le Carnaval (Paris: Payot, 1974), pp , for an extensive disussion of the horned ukolds, their medieval and lassial legendary bakground, astrologial and hagiographi onnetions. 20. Anon., Joyeusetes, Faeties et folastres Imaginations de Caresme Prenant, Gauthier Garguille, Guillot Gorju, Roger Bontemps, Turlupin, Tabarin, Arlequin, Moulinet et, (foris: Tehener, ), vol X. Formulaire fort rereatif de tous ontrats donations, testamens, odiilles et aultres ates qui sontfaits etpassezpardevant notaires et tesmoings (Lyon: Pierre Rigaud, 1619), p.xii. 21. Ibid., pp M. Grinberg, "Carnaval et soiete urbaine, XlVe-XVe: Le Royaume dans la ville" Ethnologie franqaise 4, 1974, 3, pp : pp Joyeusetes, X, pp Grinberg, p.216: "roi des oqs" at Grenoble, XVth entury. Le Roy Ladurie, Le Carnaval de Romans, pp , on the soial and politial reuperation of Carnival realm animals. 25. Joyeusetes, X, pp On the arnivalesque aspets of Villon's fake wills and donations, see: F. Sautman, "L'Homme du ressentiment: onsiene dehiree et valeurs populaires dans le Neveu de Rameau et les Testaments de Villon," Neophilologus LXIV, Otober 1980, 4, pp Although the faetious testament is a very ommon form of para-literature of the XVth and XVIth enturies, atual wills are quite serious and show profound onern with the mode of burial, the proximity to the most sared parts of the Churh, the number of masses and prayers said for the protetion of the soul, et. See: M. de la Soudiere, "Les Testaments et ates de derniere volonte a la fin du Moyen Age" Ethnologie franqaise 5, 1975, pp The oexistene of these two forms of omments underlines again the polyvalent attitudes of pre-modern ulture towards aspets of death and the protetion of the soul. 27. Joyeusetes, X, pp By the late XVIth entury and early XVIIth, the ulture of the urban "lum- Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

33 76 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 pen" (the "agots" and "Belistres") has beome inorporated into faetious and arnivalesque disourse. See ibid, vol. VIII. 28. Joyeusetes, XVII, "La Desente de Tabarin aux Enfers ave les operations qu'il y fit de son mediament pour la bruslure, durant e aresme dernier, et l'heureuse reontre de Fritelin a son retour", s.e, s.l., Ibid, vol. IV, pp G. Doutrepont, "Les Types Populaires de la litterature fran aise," Aademie Royale de Belgique, lasse des lettres et des sienes morales et politiques, tome XXII, 1926, pp Joyeusetes, VII, "Dizains de Frere Lubin", pp Ibid., vol. Iv, pp Fabre and Laroix, Vie quotidienne, pp M. Boudignon-Hamon et J.Demoinet, Fetes en Frane (Paris: Chene, 1977), pp Montaiglon, Reueil..., vol. X, "La Desription du merveilleux onflit et tres ruelle bataille faite entre les deux plus grands Prines de la Region Bufatique, appellez Caresme et Charnaige". 36. A. Varagna, Civilisation traditionnelle et genre de vie (Paris: Albin Mihel, 1948) says (pp.84-85) that Carnival masks signify "the visit on earth of the fertilizing army of the dead" and "the masks represent the ghosts. Whoever wears a mask, enters among the ghosts". He adds that the pageants with harlatans selling "water of eternal youth" are a satirial version of that interpretation (p.87). Earlier, Saintyves, "Le Merredi des Cendres", Revue Anthropologique 34, 1929, pp , expressed the view that "the period when speters, larvae, phantoms an return to earth was limited in anient times to the midnight of the year, that is, the somber period whih separates Christmas from Ash Wednesday and orresponds exatly to Carnival." (p.178). He reognizes the pivotal nature of the period, between the old and new year, but gives the presene of souls and spirits an unduly sinister ontent. D. Fabre omments that in Carnival, there is "an unsettling invasion of the Otherworld": D. Fabre et C. Camberoque, La Fete en Languedo: regards sur le Carnaval aujourd'hui (Toulouse: Privat 1977 ), p.79. On page 74, the authors make a serious mistake when they state "Lent is truly death whih brings the feast into time (Careme est bien la mort qui fait entrer la fete dans le temps"). As was mentioned previously, Lent is far from being ompletely somber, and does not personify death. For instane, C. Gaignebet, "Le Combat de Carnaval...", p.317, points out that X-rays have made it possible to notie orretions made by Bruegel to his painting: he eliminated from the Lent setion of the painting the motifs of a drowned man with swollen stomah, a hungry, skeletonlike harater, and two sik men. 37. C. Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, pp Ibid, pp A rough translation of these names would be: "Swollen (or Soufleed) Marion," "Alie Big-Fart" and "Bloated (or Swollen) Jeanneton". 32

34 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 77 The onnetion between body winds and the exit of the soul is made on the basis of a pun in Joyeusetes, XVIII, "La Prognostiation des prognostiations omposee par Caresme Prenant, 1612", p. 12: "Aristote dit que quant de vieillard repete si souvent, est signe que le ul sonne la retraite et qu'il faut qu'il desloge puisque le mord arrive au son de este trompete". In a very different register, a story told to Fabre and Laroix near Carassonne attests to the belief that spirits travel as winds. Their informant states that the more dead there are, more there are ghosts and the wind beomes stronger, beause the wind from the sea is made of ghosts. He tells of a haunted house where the winds were loked up. The winds were the hildren and the father was a ghost who would open the door for one of the winds when he wanted to ause some harm. The dead, he adds, provoke the winds beause they are often dissatisfied and malevolent (Vie Quotidienne..., p. 290). 40. Joyeusetes, X, pp Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, pp Ibid., p Ginzburg, p.20, pp In Christian eshatology, not only the wine of mass whih is a representation of the blood of Christ, but the grapevine and its fruit, as well as the entire proess of harvesting the grapes, are linked to resurretion and martyrdom. It is not possible to examine this question in detail here and I will be disussing it elsewhere (see note 90). The following texts ontain allusions to the theme: "Le Martyrede St-Baus"and "Le Ditdestrois hanoines"in A. Jubinal, Nouveau Reueil de ontes, dits, fabliaux et autre piees inedites des XII, XlVe et XVe sieles, (Paris: Edourrd Pannier, 1839, vol.1). Of interest also is the "Extaze propinatoire de Maistre Guillaume en I'honneur de Caresme Prenant" a Paris: Aux Trois Chappelets, 17th entury ) in Joyeusetes, XVIII, whih ombines the themes of wine with Carnival, life and death. Here, wine is assoiated with love, it doesn't like the old "image of death". "Wine is blood" and ats as protetion against death ("Que le Ciel fae done qu'en mourant nous humions/ De e sare Piot [wine] affin que ne sentions/ le redoutable trait de la parque bourelle... Qui t'obeiras touiours il ne moura iamais" (pp /) 45. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, pp The poor, in various onnetions with the dead, appear in a number of arnivalesque ontexts. In Romans, they atually represented the dead at the banquet of the Fraternity of the Holy Spirit. The "bums" are part of arnivalesque testament literature. Rags are also a form of Carnival ostume: suh are the ostumes of the goudils of Limous: they were the ones who threw ashes at passers-by.(r. Nelli, "Carnaval-Careme en Languedo" Folklore 58, p.6). In the "Sottie nouvelle a six personnaiges du Roy des Sotz" (E. Piot, Reueil general des sotties, Paris: Firmin Didot, 1902, T.III), the fools Sottinet and Coquibus mention the poor starving to death, in the midst of their satirial and "nonsense" omments. An interesting perspetive on the arnivalesque poor and the souls is given in the "Conferane des servantes..." (note 29), where the Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

35 78 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 underpaid servant women gather in a emetary to onnive ways of extrating wealth from their masters. 47. Fabre and Laroix, Vie Quotidienne, pp Ibid., pp C. Joisten, "Les Etres fantastiques dans le folklore de 1' Ariege", Via Domitia (Toulouse) IX, 1962, pp.15-82: ps. 49, 50, H. Chauvet, Traditions populaires du Roussillon, exerpt in "Coutumes des funerailles", Tramontane 33, 314, , pp Fabre and Laroix, Vie Quotidienne, pp R. Nelli, Le Languedo et le Comte de Foix, le Roussillon (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), ps. 199, J.I. Smith, "Conourse between the Living and the Dead in Islami Eshatologial Literature," History of Religions, 19, Feb. 1980, 3, pp A. Bel, II, pp Van Gennep, 1.3, W.A. Shoken, The Calulated Confusion of Calendars (New York: Vantage Press, 1976). G.SP. Freeman-Grenville, The Muslim and Christian Calendars (London: Rex Collings Ltd., 1977). 56. J. Servier, Les Portes de I'annee: rites et symboles. L'Algme dans la tradition mediterraneene (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1962), pp J.C. Musso, "Masques de l'ahoura en Grande Kabylie", Libya (Algiers) 18, 1970, pp : p F. Castells, "Note sur la fete de l'ahoura a Rabat", Arhives Berberes (Rabat) I, , pp : p.231. E. Doutte, Magie et religion dans /'Afrique du Nord (Alger: Adolphe Jourdan, 1909), pp En Nair is a feast of the hearth and home. Everything is renewed, the old hearth is dismanteled and rebuilt with new stones and washed earth. Mourning rites are also observed, (p.551) E.Destaing "L'Ennayer hez les Beni Snouss" Revue Afriaine 49, 1905, 256, pp.51-70, reprodues a diret aount by a loal informant. 59. D. Jemma-Couzon, "A Marrakeh: Celebration de deux moments du yle annuel religieux, i'ashura' et le 'Mulud' ", Libya 24, 1976, pp : pp Ibid, pp H. Lazarus-Yafeh, "Muslim Festivals", Numen XXV, April 1978, pp.52-64: p Ibid., p.62. E. H. Waugh, "Muharram Rites", in F.E. Reynolds and E.H. Waugh, eds., Religious Enounters with Death, (University Park: Ftennsylvania State University Press, 1977) pp C. Monhiourt, "La Fete de l'ahoura", Revue Tunisienne 79,1910, pp : pp Ibid, p

36 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni Variations aording to region and historial period have to be taken into onsideration. For instane, in Limousin, Marh 25 was set after 1301, while the previous dates were Marh 1 and Christmas. See: A. Goursaud, "L'Annee dans les royanes et traditions populairesdu du Ht-Limousin", Lemouzi 45, Avril 1965, 14: pp C. Gaignebet, Le Carnival, p E. Brazes, "La Chasse a l'ours et la danse de l'ours a Ceret", Tramontane 330, , p V. Alford, Pyrenean Festivals: Calendar Customs, Musi and Magi, Drama and Dane (London: Chatto and Windus, 1937), pp D. Fabre, "L'Ours ravisseur dans les Mirabilia et les histoires naturelles", Via Domitia (Toulouse) XI, 1962, pp Fabre and Laroix, Vie quotidienne, p Fabre and Laroix, La Tradition orale du onte oitan (Paris: PUF,1974) "Jean de I'Ours". 72. Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, pp Le Roy La durie, Montaillou, p Fabre and Laroix, Vie Quotidienne, p J. Desparmet, "Ethnographie traditionnelle de la Mettidja: le alendrier folklorique", Revue Afriaine 59, 1918, 294, pp.23-65: pp See: J. Molinet, Les Faitz et Ditz, N. Dupire, ed., 6 vols., (Paris: Soiete Des Aniens Textes Fran^ais), 1936) I, "Debat d'apvril et de May". And the well known proverb" Rien plus que Mars faut en Careme", Le Roux de Liny, Le Livre desproverbesfranqais, (Paris: A. Delahays, 1859) 2nd ed., T.I. 77. Perdrizet, p. 72. Musee Carnavalet, p On Ash Wednesday, in a number of areas of Frane, from the Ardennes to the Herault, a urious proession takes plae: dressed in white nightshirts and wearing white bonnets, the young men of the town follow eah other in a single line, blowing ashes or flour at eah other's rears with enormous bellows. Sometimes, they hold andles and eah one tries to light up a little paper tail attahed at the bak of the shirt of the man preeding him. It seems that this proession takes plae in lieu of bonfires, whih over the remaining area of the ountry (torhes may also replae bonfires). Van Gennep, 1.3, pp G. du Bouhet, Les Serees, 3 vols, (lyon: Pierre Rigaud, 1618), vol.1, 4ieme seree, p Venerabilis Bedae Opera Omnia, Migne, Patrologia Latina 94 (Paris: apud Editorem, 1850), 541. "Tertius, fusus, integre barbatus, Balthasar nomine, habens tuniam rubeam, albo vario, aleamentis mileniis amitus: per myrrham Filium hominis moriturum". 81. C. Gaignebet, "Le Cyle annuel des fetes a Rouen au milieu du XVle",in J. Jaquot, ed., Les Fetes de la Renaissane (Paris: CNRS, 1973), vol. 3, p Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

37 80 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art A Frenh edition of the Golden Legend is used here. J. de Voragine La Legende Doree, J.B. M. Roze, trans., 2 vols. (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1967), pp Ibid, pp E. Panofsky, Diirers 'Melenolia /': eine quellen-und-typen geshihtlihe Untersuhung (Leipzig-Berlin: G.B. Teubner, 1923) Abb. 20 & Legende Doree, p Ibid, pp Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, pp.65-86, "La Corde magique". 88. Legende Doree, pp O. Delepierre, L Enfer: essai philosophique et historique sur les legendes de la vie future (Londres: N. Triibner et Cie., 1876), pp The medieval folk alendar is disussed more fully in my forthoming Midi a Quatorze Heures: le temps de la ulture populaire, in whih I bring together elements of the lives of the saints with myths, legends and rituals entered around various alendar yles. Thus the alendar is oneived of as a onglomerate of traditions: yles (seasonal and elesiastial), Christian legends, a-christian and popular myths, beliefs and praties. This allows, for instane, a more ohesive approah to the relations between the All Saints, Carnival and May 1st-Penteost omplexes, or to the problem of the wild man in his various guises and his kinship with the fool. All these questions would take us too far astray from the topi of this artile to be presented here. 91. Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, p Fabre et Laroix, Vie quotidienne, p Legende Doree, "Saint Blaise". 94. Fabre and Laroix, Vie quotidienne, pp Dr. Legey, Essai de folklore maroain (Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1926), pp Monhiourt, p Amades: "Pel mes des febrer, un dia dolent, i l'altre tambe. De febrers, po n'hi ha hagut de bons. Val mes un Hop dintre un ramat que un febrer entriallat. Casament de Carnaval, asament que res val.". 98. G. Charriere, "Feux, buhers et autodafes bien de hez nous", Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, 194, pp E. Laoust, "Noms et eremonies des feux de joie hez les Berberes du Haut-Atlas et de l'anti-atlas" Hesperis, I, 1921, pp Legey, pp Castells, pp M.-R. Rabate, "Les Jeux de l'ahoura dans la vallee du Dra (Sud Maroain)", Objets et Mondes (Paris, Musee de l'homme), X, no.4, hiver 1970, pp : pp Laoust, p Ibid, pp Ibid, pp Monhiourt, p

38 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni Ibid., pp Bel, p Servier, p Doutte, Magie...,p and: Doutte, Merrakeh (Paris: Comite du Maro, 1905), p Legey, pp Ibid, pp Ibid, pp and Castells, p Monhiourt, Castells, Ibid, Servier, p C. Gognalous, "Fetes prinipales des sedentaires a Ouargla (Rouagha)", Revue Afriaine 53, 1909, pp : p Joyeusetes, XVIII, "Oraison funebre de Caresme Prenant omposee par le Serviteur du Roy des Melons Andardois", See also a group of very interesting texts from the Basque ountry, inluding the type of "testaments faetieux" disussed previously here (supra p.4), in:p. Bidart, ed., Reits et ontes populaires du Pays Basque,1 (Paris: Gal- Iimard,1978), "Oraisons funebres" pp Alford, pp J. Caro Baroja, El Carnaval (Madrid: Taurus, 1965), pp Legey, pp The with paints her fae before beginning the operation: only on the right side, the mouth with souak, the heek with red make-up, the eye with Khohl. On these praties see also: M.W. Hilton-Simpson, "Some notes on the Folklore of the Algerian in Hills and Desert", Folk-Lore, 33, June 1922, no.2, pp : p Although Ashura is not mentioned, the eremony is similar enough to warrant desription: at moonlight a with kindles a fire in the emetary, burns the old bones she dug up and invokes God. She olors her left eyelid with antimony, lower lip with walnut dye, rigth and left hand with henna: the moon then desribes into a large dish full of water E. Destaing, "L'Ennayer...", pp and: J. Desparmet, pp : love philters made with "moon water" Legey, p Castells, p Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, pp Gaignebet, "Le Combat...", p Alford, p Ibid., p Ibid., p See the freso of La Ferte Loupiere (XVth entury) or Ms. Bodl. Rawl. lit. e.20, Hours, Evreux usage, fol.90, among other possible examples Montaiglon, Reueil, VI, no. 130, "La Grand et Vraye Pronostiation...": les Satumiens sont trop pres du firmament. lis sont "sotz, terrestres, Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

39 82 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 envieulx, faulx et pensifs, malheureux meruriaulx qui ont subtil engin." They inlude: "lunatiques, omme gens sans repoz, et eulx qui ont etherolit erveau"..." 133. Alford, pp The author states that the earliest referene to a Carnival bear is in 1444 in Catalogna and the earliest referene to the Arles-sur- Teh eremony in However other data quoted here shows that it may go bak quite a bit further F. Godefroy, Ditionnaire de I'anienne langue franqaise: IXe-XVe, vol.v (Fiiris, Klaus Reprint, N.Y., 1961), pp : "masarer, mashurer, masurer, maherez: se noirir, barbouiller" as in: "defense de mommer la nuit a tout faulx visage ou le visage ouvert par masarure" Bouhet, I, 4e seree, p E. Huguet, Ditionnaire de la langue franqaise du XVIe, vol.v, (Paris: Didier, 1961), p C. Noirot, L'Origine des masques, mommerie, bernez et revennez es iours gras de Caresme Prenant, menez sur I'asne a rebours et harivary (Lengres: Jehan Chauveau, 1609), p Born in 1570, Noirot must have been alluding to traditions of the end of the XVIth entury sine his work omes out in His writings are therefore lose in time to Bouhet's. It is urious to note that both asribe the origin of masks to the appliation of natural substanes to the fae: Noirot gives a long history of the herbs and leaves used to that effet, suh as burdok, whih, aording to him, the Romans alled personata (Ppp.7-27) Huguet, p. 169: "Nous honnorons et avons en reverene tous je ne say quelles masques et fantosmes"(bullinger, La Soure d'erreur). "Dieu a voulu armer ses fideles de onstane, qu'ils ne soient point espouvantez par quelque belle masque (Calvin. Sermon sur le Deut.)" "C'est une grande masque, loushe et horrible d'yeux qu'elle mouve sans esse" (Le Loyer. Histoire des Spetres). These examples suggest a possible onfusion between the meaning of "with" and "spirit, ghost, speter". See also: Montaiglon, Reueil, VII, no. 151, "Letanie des Bons Compagnons": "d'estre de masque empoisonne... Libera nos Domine". Masa: F. Mistral, Mes Origines: memoires et reits (Paris: Plon, 1906), p.47. Fabre and Laroix, Vie Quotidienne, p. 294 (form "mas) Noirot, pp Nelli, "Carnaval...", p Alford, p L. Ar Flo'h et J.-P. Fouher, Le Brasier des anetres: poemes populaires de la Bretagne I (Paris: UGF, 1977), pp D. Laurent, "La Gwerz de Skolan et la legende de Merlin", Ethnologie franaise, 1, nos. 3-4, 1971, pp T. Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism (N.Y.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980) Nelli, "Carnaval...". 38

40 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni Monhiourt, p Legey, p Doutte, Magie, p The nomadi Moors of the Sahara use a mask of soot and butter to protet the fae of a woman who just gave birth: it is used to frighten demons who prey on newborns the first forty days of their life: O. du Puigaudeau, "Arts et outumes des Maures", IV, Hesperis Tamuda, XIII, 1972, pp : pp Castells, p Monhiourt, p Laoust, pp. 283^1. For the Beni Yenni's neighbors, the Beni-Wassif, Bou Afif is a saint, a kind of spirit, a bearded giant invoked for marriages and motherhood Servier, pp Ibid., p Laoust, pp Ibid., pp See also: Doutte, Magie, p. 506: in Moroo, near Mogador, Herema Guerga'a ("dried up nut") or Herema Boujloul ("the little old man"), wears ram's skins, a pumpkin with holes for the eyes, rowned with quills, and a snail shell neklae Laoust, pp Doutte, Magie, pp Rabate, p Servier, p Alford,p The etymology of Shembart may be onneted to the old German word Shemen, whih means "shadow, phantom, delusion" (Shatten, Larva) in : J. und W. Grimm, Deutshes Worterbuh, ahter Band, (Leipzig: S. Horrel, 1893) Nelli, ' 'Carnaval", p.6. In Carassonne, at the beginning of the entury, the Carnival masarade inluded a man arrying a box of what looked like onfetti, but atually ontained exrements. The joke was to get passers-by to reah in, soiling their entire arm Fabre and Camberoque, pp , for a full desription of the elebration Ibid., and Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 748, Marh 12, 1979, pp.60-62, "La Fete sauvage de Cournonterral" Nouvel Observateur, lo.it: "Soyons de sang et de vinasse/ Plus il pleut, plus la boue est grasse/ Nous nous plaisons dans notre rasse," and statement of the Pailhasse ommittee member: "C'est une mutation. II y a un hangement animal qui se produit en haun de nous... On mange la lie, on brise des vitres, on fait des betises: ilfaut etre une bete. Plus on se roule dans la boue, plus on est sale et mieux 'est. On n'est plus les memes, quoi! Et I'alool n'explique pas tout.". Noteworthy also is the failure of a mayor who was not a native and tried to have Published by BYU SholarsArhive,

41 84 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 9 [1982], No. 9, Art. 5 the ustom banned by fore: the gendarmes he had alled in had to retreat overed with exrements Laoust, pp A. Bel, III, p Destaing, pp D.F. Eikelman and B. Draioui, "Islami Myths from Western Moroo", Hesperis Tamuda, XIV, 1973, pp : p Gognalous, pp J.-C. Shmitt, "Jeunes et danse des hevaux de bois. Le folklore meridional dans la litterature des exempla, XHI-XIVe", Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 11 (Toulouse: Privat, 1976), p Alford, p V. Propp, "Morphology of the Folktale", International Journal of Amerian Linguistis, XXIV, 4, 1958, (Bloomington, In: Indiana University Researh Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistis) p.96. Another motif pertains to the soul-arrier nature of the horse: the ashes planted in three separate beds, out of whih spring an apple tree, a dog and a steed (p. 44) Shmitt, pp O. Driesen, Der Ursprung des Herlekin. Ein Kulturgeshihtlihes Problem (Berlin, 1904), pp Ibid, see "Mirales St-Eloi," Roman de Fauvel, Renard le Nouvel and hellish triksters in "C'est li Mariages des Filles du Diable" in A. Jubinal, vol.1, p Driesen, pp Histoire plaisante des Faits et gestes de Harlequin Commedien ltalien ontenant ses songes et visions, sa desente aux enfers pour en tirer la mere Cardine, (Paris: Didier Millot, 1585), v.51 "Le Cerbere hien... auquel fort tu ressembles". Reprinted in Driesen, pp Response di Gestes de Arlequin au Poete fils de Madame Cardine en langue Arlequine en faqon de Prologue, par luy mesme; de sa Desente Aux Enfers et du retour d'ieluy (a Paris, "pour monsieur Arlequin", 1585) in Joyeusetes, vol. XVIII: Aveugle du bandeau d'ignorane exerable Contre Arlequin le Grand j'ai bave mon aquet Minos m'a ondamne en l'infernal parquet De faire a e seigneur une amende honorable. Ie me onfesse done poetrillon embrenable Gadouar des privez du Plutonin Iaquet Du tripot merdelin ie suis puant naquet Qui pour arme ai des vers pourris au trou merdable Mais Arlequin le Grand ommande a 1'Aheron II eshelle les ieux, il fausse leur perron II est due des esprits de la bande infernale Ie Ie maintien pour tel, aiant la torhe au poin 40

42 Sautman: The Quik and the Dead in the Communal Feast of Ashura and Carni 85 Et pour montrer omment de son honneur i'ay soin Pour lui est estron haud sous vostre nez i'avale Pandolfi quoted in Fabre et Camberoque, pp Joyeusetes, XII, pp "La Surprise et fustigation d'angoulevent, poeme heroique adresse au omte de permission par 1'Arhipoete des Pois Pilez", Paris, Driesen, p Fabre et Camberoque, p Baroja, p M. A. Louis, "Arlequin", Folklore, 82, 1956, pp.7-18: pp Fabre et Camberoque, pp Louis, p Rabate, p M. Vovelle, "Unanimisme et tensions dans la fete provenfale, XVIIe- XlXe sieles", Peuples Mediterraneens, 18, Janv-mars 1982, pp : pp E. Cerf, "Le 'Carnaval des voyous' a Strasbourg", Ethnologie franqaise, 12, no. 2, 1982, pp Alford, p Folk tales are a potential area of investigation whih ould not be treated here beause it would require an extensive disussion. A fairly onsiderable number of Frenh folk tales have been gathered, in the XlXth and XXth enturies, with notes onerning the teller. Although some of these ontexts may seem artifiial, they do, at times, give us insights about how the teller pereived the supernatural elements in his tales. Thus the lengthy disussions between believers and non-believers in the return of the un-propitiated dead, in F.-M. Luzel's Veillees bretonnes (Paris: Jean Piolle, Rep.1879). For Oitanie, an interesting example would be "Le Tresor" featuring a return of the unquiet dead requesting masses, situated around World War I told by Vinent Mulet, who was born in 1902 and worked in the Narbonnais vineyards. See: C. et D. Fabre, Reits et ontes populaires du Languedo, 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). However, the link between suh surviving beliefs, whih might be relatively easy to trak down and Carnival remains just as diffiult for the Modern period. Published by BYU SholarsArhive,