Roman
Civilization
CMS 206 /History
206
Lemuria
- The Lemuria
(May 9, 11, and 13; N) was both a private and public
festival of the dead. Unlike the February feasts (Parentalia,
Feralia and Carista) associated with
the dead, which tended to the nostalgic and reflective, the
Lemuria were scary. We really don't much about the public
cult festival, but Ovid has a lot to say about what folks did at
home.
- On the nights of the festival,
lemures or ghosts of your dead ancestors, walked and
visited (not with kind intent) their living relations. Ovid
thought the festival may have started as a way of expiating Remus
for what his brother Romulus did to him.
- On the nights of the Lemuria, the
pater familias rose at midnight and walked barefoot and
loose robed to a basin containing clean water. He folded his
fingers around his thumb and washed his hand in the water. Then,
he filled his mouth with black beans and walked through the house
and spat the beans out, careful not to look around. When the beans
were out he would say nine times, "with these beans I redeem me
and mine." While he was speaking the lemures would come
and collect the beans. He then washed his hand again, picked up
bronze household instruments, and walked through the house
clanging them. When he was done he repeated nine times, "Paternal
ghosts, get out!"
- The clanging of the bronze instruments was
apotropaic ("warding off"). The beans, scholars are not so sure
about. Some think they reflect taboos associated with the dead,
others that they are symbols of fertility.
ancient
ghosts /
Roma
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