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Twiiter user Clay Scott @scottwestacre) who raises wheat in southwestern Kansas, posted this video on Memorial Day — once known as Decoration Day, from the custom of decorating graves on that day.
He wrote, “Decoration Day. We place wreaths of wheat each year on the graves of family and friends. We have done this for decades as our tribute to service and remembrance. It was a tough sort this year but everyone will be grateful for the crop no matter what it looks like. Always the best.”
The religion scholar in me wants to know: what is their background? Mostly Catholic or mostly Protestant? Was this a custom in the Old Country? And where was that?
Prairie Kansas has — or had — many ethnic enclaves. For instance, further northeast, around Great Bend, there is a heavy Catholic presence based on immigration from Poland,southern Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Little country crossroads churches with names like St. Xavier’s.
But cycles of growing and reaping are forever, John Barleycorn holds hands with Dumuzid. Seems “Pagan-ish” to me.
I once asked the question – if Muslim burials are placed with their feet towards Mecca which direction do Christians face. When I explored a few of the old time pioneer graveyards in New Brunswick I realized they tend to face/feet first to the east and the rising sun. Nothing scholarly about what I found, I did not go deep enough. But it was interesting to consider it.
L. Crandall, if you had dug deeper, do you think you might have found some bodies lying in different directions? Asking for a friend.