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The Huron Feast of the Dead was a mortuary custom of the Wyandot people of what is today central Ontario, Canada, which involved the disinterment of deceased relatives from their initial individual graves followed by their reburial in a final communal grave. A time for both mourning and celebration, the custom became spiritually and culturally significant. Early in the custom's development, as whole villages moved to a new location, other Wyandot would travel to join them in arranging mass reburials of their dead, who were transported to the new location. The people would take dead bodies out of their first graves and clean the remains in preparation for reburial in a new location. Customs evolved over the centuries as populations migrated and increased. They continued to follow traditional beliefs about the afterlife. The arrival of Europeans added new aspects to the process. The Huron adopted a practice of exchanging material gifts as a central part of these festivals. Some among the Wyandot criticized these practices. The French missionary Jean de Brébeuf discussed such a ceremony which he saw in 1636 at the Wyandot capital of ''Ossossané.'' (now in Simcoe County, Ontario). Twentieth-century archeological excavations revealed and confirmed information about these traditions. ==Mortuary customs in the Pre-Contact era== In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Wyandot communities rapidly expanded in population and in the territory they occupied. Settlements were small compared to later standards and their ossuaries were small. Ceremonies were carried out independently as each village would separately rebury their dead when they moved. In contrast to later examples, no ossuary ever held more than thirty individuals. The survivors left modest grave offerings made of non-durable materials.〔Seeman, Erik. ''The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead'', (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press 2011), p. 60〕 Burials were communal, a characteristic that persisted as other aspects of Wyandot culture changed.〔Williamsonn Ronald. ''Bones of the Ancestors: The Archeology and Osteography of the Moatfield Ossuary'' (Gatineau, Canadian Museum of Civilisation, 2003) p. 95〕 By the 1500s Wyandot population growth began to stabilize. With this demographic change, well before European arrival, the traditional mortuary customs started evolving into what are more recognizable as Feasts of the Dead. With the increase of population, it became the norm to wait for a period of several years between the first and the second burial. This change considerably increased the size of the ossuaries, as the extended period meant that graves held several hundred individuals.〔 Huron communities changed the location of their village every ten to fifteen years. They believed that they had to protect their dead when they moved, and they started to rebury them every time a large village migrated.〔Trigger, Bruce. ''The Huron: Farmers of the North'', (Orlando, Saunders College Publishing, 1990) p. 126〕 The ceremonies occurred at the end of the winter months, before the Huron had to undertake tasks associated with agriculture and spring hunting. The symbolism of the end of winter and start of spring fit into their beliefs that separated the living and the dead.〔Seeman, Erik. ''The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead'', (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press 2011), p. 66〕 By the period when the Wyandot migrated to Wendake (on the south shore of Georgian Bay in modern-day Simcoe and Grey counties in Ontario), these mortuary rituals came to represent the unity and friendship of Wyandot bands. Multiple villages would gather together for combined ceremonies and to exchange gifts. The exchange of gifts and the symbolism of a united burial ground became defining elements of the Feasts of the Dead.〔Seeman (2011), ''The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead'', p. 61〕 Gabriel Sagard, a French missionary writing in the 1620s, described the purpose of the rituals: These ceremonies of remembrance and celebration fostered a sense of community among the people. They continued as an important community building practice through the seventeenth century. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Huron Feast of the Dead」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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