Deuil

Mourning practices vary widely across cultures and time periods. Early poets believed that souls, after death, went to a dark realm, which likely influenced Saint-Foix’s assertion that black was the color of mourning. In China and Siam, white is chosen, as it is believed the dead become benevolent spirits. In Turkey, mourning attire is blue or purple; in Ethiopia, gray; and in Peru, gray like a mouse was worn when the Spaniards arrived. Among the Japanese, white symbolizes mourning while black signifies joy. In Gastille, mourning clothes were traditionally white serge. Persians wore brown and shaved with their family and all their animals. In Lycia, men wore women’s clothing throughout the mourning period. In France, Anne de Bretagne, wife of Louis XII, changed the mourning color to black, previously white at court. In Argos, white was worn and large feasts were held. On Délos, hair was cut and placed on the deceased’s tomb. Egyptians injured their chests and covered their faces with mud, wearing yellow or dead leaf-colored clothes. Romans required women to mourn their husbands and children to mourn their fathers for an entire year. Husbands could not mourn their wives, and fathers could only mourn their children if they were at least three years old. Jewish grand mourning lasts a year, occurring at the death of parents, with children wearing their father’s clothes all year without permission to change them, regardless of how torn they are, and fasting annually on the same day. Moderate mourning lasts a month for the death of children, uncles, and aunts, during which they avoid bathing, perfuming, shaving, or even cutting their nails, and do not eat with family. Small mourning lasts a week for the death of a husband or wife, during which the mourning spouse washes their hands, removes their shoes, sits on the ground, and only grieves without working until the seventh day. Chinese mourners wear heavy white cloth, cut their queue, and weep for three months, with magistrates suspending their duties and litigants pausing their cases. Young people live in seclusion, cannot marry for three years, and write only with blue ink for a year. In the Caribbean, mourning involves cutting hair and strict fasting until the deceased’s body rots, after which they engage in debauchery to rid themselves of sadness. Among some Americans, mourning was age-dependent: inconsolable for children’s deaths and almost not mourning for elders. Children’s mourning was communal, and they were mourned throughout their birth regions. On the day of death, parents made terrifying noises, had fits of rage, screamed like the desperate, pulled out their hair, bit, and scratched their bodies. The next day, they lay on a bed soaked with their tears. By the third day, they began moaning that lasted all year, during which the father and mother never washed. The rest of the city mourned three times a day until the body was buried. These diverse practices illustrate the cultural significance and varied expressions of mourning across societies.