 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (March 2021) |
Decoration Days in Southern Appalachia and Liberia are a living tradition of group ancestor veneration observances which arose by the 19th century. The tradition was subsequently preserved in various regions of the United States, particularly in Utah Mormon culture.[1] While Decoration practices are localized and can be unique to individual families, cemeteries, and communities, common elements unify the various Decoration Day practices and are thought to represent syncretism of Christian cultures in 19th century Southern Appalachia with pre-Christian influences from the British Isles and Africa. Appalachian and Liberian cemetery decoration traditions pre-date the United States Memorial Day holiday (which was once also officially known as Decoration Day).[2]
Appalachian, Utahn and Liberian cemetery decoration traditions have more in common with one another than with United States Memorial Day traditions which are focused on honoring the military dead.[3] In the United States, cemetery decoration practices have been recorded in the Appalachian regions of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, northern South Carolina, northern Georgia, northern and central Alabama, northern Mississippi, and the Rocky Mountain regions of Utah. Cemetery decoration has also been observed along routes of westward migration from that region: northern Louisiana, northeastern Texas, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Missouri. The Utah tradition, dating back to the 19th century, has diffuse cultural origins, including roots in the English and Welsh origins of many early Mormon immigrants to the region.[4]
According to scholars Alan and Karen Jabbour, "the geographic spread ... from the Smokies to northeastern Texas and Liberia, offer strong evidence that the southern Decoration Day originated well back in the nineteenth century. The presence of the same cultural tradition throughout the Upland South argues for the age of the tradition, which was carried westward (and eastward to Africa) by nineteenth-century migration and has survived in essentially the same form until the p
present."[5]
- ^ "Utah Decoration Day".
- ^ "Decoration Day". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Archived from the original on 2018-10-06. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
- ^ Jabbour, Alan (2010-05-27). "What is Decoration Day?". University of North Carolina Blog. Archived from the original on 22 May 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ Roberts, Peter (1815). The Cambrian Popular Antiquities, or an Account of Some Traditions, Customs, and Superstitions of Wales. pp. 177–178.
- ^ Alan Jabbour; Karen Singer Jabbour (2010). Decoration Day in the Mountains: Traditions of Cemetery Decoration in the Southern Appalachians. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0807833971. Retrieved May 28, 2012.