The visual languages of death festivals are grounded in cultural semiotics, where colours and symbols reflect how societies imagine life, death, and transition rather than any inherent property of the hues themselves. Colour semiotics (the study of colour as a sign system) shows that meanings emerge through repeated associations within specific traditions, especially in ritual contexts. During liminal periods such as death rites, visual markers like colour and dress make the threshold visible, signalling that individuals and communities are temporarily removed from ordinary social structures.
East Asia: White
In many East Asian cultures, particularly China, Korea, and Japan, white is the traditional colour of mourning and funerals, a practice shaped by Confucian hierarchies and Buddhist ideas of death as transition. In imperial China, undyed white cloth signified purity, asceticism, and humility, and was linked to the philosophical notion of wu (無), “non‑being” or “void,” emphasising withdrawal from worldly status during mourning. Confucian mourning codes prescribed white or plain hemp garments for specific kin relationships and periods of grief, visually marking the mourner’s temporary removal from ordinary social roles. Buddhism further reinforced white as a colour of release and spiritual purity, framing death as liberation from suffering rather than an absolute end.
Día de los Muertos: Colourful
By contrast, Mexico’s Día de los Muertos embraces death with vibrant colours that turn mourning into celebration. The festival reframes loss as a joyful reunion with departed loved ones. Families build ofrendas (altars) adorned with marigolds, whose orange and yellow hues and strong scent are believed to guide spirits back home, alongside candles, sugar skulls, and favourite foods of the deceased. Pinks, purples, yellows, and blues reject the sombre austerity associated with Western mourning, framing death as part of a cyclical continuity of life rather than a definitive rupture.
The West: Black
The Western association of black with death and funerals is so ingrained that it appears natural, yet it is the product of specific historical developments. In ancient Rome, mourners wore the dark toga pulla, establishing a link between dark garments and grief. The consolidation of black as the default mourning colour gained momentum from the 14th century onward as deep, uniform black dyes became more technically feasible and symbolically desirable, signifying seriousness, restraint, and status.
Sumptuary laws
Sumptuary laws in late medieval and early modern Europe helped standardise mourning colours by regulating which fabrics and hues different social classes could wear, including in mourning. These laws made grief visibly legible and socially controlled: dark, sober clothing signalled both the mourner’s emotional state and their place in the social hierarchy.
Victorian performance of grief
In the nineteenth century, industrial dye production and expanding middle‑class cultures of respectability turned black mourning dress into a rigidly codified system. Cheaper, consistent black fabrics allowed a broader range of people to adopt what had previously been aristocratic mourning styles, using clothing to display moral seriousness and social propriety. Etiquette manuals and fashion norms elaborated phases of mourning: “deep mourning” in matte black crepe with minimal ornament, followed by “half‑mourning” in greys, lavenders, and mauves – so that colour tracked the socially acceptable timeline of grief.
Boundaries between worlds
Across cultures, the colours of death festivals mark liminality. The threshold between the domains of the living and the dead. In Samhain’s descendants and related autumn festivals, the contrast between firelight and seasonal darkness, combined with harvest foods, symbolises protection and shared abundance as ancestral and otherworldly presences draw near. On All Saints’ Day in Catholic Europe, candlelight at graves and in churches creates a soft, warm glow that frames prayer and remembrance as ways of bridging the gap between the living and the departed. In Obon, paper lanterns and floating lights on water guide ancestral spirits back to the other world, visually mapping their journey through illuminated paths. In Guatemala’s Día de los Difuntos, giant, brightly coloured kites ascending into the sky make the vertical connection between earth and heaven visible, turning the air itself into a communicative space.
Objects of remembrance: skulls, shrouds, lanterns, and kites
Symbolic objects give colour a tangible presence in these rituals. In Día de los Muertos, sugar skulls, marigold petals, candles, and colourful papel picado materialise the idea that the dead are honoured guests rather than terrifying intruders. In Famadihana in Madagascar, white cloth shrouds renewed and wrapped around ancestral remains stress purity, continuity, and the ongoing obligations between generations. Obon’s lanterns, spirit boats, and small animal figures made from cucumbers and eggplants embody guidance, speed, and care, suggesting that the living are responsible for safely escorting spirits. In Guatemalan kite festivals, the vast paper kites serve as both messages to the dead and canvases for communal memories and political commentary, mixing mourning with visual statements about identity and history.
Private or public rites
The organisation of colour and objects within a festival shapes whether grief is primarily private, communal, or public. Famadihana emphasises intimate, family‑centred grief: exhumation, rewrapping, and dancing with ancestors draw the living into direct physical contact with the dead, reinforcing kinship bonds. All Saints’ Day combines quiet family visits to graves with shared liturgical structures, blending personal remembrance with collective ritual time. Día de los Muertos moves remembrance into public space through parades and communal ofrendas, where vibrant colours and abundant offerings transform mourning into an openly shared celebration. Halloween, though no longer a mourning ritual, converts death imagery into a spectacle of play and fear: black and orange decorations, jack‑o’‑lanterns, and costumes invite people to engage with the idea of death as entertainment rather than sorrow.
A spectrum of grief
Taken together, these traditions show that grief is not a single emotion but a spectrum, ranging from austere reflection to exuberant celebration and from domestic ritual to public protest. White mourning in much of East Asia encodes death as purity, withdrawal, and spiritual focus; black funerals in the West emphasise solemnity, loss, and controlled display; and the brilliant hues of Día de los Muertos highlight continuity, joy, and ongoing relationships with the dead. Within these colour frameworks, participants can move between roles: hosts to the dead in Mexican ofrendas, intimate mourners in Famadihana or All Saints’ Day, playful spectators in Halloween, or activists in Guatemalan kite ceremonies. The colours, objects, and gestures at work are not mere decoration but active elements shaping how societies imagine, express, and live with the universal experience of loss.
Sources
Rao, A. (2025, October 28). Beyond black: the colours of death across cultures. Meer. https://www.meer.com/en/98241-beyond-black-the-colours-of-death-across-cultures
Altima SFI. (2024, October 1). Colours of bereavement: Cultures and religions. https://www.altima-sfi.com/en/blog/colours-of-bereavement
Anubis Cremations. (2025, August 14). Funeral traditions in East Asian religions: Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. https://anubiscremations.com/funeral-traditions-in-east-asian-religions-buddhism-taoism-and-confucianism/
Eterneva. (2016, May 27). The history of mourning dress and attire in the West. https://www.eterneva.com/resources/mourning-dress
