Waking the dead

Modern etiquette might stretch to a sympathy Facebook post, text message or WhatsApp, or even a sad-face or broken-heart emoji. People post their losses on Twitter/X to virtual friends and strangers. Should we ‘like’ it? Post a sympathetic message?

Our ideas of what constitutes paying respects to the dead, as with all other aspects of death culture, continually change, influenced by all kinds of things ranging from technological advances to a more informal culture of emotional expression, as we move away from the structured religious or social expectations of previous generations. All of this happens within a transforming economic and societal order, in which it is perfectly feasible that virtual friends have more direct connection with our daily lives than family.

Until well into the 20th century, most people died at home and were kept there until their funeral, which traditionally began with a procession from the house. Neighbours would know by looking at a dwelling that a death had taken place: a sombre wreath or black ribbons on the door, drawn curtains, and by the 19th century sometimes the posting of ‘mutes’, or men swathed in black crepe sashes, standing guard at the property.

Visual signifiers of this kind were important in the past, a way of indirectly sharing news and conveying a sense of the emotional state of the household. Such symbolism also invited the community to come and pay their last respects.

The way in which ‘respects’ were paid, however, was intimately linked to class, and social and geographical origins. Middle-class people made formal visits to those in mourning and – beyond immediate family – viewing the corpse was, by the 19th century, considered excessive.

Aristocrats, royalty and other senior officials sometimes had a ‘lying in state’, at which the public might view the casket or body, in strict hierarchical order. But wakes, in which friends and neighbours would come, sometimes for hours or even days, to view the corpse, eat, drink and perhaps be merry, were regarded as working-class customs.

Because of this, and the fact that wakes were usually a domestic duty and organised by women, there are relatively few first-hand records of them. Many surviving accounts, which began to be collected with greater interest from the 18th century onwards, are based on oral and often second-hand anecdote.

Good grief

These days, many of us think of a wake as a post-funeral event, usually involving refreshments in a community hall, sports club or pub, a chance to pay respects to family and loved ones and reminisce about the deceased. But in the past, waking was something that happened in the period before burial.

The wake was the all-important time between death and departing for the funeral, when family, friends, watchers, singers and keeners might sit with the body, making sure it was not left alone. An unguarded soul might be tempted away or stolen by devils and bad spirits, or decide to wander forever in the world between the living and dead. To try and control this unsettling period, special words or practices might be invoked, or certain rites and rituals encouraged to keep everything safe and as it should be.

Wake practices were rooted in pre-Reformation and possibly pre-Christian ideas about the afterlife, which were embedded in the expectation of an ongoing relationship between the living and the dead. The living had a duty to ensure the safe passage of the dead to the afterlife, and that brought with it certain obligations and expectations.

Wakes were (and are) diverse in the ways in which they expressed these obligations, albeit appearing to have some universals, including the imbibing of food and drink, and the telling of stories, which might be religious, secular or scurrilous.

In nearly all accounts of waking, the importance of light is emphasised. As the body had to be watched constantly between death and burial, light had many purposes: to comfort the bereaved and watchers, but also to serve the symbolic function of keeping the soul out of the reaches of the dark and illuminating its way to the next world.

But wakes also included highly localised customs and, for this reason, it is hard to generalise about how they were conducted, who needed to be involved, and even how long they lasted. A bit like carnivals, wakes could be religious while at the same time subverting religion. Sombre and riotous in turn, they might involve heavy drinking, smoking and games, or sober reflection, or some combination of all the above.

Although the tradition of pre-funeral waking has largely declined in Britain, many diasporic groups maintain a strong culture of celebrating the dead. The Irish community has held on to the importance of this aspect of respect and openness towards death and the dead.

I was surprised (in a nice way) when an Irish friend offered to come to my father’s funeral; they had met perhaps once, only briefly, and I told her I had no expectation of her coming along. “It’s for you,” she replied, “and it's what we do.”

She explained how in the rural area where her parents lived, you might hear a roll call of people who had recently died on local radio. People would go for miles to attend a wake or funeral based on the flimsiest of acquaintanceships, as a show of solidarity for the living and respect for the dead.

Welsh wakes

Wakes are perhaps best thought of as a series of processes, rather than a single event. This also reflects the dynamic way in which they have had to adapt over time to accommodate the pressures of migration (forced and voluntary), marginalisation, industrialisation and religious evangelical revival.

Although Irish wakes remain perhaps the best documented, significant social and economic changes in Wales during the 18th and 19th centuries, and the eagerness of travellers, vicars and oral historians to record local and folk cultures over this period, offer some insights into how the wake adapted and changed over time.

The most common Welsh word for wake is ‘gwylnos’ or ‘wylnos’ and translates as wake-night, or vigil, but reflecting the localised nature of waking, other terms were also used. These included ‘onglos’ in Llanwenog, ‘winglos’ in north Pembrokeshire and ‘wynglos’ in the Llŷn Peninsula.

The wide range of words used reflects the powerfully oral nature of Welsh culture as well as the diversity of wake practices. Gwylnosau were an important part of Welsh death ritual, and everyone, man or woman, old or young, was expected to be sent off with a suitable gathering before their funeral.

As with all traditions, they changed over time, responding to social, economic and religious influences, in broadest terms becoming less ribald and more pious. Although lack of census and parish data has made it hard to verify some of the individuals described in the wake accounts, there is enough consistency in the available sources to give us some insight into this most important community ritual, and how it helped to mark the transition between death and burial in Wales.

By the later 18th century, the recorded bawdier aspects of wakes were already succumbing to the influences of respectability and evangelical religious revival, and the kind of people collecting information about them was also changing.

The old Enlightenment-inspired antiquarians were being superseded by earnest Victorian clergymen and volunteers eager to record the old folk ways before they were vanquished altogether by the new industrial economy. Fortunately, however, wakes proved themselves to be adaptable and resilient rather than resistant to change.

In surviving accounts of Welsh gwylnosau we can see how change impacted on the experiences and meanings behind waking the dead. While wakes reflected local practices, they also mediated other emotions about our changing relationships with death and the dead: not so much quaint vestiges of a rapidly changing world, but rather as an everyday expression of death in community, and the solidarities that could create.