Procession of the dead is a motif present in the folkloric traditions around the world. It mostly refers to a march of ghosts, phantoms or souls, sometimes commanded by a creature related to the Otherworld, the Underworld or the Afterlife. The concept is taken to be of considerable antiquity,Milne, Louise. “Pieter Bruegel and Carlo Ginzburg: The Debatable Land of Renaissance Dreams”. In: Cosmos 29 (2013): 93. and is classified in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature as Motif E491, "Procession of the dead".Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 257. .
Overview According to Carlo Ginzburg, the procession of the dead, as described by Orderic Vitalis, comprised a march of sinners and damned people, being punished for their wrongdoings in life.Ginsburg, Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventh Centuries. Translated by John and Anne Tedeschi. Routledge. 2011. pp. 67-68.
Professor Christian Abry listed several alternate names for the phenomenon in Alpine, Southern France and North Italy tradition: curs dj’ànime; La processione dei morti; Tòtòprossenziò (from German Totenprozession); ; procession des revenants; cours di mort; lou cours de i anime (Occitan language); Lou cours d’li mouòrt (in Balme); il corso delle anime (in Traversella); il corteo dei morti.Abry, Christian. “Sur les traces des sentiers des âmes dans les outre-monts: in memoriam Gaston Tuaillon”. In: Nouvelles du Centre d’Etudes Francoprovençales. Saint-Nicolas (Aoste, Italie), vol. 64, 2011. pp. 58-62, 67-68.
Professors Fabio Armand, Marie-Agnès Cathiard and Christian Abry suggest that "the procession of the dead", as described in Christian mediaeval literature, is a "remythification" of the Wild Hunt phenomenon.
Europe Continental Europe There are various myths of processions of the dead, most related to the Wild Hunt.
A Croatian storyteller provided a tale with the motif of the "procesija mrtvih" ("procession of the dead") in the 1970s.
In a Raeto-Romance tale, a man sees a procession of the dead and the last person is the soul of someone about to die.
Iberian Peninsula In Galicia and Asturias, it is known as Santa Compaña.
In Portuguese tradition there exists tales about one's double that take part in this procession. There are also tales about incomplete baptized individuals that join this cursed retinue.
Italy The Benandanti in the Friuli are said to participate in these processions. Female benandanti were seen as connected to the processions of the dead, as beneficient protectors against the malandanti.Eason, Cassandra. Fabulous Creatures, Mythical Monsters, and Animal Power Symbols: A Handbook. Greenwood Press. 2008. p. 108. .
Ancient Greece In ancient Greece, the festival of Anthesteria was performed to honor and placate the dead, who were thought to walk freely among the streets.
Pacific Ocean Islands Hawai'i The Nightmarchers of Hawaiian mythology are also considered to be a version of the "procession of the dead".
Asia Nepal Professors Fabio Armand, Marie-Agnès Cathiard and Christian Abry state they have found an occurrence of the theme of the procession of the dead "in the rural areas outside the Kathmandu Valley of Central Nepal". This retinue, called panchabhāya (from pancha 'five', and bhāya 'younger brother') manifest as "five or more spirits" riding on horses and dressed in white.Armand, Fabio & Cathiard, Marie-Agnes & Abry, Christian. (2016). "Death Divination within a non-Delusional Myth: The Procession of the Dead from the Alps to Himalayas… When a Theoria of "Phantom-Bodies" meets its neural veridiction Theory". In: TricTrac: Journal of World Mythology and Folklore Vol. 9, No. 1. pp. 11-12, 14-17. 10.25159/1996-7330/1211.
Americas Brazil The motif is also present in cultural traditions of Brazil.
References
Further reading Abry, Christian; Joisten, Alice. "De la migrance ä l'errance ou les Italiens entre «La Mort du Grand Pan» et «La Procession des Morts»". In: Histoire des Alpes = Storia delle Alpi = Geschichte der Alpen. Band 3. Internationale Gesellschaft für historische Alpenforschung IGHA. Zürich: Chronos Verlag. 1998. pp. 75–90.
Lecouteux, Claude. Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and Ghostly Processions of the Undead. Translated by Jon E. Graham. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. 2011.