Death Rituals

The Death Rituals of Rural Greece by Danforth & Tsiaras

We’re back in Morningside Bookstore, in the past, as the store doesn’t exist anymore. Time doesn’t stop us at the Janus Point. As for you: that’s what wormholes are for.

Second installment of the historical background of some of the non-fiction books that inform The Funeral Singer, which Janus Point Press is publishing this Fall 2022. The most instrumental find for Stephanie strolling their basement section (was it weekly?) which really was an antique shop of modern Greece (clothing, trinkets, books): the book The Death Rituals of Rural Greece by Loring M. Danforth, photography by Alexander Tsiaras. It helped birth a novel, then a condensed short story.

The book documents many of the traditions in Greek Orthodoxy and its death rituals in rural Greece, published in 1982. You don’t just die and get buried, the end. There is a period where one waits for the flesh to slough off the bones, indicting sins have left the person. This is confirmed after about five years, at an exhumation of the grave. Death is women’s work, as the pages will show you. Enter The Widow in our story, who is preparing for the exhumation of her late husband Mani. She’s more than earned the capital “T” in her title. But back to the dead: the bones are then stored in the village ossuary after the exhumation. If the bones still had flesh though….  it’s a troubling sign. Among other things, it could mean a revenant, the undead, walked the village, causing much trouble.

And what of the funeral song? That will be our third installment, bringing us to the title of our first book: The Funeral Singer.