“You think the dead we loved ever truly
leave us?”
–Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban[1]
As Geordie Greig astutely
points out in his 2006 article for the British newspaper The Telegraph, “Death is the key to understanding [Harry Potter author] J K Rowling. Her
greatest fear - and she is completely unhesitant about this - is of someone she
loves dying.”[2] He goes on
to quote Rowling, “My books are largely about death. They open with the death
of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and
his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so
understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it.”[3]
Rowling also shares tearfully that she was conjuring the first words of Harry Potter the night her mother died.[4]
Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the internationally best-selling book series
centers largely on two themes of human (and wizard) life: death and love.
In this
article I explore Rowling’s portrayal of death in the Harry Potter series,
comparing and contrasting death in the wizarding world with the conceptions of
death in the runa[5]
(Indigenous) culture of the Northern Andean Highlands of Ecuador. While the
analysis of Harry’s world is obviously gleaned primarily from the books
themselves, the perspective on Indigenous views is based on ethnographic research
I conducted during Finados/Día
de los Difuntos[6] in the
communities of Cotacachi and Quiroga in November 2011, as well as on textual
study of relevant ethnographic and primary source documents.
At first
blush, the worlds of Harry Potter and the runakuna
of Cotacachi do not seem very similar. In most ways, perhaps, they are not.
It may even seem frivolous or offensive to compare them. Respectfully recognizing
the inherent differences between a culture with ancient roots and historically-developed,
communally-coherent belief systems, and one woman’s fanciful fictional creation
of a world infused with her own disparately-hailing philosophies, there is nonetheless
much to glean in the comparison. In terms of notions of death in both worlds,
there are some striking parallels, as well as some significant differences. There
is a fundamentally similar concept that unites these two worldviews: only love
is able to bridge the divide between death and life. The extent to which love
can bridge that divide, however, is another question. In Harry Potter, only shadows of the dead can continue to exist
independently, and the dead live on only in our minds and hearts. The line between
death and life is fairly solid in Harry’s world, despite the various ways in
which the dead can live on as ghosts, in life-like interactive paintings, or in
charmed visions such as Patronuses.[7]
In Kichwa Indigenous culture, the line is more fluid. There is an interpenetrating, ongoing
relationship between the realms of the living and dead. The continuous care for
the dead keeps them alive. It is only those who are forgotten that are ever considered
truly dead.
In my
field notes from the day I spent in the cemeteries of Cotacachi and Quiroga, I
note the very ordinariness of the time I shared with my friends there. Spending
the day squatting on graves in the searing sun, I did not see much of the
miraculous, per se. It was a rather normal day. We perched ourselves where we
could, and talked a little. But mostly we just sat, sometimes in conversation,
sometimes in silence, sometimes in laughter. We ate communal food produced from
seemingly fathomless cloth bundles—like Mary Poppins’ magical bag, but full of
nothing but potatoes, hominy, and fava beans. Plates of mote, habas, and papas[8]
were passed around continuously, along with flimsy plastic cups filled with sugary
soda, and steaming bowls of colada de
churo.[9]
There were green-skinned bananas with sweet orange flesh—the bananas that Magui
said were her dad’s favorite, and the bread we had baked the night before in
the big clay oven.[10] Women and
girls came by our little encampment to deposit food into our bundles, and were
given piles of food in return. Elderly women recited the Our Father and in exchange their aprons were filled with bananas
and bread. I guess I thought there might be more conversing, or ritual with
those who were departed. But it was more like just hanging out. Maybe a perfect
example of the porousness that the runa
see between life and death. The cemetery was absolutely filled with people and
flowers. There was prayer. It was undeniably a special day. But it was also
just a day for hanging out with beloved ones both alive and dead. Time with
family. Like any other day.
In Ritual Encounters: Otavalan Modern and
Mythic Community, anthropologist Michelle Wibbelsman writes about a similar
experience on Día de los Difuntos in the nearby community of Ilumán.
Eventually,
Carmen called over three rezadoras (prayer
experts). For each prayer they said, she deposited a small bowlful of food into
their plastic bags, alternating occasionally with a couple of bananas or rosquitas…The rezadoras prayed in a cacophonous mixture of Spanish and Quichua.[11]
Their voices came together in unison only upon reciting, “Our Father,” “Hail
Mary,” and “Glory Be…” in Spanish…
There
was a lack of solemnity in all of these proceedings. The oration of the rezadora receded to the background as
Mamita Carmen chatted with me about the babies who had died, and as the
children played in unrestrained voices with the collectible Pokemon game pieces
(tasos). The result was a dissonant
mix of “virgin santísima, madre de Dios…,” clashing Pokemon battle noises, and
the children’s laughter. The rezadora
interrupted her monotone recitation to hack and spit. Later, she snatched a fly
in midair and crushed it with a stone against the dirt of the burial mound. All
the while, she continued to pray. Difuntos
are said to enjoy partaking in the laughter and conversation of the living.[12]
Like I was, Wibbelsman is
struck by the casualness and fluidity of this important ritual day. Wibbelsman
attributes this to three primary factors: that the dead are said to return
periodically throughout the year[13]
(not just for Finados),[14]
that the day-to-day experiences with sickness and death in Indigenous
communities render death a more quotidian part of life,[15]
and the belief in the Indigenous worldview of interpenetrating realms of
existence.
Wibbelsman
helpfully places her observations about the culture of the runakuna within the theoretical framework of the chakana—sometimes called the “Andean
cross”—a sacred symbol of interconnectedness in the Indigenous universe (or “pariverse”)[16]
and a sort of cosmic crossroads, connecting the sacred and the profane and all
realms of time-space. As Indigenous Otavalan anthropologist and philosopher Luis
Enrique “Katsa” Cachiguango explains, Andean wisdom unites the universe of the four
worlds, or pachas: hawa-pacha (the
world of above, the sky, or the “macrocosmos”), uku-pacha (the world of below,
mystery, “microcosmos”), kay-pacha (the world in which we co-exist as nature,
human beings, divinities, and ancestors), and chaysuk-pacha (the spiritual
world of the dead, the ancestors who are always with us).[17] Wibbelsman states it more simply:
“Continual interchange among people, and also with the realms of nature, the
divine, and the dead, lies at the heart of Otavalan collective experience.”[18]
In the case of the dead, the exchange between realms manifests itself primarily
through food, as the living family members visit their deceased relatives and
engage in what are essentially ritualized picnics on their graves. The dead
soul is considered much like a living one, with need for affection, food, and
conversation. In fact, “The dead depend upon the living for nourishment,
conversation, and creativity that will literally keep them alive.”[19]
The interconnection between the living and the dead is such that the realms
require one another to function, as the dead rely upon the living for physical
and emotional nourishment, and the living rely upon the dead for protection,
love, and spiritual nourishment.
Contemporary
burial practices also reflect this notion of interconnection. As Wibblesman’s compadre Segundo explained to her,
“First
you have to put a little plate and a little wooden spoon.” Food must also be
included—an orange, an egg, and bread. Carmen added that one must send two or
three changes of clothes, and needle and thread so that the deceased will be
able to mend their garments. Sewn into the shirt, so that difunto does not lose it, should be some change…Carmen explained, “para el pasaje” (for the fare).[20]
We do not know very much
about Indigenous religious traditions prior to the arrival of the Incas,
because the historical records that we have do not distinguish between the
pre-Incan and Incan traditions, considering everything pre-Spanish and
pre-Catholic to be barbaric.[21]
One thing that is clear is that the veneration of the dead was central to
Andean religious practice. The dead were mummified and kept in caves, where
people would come to converse and supplicate, but also to bring food, clothes,
money, and chicha, as the dead were
said to experience thirst, hunger, cold, and all the physical needs that we
have as living beings.[22]
In
sharp contrast to the Indígenas’ interactions with their dead are
the mestizo practices. In my experience in the cemetery, there was a striking
difference between the quiet mestizo side of the cemetery—where elegant stone
gravestones stood solemnly and permanently—and the dirt plots with wooden
crosses on the Indigenous side. As Wibbelsman notes, “In the segregated
cemeteries of the area, mestizo gravesites are unkempt, weeds overwhelming the
headstones—telltale signs of rare visits. I ask Mamita Carmen about this and
she tells me that the mishus[23]
only visit on Finados.”[24]
Carmen does not approve of this, and tells Wibbelsman that the mishus’ lack of interaction with their
dead is neglectful. Wibbelsman helpfully notes that the differences in
practices on either side of the segregated cemetery are not just due to
differing beliefs about the dead, but also point to fundamentally different
understandings and experiences with memory.
Among
mestizos, remembering the dead involves rousing disembodied recollections
through the mnemonic triggers of dates and names inscribed on headstones. Among
indígenas,
the dead are not considered shadows of people from the past but contemporaries.
Visits to the cemetery are less acts of commemoration than they are rituals of
communion and family gathering.[25]
For the Indigenous, their
dead are not truly dead, but co-existing with them. The care they show to their
deceased family members keeps them alive, whereas the souls of mestizos they
regard as “‘muertos de a de veras’(really dead).”[26]
In other words, only love, and specifically, embodied love, is able to bridge
the divide between death and life. Without that connection, the dead truly die.
J.K.
Rowling’s wizarding England is indeed far from the Indigenous culture of the
Andean Highlands in many ways, but there are certain concepts that resonate,
especially that of the role of love in connecting the realms of the living and
the dead. Starting simply in our comparison, in Harry’s world, like in the
world of the runa, the soul survives
bodily death.[27] In Harry’s
world, however, this does not mean that the souls are necessarily physically
present on earth, although there are various ways in which Rowling depicts the
dead on earth, including as ghosts and visions. In his article “The Soul in
Harry Potter,” Scott Sehon describes another form in which the dead appear:
“the semi-ghostly condition in which Harry twice sees his departed loved ones.”[28]
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
Harry’s parents and other beloved deceased friends are issued out of
Voldemort’s wand as Harry and he share an intense wand connection. They are
more corporeal than ghosts, and Harry’s father even talks to him and helps him
to escape from Voldemort.
Similarly,
when Harry uses the Resurrection Stone in Deathly
Hallows he sees Sirius, Remus Lupin, and his parents, and it seems that
they are again, at least in some sense, real. Less substantial than living
bodies and here only temporarily, they are nonetheless not mere ghosts, they
are described as ‘neither ghost nor truly flesh.’[29]
There are many forms in which the dead
continue to exist in the world painted by J.K. Rowling. However, despite these
many manifestations of the deceased, for Rowling it is clear that death is
final, and that Voldemort’s quest to avoid it is perverse. “‘No spell can
reawaken the dead,’” Dumbledore tells Harry and his godfather Sirius Black after
the death of Cedric Diggory.[30]
Indeed,
one of the primary themes that Rowling delineates is that accepting death is an
important part of life. In one of his characteristic moments of wisdom,
Professor Dumbledore assures Harry that “‘to the well-organized mind, death is
but the next great adventure.’”[31]
When Harry asks Nearly-Headless Nick (a resident ghost at Hogwarts) how he is
able to still hang around five centuries after his death, Nick “tells him,
sadly, that the only reason he has remained is because he feared death too
much, and failed to go on as he should. Because of this, he is ‘neither here
nor there.’”[32] Of course,
Voldemort’s fear of death is a central plot element for the Potter series, as
Voldemort goes to such lengths to “master” the unavoidable human fate of bodily
death. Voldemort’s killing curse directed at the infant Harry Potter backfired
on him, killing Voldemort instead. He remained alive, however, because he had
split his soul into various horcruxes—fragments
of himself that were embedded into many physical objects, one animal (his snake
Nagini), and one human being: Harry Potter. Rowling shows that to do so,
Voldemort must compromise his own soul, rendering him a ghastly, featureless
creature that feeds on others’ life-forces in order to remain alive. In his
quest to conquer death, Voldemort becomes more and more twisted and evil. In
Harry’s world it is only through accepting death as part of life that one can
begin to “master” it. As Harry prepares to face death in order to defeat
Voldemort and his followers (the Death Eaters), Dumbledore once again assures
him, “You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek
to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there
are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.”[33]
Ultimately
it is Harry’s love for others that renders him willing to face death. He
accepts that he must die in order that others might live. In this way, he is
depicted as truly “mastering” death—facing its reality and inevitability with
love. Likewise, his parents died to save his life, sacrificing themselves when
the powerful wizard attempted to kill their infant son. When Harry and Hermione
find Harry’s parents’ grave in Godric’s Hollow, Harry is surprised by the verse
that is carved into their headstone: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed in
death.”[34]
Harry interprets this as precisely the perverse view of death that Voldemort
and his followers, the aptly-named Death Eaters, espouse. But “Hermione assures
him, “It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry…It
means…you know…living beyond death.”[35]
It is through their love that Harry’s parents, and Harry himself, will be able
to “defeat” death, to render it something that need not be feared.
This
acceptance of death as part of life has obvious parallels to the Indigenous
cosmovision that sees death as an intersecting realm of life. As Luis Enrique
Cachiguango states, the world of chaysuk-pacha (death, the ancestors) is
intimately connected with the world in which we live as human beings—kay-pacha.[36]
In Harry’s world, however, the line between the living and dead is more final,
and the acceptance of death as part of life is more metaphysical, and less
literal. As the runa celebrate with
their dead, feasting and talking, “friendship between Harry and his mates and
his interaction with Dumbledore often involve eating (or, really, feasting),
games, and affectionate exchanges of gifts.”[37]
The recognition of embodied love as perhaps the most important aspect of life
is present in Harry Potter, but this recognition
does not extend to the realm of the dead. The love that Harry feels for his
parents, his godfather Sirius, Dumbledore, and other beloved deceased remains
spiritual/emotional, as opposed to embodied/physical.
Although
the perceptions of the permeability of the line between death and life differ,
the philosophies of Harry Potter and
the runakuna both see the dead as
existing in a different realm. In the Chamber of Secrets, Harry encounters a
“veil”, and the dead are said to go beyond it.[38]
When Harry willingly sacrifices himself to Voldemort in order to save his
people, he finds himself in King’s Cross Station, surrounded by bright white
light. There he finds Dumbledore waiting for him on the platform, and when
Harry asks where the train waiting in the station would take him, Dumbledore
simply says, “on.” Rowling doesn’t detail where that “on” might be, or how one
gets there, but it is obvious that is a journey to another realm, “to the other
side.”[39]
Likewise, when Michelle Wibblesman asks Mamita Carmen why the dead must be
buried with money, Carmen says simply and a bit ambiguously, ‘por el pasaje (the fare)’—implying a similar
journey to another realm of life, perhaps in a boat, a bus, or a train like the
one awaiting Harry in King’s Cross Station.
Despite the
differences in worldviews between J.K. Rowling’s depiction of wizarding England
and the Indigenous culture of the Northern Andean Highlands of Ecuador, the
fundamental notion that unites these worlds is that love is the only force able
to bridge the divide between death and life. In both worlds, it is only those
who are forgotten who are ever truly dead, as those whom we love continue to
influence our lives even in their death. In Harry
Potter, however, the line between death and life is more permanent—only
shadows of the dead can continue to exist independently, and the dead live on
only in our minds and hearts. We must accept death as part of life and accept
its finality in order to coexist emotionally with those we love. In Kichwa
Indigenous culture, the line is more fluid. Death is real, but the continuous
bodily and emotional care for the dead keeps them literally alive. There is an
interpenetrating, ongoing relationship between the realms of the living and
dead.
The
paradigms represented by the literary world of Harry Potter and the quotidian,
embodied spirituality of the runakuna both
exemplify an important lesson about life: death is not something to be feared,
but an integral part of our lives as human beings (even magical ones). Death is
its own mysterious realm, but by continuing to love those who have passed from
our lives into that realm, we can sustain them, defeating death through love in
a way that Voldemort, in his twisted quest for unnatural immortality never can.
Perhaps memory is the “magic” that can defeat death. Whether through the
embodied rituals of Indigenous families, or through the sustained love of Harry
and his friends, we keep ourselves and our departed alive through memory. Mircaea
Eliade writes, “The dead are those who have lost their memories.”[40]
As we continue to cherish those we love, their memories and ours are sustained,
filling us with the breath of life, allowing us to live as beings truly alive,
and to dwell side-by-side with our sisters and brothers who continue to live in
another dimension of existence, “beyond the veil.”
[1]
All Harry Potter books referenced in
this article are the United States Scholastic editions, and will be referred to
only by title. Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter
and Prisoner of Azkaban, (New York: Scholastic Inc, 1999), 22
[2]
Greig, Geordie. “There would be so much to tell her…” The Telegraph. 10 Jan 2006. Web.
[3]
Ibid.
[4] Iggulden, Amy. “Exclusive interview with J K Rowling: Harry Potter was born the day my mother died,” The Telegraph. 10 Jan 2006. Web.
[5]
The Indigenous people of Ecuador’s Andean highlands often refer to themselves
as runa or runakuna, runa meaning
simply “people” in the Kichwa language, and -kuna being the plural suffix in Kichwa.
[6]
Finados/Día de los Difuntos is a national holiday throughout Ecuador,
celebrated November 2.
[7]
“‘A Patronus is a kind of positive force,
and for the wizard who can conjure one, it works something like a shield, with
the Dementor feeding on it, rather than him. In order for it to work, you need
to think of a memory. Not just any memory, a very happy memory, a very powerful memory… Allow it to fill you up...lose
yourself in it...then speak the incantation ‘Expecto Patronum.’’—Remus
Lupin teaching Harry
Potter the Patronus Charm,” from “Patronus Charm,”
Harry Potter Wiki, n.d. Web.
<http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Patronus_Charm>
[8]
Boiled hominy, fava beans, and potatoes; some of the most traditional staple
foods of the “Sierra” (Andean highlands).
[9]
Another traditional food of the highlands Indigenous culture, particularly
during the season of Finados. It is
essentially a soup prepared by boiling corn meal with achiote [a red seed, also known as “annatto” in the
English-speaking world] and adding little snails collected in fresh water
areas, marinated in lemon juice, salt, and cilantro.
[10]
Making “guaguas [wawas] de pan” is another custom during Finados in Ecuador. Dough is sculpted into anthropomorphic shapes (wawa means child in Kichwa and in common
Ecuadoran Spanish), horses, birds, spirals, wreaths, and circles, baked into
bread, and shared with family and
friends.
[11]
Wibbelsman uses the older spelling “Quichua,” but the current correct spelling
is “Kichwa” (For more information on the systematization of Kichwa language and
orthography--“kichwa unificado,” see <kichwa.net>).
[12]
Wibbelsman, Michelle. Ritual Encounters:
Otavalan Modern and Mythic Community. (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2009),126
[13]
Wibbelsman, 112
[14]
“In addition to their correlation with the four major holidays, ritual visits
to the cemetery in Otavalo and Cotacachi take place son Mondays and Thursdays
every week. The importance among Runakuna of sustaining contact with the
ancestors in underscored by the frequency of these visits. They challenge the
assumption of a clearly delimited holiday, revealing instead a familiar
day-to-day interaction among the living and the dead.” Wibbelsman, 114
[15]
Wibbelsman, 112
[16]
The term “Pariverso” represents the Indigenous understanding of complementarity
in all aspects of the cosmos. See Pakarina:
El Ritual Andino de Nacimiento y Crianza de Niños y Niñas en
Cotacachi, (Cruz Roja Ecuatoriana, Junta Provincial
de Imbabura) ed. Luis Enrique Cachiguango, 22
[17]
Full quote in Spanish: “La
sabiduría andina plasmada en las distintas tecnologías para la vida, tanto en
su dimensión práctica como en su dimensión religiosa, unifica el universo de
los cuatro mundos o cuatro pachas. En todas las tecnologías de la producción
entran a formar parte el hawa-pacha o el mundo de arriba, el cielo o el
macrocosmos. También toma parte el uku-pacha, el mundo de abajo, el mundo del
misterio, el microcosmos. El kay pacha, este mundo presente en que convivimos
la naturaleza, los seres humanos, las divinidades y los ancestros. Finalmente
también forma parte de este universo el chayshuk-pacha, el mundo espiritual de
los muertos, ancestros que siempre nos acompañan y nos ayudan a seguir criando
la chakra como actividad de plena realización humana que sobrepasa la dimensión
occidental del trabajo occidental.” From Cachiguango, Luis Enrique. Ñukanchik
Sumak Murukuna – Nuestros Alimentos Sagrados, 1
[18]
Wibbelsman, 2
[19]
Ibid.,123-124
[20]
Wibbelsman, 127
[22]
Andrade, 77
[23]
Kichwa term for mestizos
[24]
Wibbelsman, 132
[25]
Wibbelsman, 135
[26]
Ibid., 132
[27]“’Look,
if I picked up a sword right now, Ron, and ran you through with it, I wouldn’t
damage your soul at all.’ ‘Which would be a real comfort to me, I’m sure,’ said
Ron. Harry laughed. ‘It should be, actually! But my point is that whatever
happens to your body, your soul will survive, untouched,’ said Hermione.” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
104
[28]
Sehon, Scott. “The Soul in Harry Potter,” The
Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, ed. Gregory
Bassham, (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 12
[29]
Ibid., 12 -13
[30]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 36
[31]
Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone, 17
[32]
Spillsbury, Paul. “Love and Death in Harry Potter,” The Harry Potter Lexicon. 2006. Web. <http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-love-and-death.html>
[33]
Jonathan L. Walls and Jerry L. Walls. “Beyond Godric’s Hollow: Life After Death
and Search for Meaning,” The Ultimate
Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, ed. Gregory Bassham,
(Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 234
[34]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
328
[35]
from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
as quoted in Jonathan L. Walls and Jerry L. Walls. “Beyond Godric’s Hollow:
Life After Death and Search for Meaning,” The
Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, ed. Gregory
Bassham, (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 248
[37]
Jonathan L. Walls and Jerry L. Walls. “Beyond Godric’s Hollow: Life After Death
and Search for Meaning,” The Ultimate
Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, ed. Gregory Bassham,
(Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 238
[38]
Spillsbury, Paul. “Love and Death in Harry Potter,” The Harry Potter Lexicon. 2006. Web.
[39]Sehon,
Scott. “The Soul in Harry Potter,” The
Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, ed. Gregory
Bassham, (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 12-13
[40]
as quoted in Wibbelsman, 132
