Corps de l’article

Sooner or later, we are all required to deal with the death of a friend or a family member. The way we confront that challenge depends on many factors, including our religious and cultural background. But time will play a role too. Customs and traditions associated with death can vary from one generation to another. This article uses historic descriptions of wakes to explore an aspect of the mortuary tradition that has undergone significant change in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It shows how these gatherings were related to a widespread and complex tradition that made room for drinking, pranks, and raucous behavior at wakes – and asks what local traditions can reveal about the processes that altered this custom in the Maritimes.

My own experience with wakes shapes my interest in this tradition. By the time he died in 1996, my grandfather was nearly a hundred years old. Within a few days, friends, family, and neighbours came together to mark his passing at a wake. Although it had become increasingly popular to host such gatherings at funeral homes and community centers in the region, my grandfather wanted to be waked at home as was the custom for much of his life. As a result, his body was laid out in the living room, where the undertaker positioned candles at the head and foot of his casket. Neighbours soon began delivering food to the house, filling the kitchen with baked goods that were put out for visitors. Over the next two days, scores of people came to express their condolences, drink tea, and visit. Periods of laughter and socializing were punctuated by rounds of prayers. In many ways, it was a scene that had played out countless times before in that rural part of Cape Breton. But there were important differences too. Unlike the wakes of his youth, for instance, no one stayed up overnight.

The practice of keeping watch over the dead is widespread and centuries old. Not surprisingly, given its prominence in popular conceptions of wakes, most scholarship focuses on the tradition in Ireland (Lysaght 2002, 2003; Ó Crualaoich 1998; Seán Ó Súilleabháin 1967). Much of this work is indebted to the pioneering efforts of Seán Ó Súilleabháin, one of the preeminent folklorists of twentieth-century Ireland. His research records a variety of games associated with traditional wakes in Ireland, shedding light on a vernacular attitude to death that was often at odds with the Church. More recent research expands on this work to analyze other aspects of mortuary custom in Ireland, including how gender norms and sexuality were reflected in wakes (Butler 2008; McCoy 2012). Taken together, this scholarship provides valuable insights into how previous generations conceptualized death and mourning – important rites of passage in any society.

On this side of the Atlantic, wakes have garnered significant academic attention in Newfoundland and Labrador (Buckley and Cartwright 1983; Butler 1982). Gary Butler, for example, explores how the process of preparing a house for a wake transforms a profane space into a sacred one (Butler 1982). Other scholars have examined the social and cultural impact of the decline of house wakes and adoption of funeral homes in the province (Small 1997). Drawing on historic descriptions of the practice from archival sources, Peter Narváez has arguably made the most important contribution. His work draws attention to the rich variety of tricks and pranks that were played at wakes in the province and their links to a comparable tradition of ‘merry wakes’ in Ireland (Narváez 1994).

Considering the wealth of scholarship on the subject in Newfoundland, scholars have paid a surprising lack of attention to wakes in other parts of Atlantic Canada. This is not to suggest the topic has been ignored. My previous research has discussed the historic role of wakes within the mortuary tradition of Scottish Gaels in Nova Scotia (MacDonald 2020). Likewise, Gillian Poulter has examined the decline of house wakes and the rise of the funeral industry in the province (Poulter 2011). But much work remains to be done.

One of the goals of this article is to highlight the wealth of historic descriptions of wakes available for analysis in English, French and Gaelic. While this represents only some of the linguistic and cultural diversity available in the Maritimes, it signifies an important first step in recognizing the mourning customs of everyday residents. This is vital since much of what happened at wakes was a vernacular response to death that was at odds with standards of behavior espoused by religious leaders and the social elite. The other goal is to explore how accounts of wakes, maintained in print and oral tradition, reflect and reinforce changes to what was considered appropriate behavior at these gatherings and how contemporary tradition bearers have chosen to remember them.

Community histories and interviews with area residents are used throughout this work. This emphasis is designed to address gaps in the written record and to provide a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the tradition from the perspective of cultural insiders. Significantly, much of this material is fixed in place but fluid in time. A location is provided, but the era is left unclear. To allow for comparison, however, I have noted time periods whenever possible. Locations are recorded for the same reason. Identities have always been highly localized in the region, usually informed by religious and ancestral origins. As a result, knowing where a wake took place can likely reveal something about those in attendance. But perhaps the most important benefit of comparison is the ability to reveal similarities. As this work demonstrates, many mortuary customs were shared between residents of different backgrounds in the Maritimes.

Nineteenth-century accounts make it clear that death was a communal concern and community members were expected to participate in its associated rituals. Going to funerals did much to strengthen community bonds, solidify family reputations, and break down religious barriers. For example, historic descriptions record that large numbers of people routinely attended funerals in Nova Scotia. Writing in 1825, Thomas Chandler Haliburton claimed these gatherings were especially important in rural parts of the province (Haliburton 1825: 44). Twenty years later, a visiting missionary described one of the consequences in the region: “It is esteemed in a neighbourhood as a mark of disrespect to the relatives of the deceased not to attend his funeral.” (Churchill 1845: 153-154).

Wakes also played an important role in communal mourning traditions in the Maritimes. Born in 1887, Walter Shaw once served as premier of Prince Edward Island. In his memoires, he relates that a death used to bring normal activities to a standstill on the island, as large numbers of people attended the wake, “[…] to mourn and enter into social intercourse” (Shaw 1975: 60-61). Highlighting the importance of these gatherings to Acadians in New Brunswick, Fr. Anselme Chiasson and Arthur Poirier point out that in Sainte-Anne-de-Kent,

Tous les gens du district et même d’au-delà se faisaient un devoir de venir faire une prière au corps et offrir leur condoléances à la famille éprouvée.

Chiasson and Poirier 1986: 130

All the people of the district and even beyond made it their duty to come and say a prayer at the remains and offer their condolences to the bereaved family.

Translation by the author

Because the funeral industry was slow to develop in region, traditional death and funerary practices were maintained in rural parts of the region well into the second half of the twentieth century (Poulter 2011). This meant that wakes were usually held at home with the corpse typically being laid-out in the front room or parlor. While the process of preparing the house and body for the wake has been addressed elsewhere, an important rationale for the wake was the idea that the body should not be left unattended until it was buried (Poulter 2011; MacDonald 2020). As a result, wakes were held overnight, sometimes for multiple nights in a row. When the family retired for the evening, a small group of mourners would usually volunteer to spend the night sitting up with the corpse. From her home in Cape Breton, Mrs. Willie D. Deveau described the situation in Belle Marche to Ronald Caplan, “And people would come to visit. Oh yes. A full house, every night. We used to stay up night and day. You wouldn’t leave the body alone” (Caplan 1980: 232).

Periods of prayer, sometimes led by a minister or priest, dovetailed with visiting and eating at wakes. Throughout the day, family members were expected to serve tea and feed guests. Given the historic division of gender roles, this meant that women were often kept busy in the kitchen. Describing the situation in Cape Breton, one nineteenth-century observer claimed, “the family is constantly at hard work, night and day, serving successive meals to those who arrive” (Tennyson 2014: 254).

The provision of hospitality and the social dimensions of the wake encouraged large crowds to attend these gatherings, which had important consequences for the social status of the bereaved family and their place in community life that often depended on bonds of mutual obligation. Even modest households did their best to extend to feed mourners. Of course, hospitality could take other forms as well. When he was interviewed for the Irish Benevolent Society in 1982, Maurice Coyle recalled that alcohol and tobacco used to be provided to mourners at wakes in Fort Augustus, Prince Edward Island. Conjuring up a scene reminiscent of nineteenth-century wakes in Ireland, Coyle noted that clay pipes distributed to those in attendance might even be kept in memory of the deceased:

Another custom they had – when any person would die, they’d get a keg of liquor and they’d buy a whole box full of clay pipes, and one man’s job was to cut tobacco and fill the pipes. And everyone that’d come to the wake, they’d give them a clay pipe full of tobacco […]. That was the custom.

M. Coyle, June 10, 1982

As this example suggests, alcohol also played a role in vernacular traditions associated with death in the Maritimes. Being able to provide a drink to friends and family who came to pay their last respects was often a matter of family pride. Nor was moderation always observed. During the early years of the nineteenth century in Nova Scotia, Bishop Edmund Burke was appalled to learn that large quantities of rum were being consumed at some funerals, leading to occasional quarrels in the graveyard (O’Brien 1894: 121). In response, he sent out a pastoral letter to priests in the diocese, which he asked to be translated into English, French and Gaelic, warning against drinking at these occasions (Johnston 1960: 416).

This was not a new situation. According to Ilana Harlow, drinking was a normal feature of wakes in much of Europe going back to Medieval Times (Harlow 2003: 84). While the practice is also well documented in Newfoundland, drinking at wakes and funerals was hardly limited to Atlantic Canada. Edwin Guillet makes it clear alcohol was served in abundance at some early nineteenth-century wakes in Upper Canada (Guillet 1938: 39). Describing the situation in New England, Alice Morse Earle also records that the “liberal serving of intoxicating liquor at a funeral […] prevailed in every settlement in the colonies until the temperance-awakening days of this century” (Earle 1893: 369)[1].

Despite centuries of clerical opposition to the practice, alcohol continued to be consumed at wakes well into the twentieth century. Joe Carragher paints the following picture of wakes during the first part of the twentieth century in Brookdale, Prince Edward Island: “Down here, it was wild at the wakes sometimes. Yah, they’d be a bunch come in, drinking, you know. Pretty full” (Carragher 1982). Conflicting attitudes about the merits of alcohol, particularly during times of mourning, meant its acceptance was not guaranteed at wakes. This was especially true after the rise of the Temperance Movement, which gathered strength during the second half of the nineteenth century in the Maritimes (Dick 1991). According to a story told by Gus Gregory in Souris, Prince Edward Island, one man even made sobriety a condition of attendance at his wake, using his will to prohibit the consumption of alcohol to mark his passing (Gregory 1998).

In keeping with the situation described in Ireland and Newfoundland, the atmosphere of the wake-house was largely dependent on whether the death was seen as timely or not (Ó Crualaoich 1998: 195-199). Wakes for young people and those who died under tragic circumstances were usually subdued and sombre. Those for elderly residents who died of natural causes, on the other hand, could be surprisingly lively. Writing about the situation in Acadian communities in the Maritimes, Jean-Claude Dupont claims that after midnight one of these gatherings could become “une vraie partie de plaisir” (“A real pleasure party”) (Dupont 2002: 111).

Today, many tradition bearers look back on these old-time wakes with fondness. Edward Cairns, who came of age during the early years of the twentieth century in Baldwin, Prince Edward Island, recalled that, “When a person died, the neighbours would all come in, they’d have pipes and tobacco. They’d have the tobacco ready. They’d have a grand old time, telling yarns.” (Cairns 1983). A lifelong resident of Jamesville, Nova Scotia, Mickey MacNeil also highlights the role of storytelling at mid-twentieth century wakes: “Oh, you know, at that time, it was a great thing to go to the house and stay up all night and talk – and talk stories.” (MacNeil 2012).

While the nature of these stories told at these events varied, not all were solemn. Taking advantage of the atmosphere, some storytellers used the occasion to focus on tales of the supernatural (Campbell 1978: 71). Bawdy stories were apparently preferred at wakes in one part of Nova Scotia, as men would quietly gather around a keg of rum in the barn to spin yarns in Margaree (MacKenzie 1979: 61). According to Jean-Claude Dupont, humour would also be found at wakes hosted by Acadians:

Après avoir fait état de toutes les qualités du défunt, on en venait vite à raconter des histoires drôles lorsque les proches parents étaient couchés. Souvent, les personnes renommées pour leur bonne humeur se faisaient un devoir d’aller faires rire les wakers.

Dupont 2002: 111

After having enumerated all the qualities of the deceased, we soon came to tell funny stories when the next of kin were in bed. Often, people renowned for their sense of humor made it their duty to make those at the wake laugh.

Translation by the author

No doubt the comical banter and muffled laughter of the wake also made good fodder for future storytelling sessions (Narvaez 1994: 268). In other words, wakes were locations where stories were both heard and created. Consider, for example, the account of a couple of Scottish Gaels who attended a wake and were asked to say a litany for the deceased. Knowing no one else in the room understood Gaelic, the pair knelt in front of the body and proceeded to make up a series of absurd prayers for the deceased, each one more outrageous than the last (Nilsen 1996-1997: 175). Rev. Anselme Chiasson provides another example, this time from Chéticamp, Nova Scotia:

Une autre fois, Harriette à Nanta disait la prière. Elle était interminable. Elle priait depuis au-delà d’une heure. William à Godouque disait tout bas à ses voisins: “Viendra-t-elle à finir! Viendra-t-elle à finir!” Juste à ce moment, dans sa prière, vint ce passage: “Bonne Vierge, à l’heure de ma mort, quand je ne pourrai plus parler, vous parlerez pour moi.” “Ah! La vielle m…Elle en engage une autre!” dit William.

Chiasson 1961: 257

Harriette à Nanta was saying the prayer. It was interminable. She had been praying for over an hour. William à Godouque said in a very low voice to his companion, ‘Will she ever finish! Will she ever finish!’ Just at that moment in her prayer, came the passage, ‘Good virgin, at the hour of my death, when I will no longer be able to speak, you will speak for me.’ ‘Ah! The old…! She hires another!’ said William”.

Translation by the author

Accounts of tricks, pranks, and merriment at wakes are well documented in Ireland and Newfoundland and Labrador (Narvaez 1994). Though less well recognized, similar wakes have also been described in parts of England, Scotland, and Wales (Callaghan 2000: 48; Newton 2006). Based on the available evidence, a comparable tradition once existed in parts of the Maritimes. Norbert Doiron underscores this point when he writes about wakes in Acadian communities in New Brunswick:

A chaque heure de la nuit et du jour on récitait un chapelet pour la personne décédée. Dans une autre pièce de la maison, ordinairement la cuisine, un groupe de «veilleurs» s’adonnaient à raconter des histoires ou encore à faire des farces […].

Doiron 1974

Every hour of the night and day the rosary was said for the deceased person. In another part of the house, ordinarily the kitchen, a group of mourners were engaged in telling stories or even playing pranks [...].

Translation by the author

There is no shortage of examples of tricks and pranks played at wakes in the Maritimes. Writing about the tradition in New Brunswick, Jean-Claude Dupont notes that mourners might imitate the mannerisms of the deceased, move the corpse from place to place, or even give them a pipe to smoke (Dupont 2002: 111). Joe Carragher, from his home in Prince Edward Island, recalled a story about a group of men who removed all the doors from their hinges during a night of drinking at a wake (Carragher 1982). Alex Goldie, a former police chief in Nova Scotia, paints a vivid picture of wakes he heard about during his youth in Cape Breton:

There was some wakes, I heard there was rowdyism there, boy. Drinking, and boozing, and jumping the coffin. Or if the place was where there was a hill, they used to take the body out of the coffin and they’d sit in the coffin and take it up the hill – and coasting down the hill with it! I heard of that happening, and places not so far from here either.

A. Goldie, March 3, 2000

Because it was important to stay awake through the night, some pranks targeted mourners who fell asleep. Mary Gerrior recalled that mourners who nodded off might be tied in their chairs, for example (Gerrior 2006). Nor were such antics restricted to Catholics. Alex Kerr, who lived in North River, Cape Breton, attended a wake where an old woman had a clothespin pinned on her nose when she fell asleep (Caplan 1979: 40).

At times, pranks played at wakes appear to insinuate a form of social commentary as well. From his home in Cape Breton, Roddie Farrell told me about a wake where mourners doused the fence outside the wake-house in gasoline, lighting it on fire when the priest began the rosary. As the deceased was not a regular church goer, these actions were meant to play up local questions about his spiritual status according to Farrell (Farrell 2023). No less subtle were the actions of a mourner in Richibucto, New Brunswick, who tossed a burning cigarette on a corpse and watched it smolder as mourners began to pray (Dupont 2002: 112).

As social occasions that attracted people from outside the immediate community, wakes provided courtship opportunities for young people in the region. While men attempted to impress or tease potential partners, they might try to make them laugh or scare them by playing pranks (Narvaez 1994: 280). Because young men appear at the forefront of so many of these accounts, the gendered dimensions of the tradition are important to recognize. Fueled by alcohol or vying for the attention of young men, many men likely appreciated the chance to exert their independence from established authority figures while solidifying the bonds of male solidarity that were once essential in communities long characterized by communal cooperation.

No doubt the clandestine nature of this behavior was also part of its appeal. Laughing came easier to mourners as they grew tired – and because they knew it was inappropriate according to Fr. Anselme Chiasson (Chiasson 1986: 241). Showing they were not intimidated by the living or dead, young men engaged in pranks at wakes that emphasized their autonomy and provided comic relief from the gravity of death. Consider, for instance, the following example from New Bruswick:

A Néguac, au Nouveau-Bruswick, pendant l’été 1935, on avait exposé un mort dans un chambre, et comme il faisait chaude dans la pièce, on laissa une fenêtre ouverte. Pendant la soirée, des jeunes gens attachèrent une corde aux pieds du mort et firent sortir cette corde par la fenêtre. Vers deux heures du matin, alors que les veilleurs priaient, quelle ne fut pas leur surprise de voir subitement le cadavre glisser vers l’extérieur de la maison.

Dupont 2002: 112

In Neguac, New-Bruswick, during the summer of 1935, a dead man was laid out in a room, and as it was hot there, a window was left open. During the evening, some young men tied a rope to the feet of the corpse and slipped the rope out of the window. Around two o’clock in the morning, while the mourners were praying, much to their surprise they suddenly saw the corpse sliding towards the exterior of the house.

Translation by the author

Carmen d’Entremont has written extensively about the social and historical role of practical jokes and pranks within Acadian communities in the Maritimes (2016, 2017, 2018). Her work makes it clear that the wake-house is not off-limits to this tradition. Instead, it was a site where the sacred and profane might both be accommodated, as it is illustrated in this story from Baie St. Marie, Nova Scotia:

Un farceur décida de jouer un tour plutôt grivois à des veilleurs pendant qu’ils récitaient le chapelet: il baissa ses culottes et colla ses fesses contre la fenêtre de la chambre où se trouvait le défunt.

d’ Entremont 2017: 144

A prankster decided to play a saucy trick on the mourners while they recited the rosary: he pulled down his pants and pressed his buttocks against the window to the room where the corpse was found.

Translation by the author

While stories about tricks and pranks played at wakes are usually restricted to oral tradition, examples occasionally make their way into print as well. Regardless of their historical accuracy, such narratives draw on a very real connection linking alcohol, pranks, and wakes in local consciousness. Humorist Andy MacDonald, who was raised in Cape Breton, provides another example. In the following, he writes about a wake where the corpse of an old fisherman, whose body was bent double with arthritis, had to be tied down in the casket:

At the wake things got pretty lively, and someone sneaked over to the casket with a knife and cut all the cords. The old fisherman sprung up in his casket, and one of the mourners went out, got a pair of oars, and put one in each of his hands, so that he appeared to be rowing his way to the cemetery – giving the impression that he didn’t want to be a bother to those left behind.

MacDonald 1985: 9

Many such stories describe young men animating the corpse by manipulating the body. It seems likely these actions were meant to play up tales about people who were presumed dead who came back to life. An early example comes from Prince Edward Island and concerns the wake for a man known as Kelly’s Fairy, who was believed to be a changeling. When an intoxicated mourner named Terrance knelt in front of the body to pray, a prankster stuck him with a pin from behind. Lurching forward, Terrance fell onto the casket:

When this occurred, up rose the head and body, and the gas that gathers in the chest of a dead body escaping through the mouth made a noise that very much sounded like an imprecation. The company assembled were horror stricken and terrified. Poor Terrance, quickly recovering himself, cried in anguish, ‘Mother of God, I’ve brought Kelly’s fairy alive again’.

G. F. Owen, The Daily Examiner, Jan. 7, 1893

While hymn-singing was an important component of some wakes, particularly within the Acadian community, popular music and dance were not totally absent from wakes in the Maritimes–and perhaps related to an older tradition of dancing at wakes examined by Michael Newton in Scotland (Newton 2006). Recalling a story from Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Jim Moore described a gathering where the mourners stood the body of the deceased up in the corner in order to expand the dance floor (Moore 1995). F. H. MacArthur writes about a similar scene, which he claims took place during the pioneer era in Prince Edward Island. According to the account, while transporting a body to a distant graveyard, a group of mourners was caught in a storm. Finding shelter in a local inn, the weary travelers soon made the best of a bad situation:

After a time, conversation gave way to songs, every man of them giving a hearty lift with the chorus. The storm without might blow its worst, the mourners cared not a whit for wind or weather. Even the remains of Mark Sims were for the time forgotten.

Suddenly one of the company piped out, ‘Let’s have a dance!”

At these words everyone sprang to his feet except one fellow who did the giggin.

Outside the wind gamboled and moaned among the pines, and great masses of drifting snow were hurled against the windows; but inside there was joy unspeakable. Indeed, the dance seemed to increase in violence with the gathering fury of the storm. To all appearance the boys had forgotten completely the funeral, their only desire at the moment being to seize time and mirth by the forelock.

But in the reckless hilarity somebody pushed against the barrels, and the shell containing the dead crashed onto the floor, parted, and deposited the sleeping cadaver at their feet.

Instantly, the pleasure ceased. They were all struck dumb with the exception of Patrick Ryan, who yelled: “Boys, O boys, take a look at Sims! Bedad, he’s out for a dance”.

MacArthur 1966: NP

While religious sources have long condemned such behavior, stressing the religious nature of the wake over its social function, scholars have sought to understand it. Their explanations range from the pragmatic to the philosophical, from appeasing the dead to rebuking authority, and the desire to have fun (Narváez 1994: 275). What connects these disparate explanations is that this behavior was not meant to be overtly disrespectful. Recalling wakes he attended during his youth in Johnstown, Richmond County, Peter MacKenzie Campbell would appear to agree: “[…] death meant a release from the trials and sufferings of this life into the eternal joy of the next […]. Under the circumstances, it was but natural that their minds should turn to matters not so solemn” (Campbell 1978: 71).

Today, the study of vernacular mortuary customs in this region provides a window into changing standards of propriety in the community with the wake-house representing an obvious site of contested authority. Born in Cape Breton in 1906, Fr. Malcolm MacLellan downplays the perceived negative elements of the wake in order to emphasize its religious dimension:

Often one heard stories about drinking and such carry-on at wakes, but this was extremely rare and likely exaggerated, since the usual tenor of a wake comprised of extending sympathy, offering prayer and consolation and showing profound respect for the dead. It was a stirring manifestation of faith in God and the hope of eternal salvation.

MacLellan 1982: 45

While it may be true that our understanding of the tradition leans towards exceptional examples, we also know that many activities that took place at wakes were actively hidden from clergy like Fr. MacLellan. Public and personal censure may be one of the reasons that so few descriptions of this practice have been recorded in print locally – and why so few younger residents know much about the tradition. Even today, many tradition-bearers reference clerical disapproval of pranks and tricks at wakes and reveal a sensitivity to how modern audiences will interpret such stories. While she saw little harm in the tricks her father used to play at wakes, Sadie Poirier, who was raised in Judique, Nova Scotia, was aware his behavior would be shocking to people today, “My father was bad for tricks. And some of them weren’t very good either. If they were done today, I don’t know what would happen” (Poirier 2007). Those who participated in these antics knew better than to broadcast their behavior. During an interview with the Irish Benevolent Society in Prince Edward Island, Lena Carragher can be heard cautioning her husband not to record all the details of a wake where tricks were played near their home (Carragher 1982). According to some accounts, the consequences of such deviant behavior could extend well beyond public censure. Theresa Burke, who was raised in Rear Big Pond, Nova Scotia, recalls an incident that likely took place during the early years of the twentieth century:

Agus bha aire a bh’ aig seann duine, a chaochaill,’s bha gillean òg a’ dol ann. Agus tha teansa gu robh iad a’ deanamh buraban air feadh na h-oidhche, nuair a bha an oidhche ann ’s gun daoine mun cuairt, agus thòisich iad air droch rud a dheanamh a-muigh. Chuir iad maide a-staigh air an uinneag ‘s thòiseach iad air a’ chiste ghluasad.

Agus tha teansa gun deach a’ facal gu Maighstear Dunnachadh. Agus tha teansa gu robh e a’ bruidhinn, Dòmhnach air choireagan, air an altair, mu dhèidhinn na daoine a rinn am buraban air an aire a bha sin.

“O” ars esan, “Falbhaidh a’ làmh dhiubh, falbhaidh a’ làmh: grodaidh a làmh air a duine a rinn sin”

Co-dhiù, ceart no cèarr, sin chuala mi iad a’ canntail, gun do dh’èirich rudeigin air làmh a’ ghille. Chaill e a’ làmh. Sin a-nisd an cumhang a bha aig Maighstear Dunnachadh!.

T. Burke, August 11, 2011

And there was a wake that was for an old man, who died, and young guys were going there. And it seems they were making a raucous throughout the night, when it was night, and no one was around, and they started to do something bad outside. They put a stick in through the window, and they started to move the coffin.

And it seems the word went to Father Duncan. And it seems he was speaking, some Sunday, on the altar, about the people who made the raucous at this wake.

“Oh,” he said, “Their hand will leave them. Their hand will leave. The hand of the man who did that will rot!

Anyway, right or wrong, I heard them saying, that something occurred to his hand. He lost his hand. There now is the power that Father Duncan had!

Translation by the author

Unfortunately, many scholars conclude their study of this tradition without considering how its decline may have affected oral traditions. In so doing, they overlook an opportunity to explore how narratives evolved to reflect and reinforce opposition to the tricks, pranks, and merriments that sometimes characterized these gatherings. While the narratives examined thus far have concentrated on the actions in the wake house – and presented the tricks and pranks as largely humorous – in this example the focus shifts. The negative repercussions of this behavior are front and centre. This narrative focuses on the power of the priest, while the actions of the mourners provide a backdrop for larger lessons about the repercussions of contravening clerical authority. In so doing, the narrative reflects and reinforces clerical pressure to avoid playing tricks and pranks at wakes. Narrowing the focus further, and concentrating on material from Eastern Nova Scotia, we see that other stories accomplish the same goal without the direct intervention of clergy in the story.

According to the published account of a narrative credited to rural Antigonish County, a group of boys cut the ropes which were holding down the crippled corpse of an old woman in McArras Brook. This made the remains lurch forward towards a group of mourners. Unfortunately, the prank was so shocking three girls fainted and died. Those responsible for the tragedy fled the house and concealed their guilt – but three years later one of the boys, Black Sandy, froze his hands and had to have them amputated at the elbow. According to a published account, he spent the following four years haunted by nightmares, frequently waking everyone in his home with his terrified screams. During one of these episodes the guilt-stricken boy died, but not before confessing his part in the wake prank to his mother (Willie the Piper 1978). There is nothing subtle about the message embedded in this story. We can easily imagine it being told to warn young men against engaging in such tricks and pranks.

As this example demonstrates, local tradition retains memories of tricks and pranks played at wakes in a variety of formats. Some narratives focus simply on the tricks, pranks, and merriment of the wake, while others direct us to their consequences. At times, the way tradition bearers interpret these stories is particularly revealing. A final example comes from central Cape Breton. In this account, a group of men have gathered at a wake for an old woman. They spent the first part of the evening drinking and smoking pipes. As the evening progressed, however, some of the men began fooling around, approaching the body, and asking whether the deceased would like a smoke. Rod C. MacNeil takes up the story:

And one of the fellows in the group didn’t like this sort of thing and so he went outside and he was peeking in through that open window and he got a stick and he slid through the window and under her head. And then when someone came to offer the lady a drag on his pipe, he raised the lady’s head! Instantly there was silence and better behavior in the wake house that night.

R. MacNeil, June 12, 2014

In this account, the narrator positions the man playing the trick as the protagonist, motivated by a sense of duty to institute better decorum at the wake. But is that what really inspired his actions? And how would we know? Stories permit us to build bridges with the past – but they are contemporary interpretations shaped by individuals as much as communities. In this case, the narrator was a deeply religious man, proud of his community and faithful to his church. It seems likely this background shapes the way the story has been framed – perhaps revealing a desire to present a historical event in a way that might be more acceptable to modern audiences.

Taken together, this material reveals a deeply rooted and complex historic tradition of tricks, pranks, and merriment at wakes in the Maritimes. More widespread than previous scholarship would suggest, this response to death crossed borders both geographic and cultural.

As the reach of religious clergy expanded through the nineteenth century in the Maritimes, wakes likely came under increasing scrutiny making this approval harder to obtain. But social trends were also changing in the region, as more and more residents spent time living and working in the United States. For such people, practices like pranks and excessive drinking at wakes may have come to appear outdated and inappropriate (MacDonald 2020: 9-10). After all, they were customs that had been in decline for generations elsewhere – characterized as vulgar and disrespectful by the social elite and promoters of temperance in Britain and New England (Callaghan 2002: 48-49; Earle 1893: 372). This suggests we should see such behavior as a vernacular response to death that changed as a result of social and religious standards that encroached from outside. Today, however, narratives that recall old-time wakes show how a dynamic and evolving oral tradition reflects and reinforces these changes, allowing communities to articulate conflicting attitudes connected to social expectations and responsibilities associated with death. Fieldwork in the region also demonstrates how modern tradition bearers can actively reinterpret the actions of their predecessors – suggesting ways people construct an image of the past to be more acceptable to the present.