9 Ways to Celebrate the Magyar Day of the Dead

For many of us, the holiday known as "The Day of the Dead" brings to mind Día de los Muertos, a vibrant festival of Mexican origin, complete with sugar skulls and paper banners. However, many other cultures also celebrate their ancestors during this time of year. If you have Hungarian heritage—or even if you don't—you might be interested in the holiday known as Halottak napja (HAW-low-tuck NUP-yah), which also translates to "The Day of the Dead." The celebration is officially held on November 2nd, but it begins the evening before, on November 1st.

Read on to learn more about how this day was traditionally celebrated and how you can incorporate some of these traditions into your own life!

1. Figure out who exactly you are celebrating. For centuries, the typical Hungarian lived in a village, often one where their family had lived for generations. In this type of society, it was relatively easy to keep track of their ancestors. In this day and age, though, it's a little more difficult to know who your ancestors even were. This is a great time of year to do some research about your family tree. Hungary kept excellent public records of births, marriages, and deaths. In many towns, these records go back centuries and can often be freely accessed online. You might be lucky enough to learn a lot about your ancestry from them.

2. Set up a table to honor your dead. You can place photos of your deceased family members as well as some of their treasured belongings or symbols representing them on it. Besides obvious friends and family members who you knew directly and have passed away, you can also include anyone else who has passed on to the other side, including beloved pets and even public figures. Spend some time sharing stories about your dead throughout the week, keeping their memories alive.

3. Respect the Week of the Dead. While in modern times, life doesn't stop for the full week leading up to Halottak napja, in the old days it was a time set apart from ordinary life. Traditionally, the atmosphere was quiet and respectful, with no loud music, celebrations, or even loud talking, singing, or whistling. There was a general ban on starting new projects or doing certain kinds of work. Many communities enacted a ban on household washing (or sometimes even bathing!), sometimes with the explanation that it could remind any visiting dead of the river they had to cross to reach the spirit world. If you are inclined, consider skipping laundry for a week or using compostable dishes. Other traditions involved beautification, such as leaving hair uncombed during this time. While we might not be able to skip showers for a week or go to work with messy hair, think about how you can renounce the vanities of life for one week, perhaps by avoiding wearing new clothes or refraining from using makeup.

4. Prepare traditional foods. If you know what foods your deceased family members enjoyed, you can prepare their favorite dishes. If you didn't know them personally, you can prepare a meal made up of foods from their native regions. Some people brought these foods to the cemetery and left them on graves, while others threw them into a fire, left them on a windowsill overnight, or simply set a place at the table overnight for the visiting dead. If you are a baker, you might try your hand at making a traditional Hungarian biscuit known as pogácsa, which was often prepared for the dead. While normally savory, in many communities, the pogácsa made for the dead was unsalted.

5. Visit the cemetery. In Hungary, even today, many people travel around the country to visit the graves of their loved ones. They clean and decorate the gravestones and meet with relatives to reminisce about the dead. If you live far from ancestral graves (or do not know where they are buried), consider visiting your local cemetery to walk among the graves. It is traditional to leave yellow chrysanthemums and candles on the graves—check with your local cemetery to see if these practices are allowed, even if only for a night. But don't pick any flowers—tradition has it that if you pick a flower from a cemetery, you will die soon; the dead sent the flower home with you in preparation for your funeral. (Source)

6. Leave the lights on overnight. Many communities believed that the dead might come to visit overnight and would appreciate a source of light to welcome them home. You can place an LED votive in a window, or if that's not enough, leave the lights of your home on overnight for any potential visiting spirits.

7. Burn a letter to the ancestors. While this is not traditionally done on the Day of the Dead, it is based on the idea that burning items was a method of delivering their essence to the Túlvilág (the "World Beyond," aka the world of the spirits). Spend some time on the eve of Halottak napja writing letters to the dead, then throwing the letters into a bonfire to burn. Rice paper works particularly well for this purpose because it burns quickly. This is a good way to update the spirits of deceased family members on what you have done in the last year. If a family member or friend passed away and you did not get the chance to say something to them in life, you can express your feelings to them as well. This practice can help a person gain closure and find peace after their loved one has passed away, especially if the death was unexpected.

8. Have a Mass said for the souls of your family members. Even if you yourself are not Catholic (or even Christian!), you probably have some devout Catholics in your family tree. One tradition many of them practiced (and still do, to this day) is having a Mass said in their honor. For a small donation, you can request your local church to say such a Mass. If this does not sit well with you, you can consider saying your own prayers with the intention of peaceful rest for your loved ones. Or, if you are not theistic, you can simply spend time in meditation.

9. Donate to charity. When families visited their loved ones' graves, they would often donate money or food to the poor, who would gather at the gates of the cemetery. Their generosity was said to put their dead family members' spirits at ease. While we no longer have the poor asking for handouts in cemeteries, you can choose a charity to donate to, perhaps in the name of your loved one(s).

Remember, you don't have to do every one of these traditions. Perhaps try out one or two customs this year. If they resonate with you, you can incorporate more practices in future years. And if none of these customs speak to you right now, at the very least, you can mark the day on your calendar or set an alert for November 2nd, and spend a few moments thinking about your ancestors. You might find that even a small gesture, like lighting a candle or saying a simple prayer, can help you feel connected to those who have gone before you. Have a blessed Halottak napja!

Further reading:
https://www.itshungarian.com/made-in-hungary/hungarian-traditions-week-dead-saints-day-souls-day/
https://hungarytoday.hu/all-souls-day-in-hungary/
https://www.historyundressed.com/2016/11/halottaknapja.html