La Santa Compaña

This chapter discusses how the dead were interpreted, represented, and exhibited as part of the Galician folkloric dark event, La Santa Compaña —a night-time procession of unknown souls who are led by a living person unaware of their leadership. Through a discussion of its interpretation, representation, and exhibition, this chapter reveals the role of La Santa Compaña in the consumption and reproduction of cultural practices about death and the hereafter. Through an anthropological lens, the chapter examines the origins and development of La Santa Compaña, and in doing so, addresses how this folkloric dark event has been interpreted and perceived across differing times and contexts, thereby reflecting how Galician people historically have confronted death and memorialised their dead. In review of the varying rites, traditions, and practices Galician communities venerate their dead. This chapter further unpacks how La Santa Compaña contributes to cultural identity and perceptions of death and the supernatural, thus demonstrating how communities grapple with death and the macabre. In this way, this chapter expands the current understandings of dark events, and particularly ceremonies of death like La Santa Compaña.