Pre-Christian seasonal customs were survival rituals against death, not recreation

Evidence

Early humans were aware that plants and animals appeared and disappeared at different times of the year, so people adopted seasonal rituals, some to welcome new life, others to discourage death. For example, May Day celebrations in pre-Christian Europe coincided with planting crops for the coming year. A young boy or girl would carry a heavily budded tree branch into a village to infuse it with greenery and the spirit of life. In Thüringen, in central Germany, a ceremony called “Driving Out the Death” was traditionally performed on March 1. A figure of straw made by youngsters was dressed in old clothes and tossed in the river. Afterward, the children returned to the village and were rewarded with eggs and other treats. In Bohemia, children carried a similar straw puppet away from the village and burned it. While the puppet burned, the children sang: “We have carried away Death, and brought back Life.” These rituals were not recreational; they were a matter of survival. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 306

Categorization

• CANDY: The Bohemian children burning a straw Death puppet and singing ‘we carried away Death, brought back Life’ is a perfect conversation fact.