They believed that they had to protect their dead when they moved, and they started to rebury them every time a large village migrated. Huron communities changed the location of their village every ten to fifteen years. This change considerably increased the size of the ossuaries, as the extended period meant that graves held several hundred individuals.

With the increase of population, it became the norm to wait for a period of several years between the first and the second burial. With this demographic change, well before European arrival, the traditional mortuary customs started evolving into what are more recognizable as Feasts of the Dead. īy the 1500s Wyandot population growth began to stabilize. Burials were communal, a characteristic that persisted as other aspects of Wyandot culture changed. The survivors left modest grave offerings made of non-durable materials. In contrast to later examples, no ossuary ever held more than thirty individuals. Ceremonies were carried out independently as each village would separately rebury their dead when they moved. Settlements were small compared to later standards and their ossuaries were small. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Wyandot communities rapidly expanded in population and in the territory they occupied. Twentieth-century archeological excavations revealed and confirmed information about these traditions. The French missionary Jean de Brébeuf discussed such a ceremony which he saw in 1636 at the Wyandot capital of Ossossané. Some among the Wyandot criticized these practices.

The Huron adopted a practice of exchanging material gifts as a central part of these festivals. The arrival of Europeans added new aspects to the process. They continued to follow traditional beliefs about the afterlife. Customs evolved over the centuries as populations migrated and increased. The people would take dead bodies out of their first graves and clean the remains in preparation for reburial in a new location. A time for both mourning and celebration, the custom became spiritually and culturally significant.Įarly 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 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.

Feast of the Dead by Source Point Press