2

Father Christmas Executed

Claude Lévi- Strauss

Christmas of 1951 in France was marked by a controversy—of great

interest to press and public alike—that gave the generally festive
atmosphere an unusual note of bitterness. A number of the clergy had
for several months expressed disapproval of the increasing importance
given by both families and the business sector to the figure of Father
Christmas. They denounced a disturbing `paganization' of the Nativity
that was diverting public spirit from the true Christian meaning of
Christmas to the profit of a myth devoid of religious value. Attacks
spread just before Christmas; with more discretion, but just as much
conviction, the Protestant Church chimed in with the Catholic Church.
A number of articles and letters in the press bore witness to a keen
public interest in the affair and showed general hostility to the
Church's position. It came to a head on Christmas Eve with a demon-
stration that a reporter from France-soir described as follows:

SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN WITNESS FATHER CHRISTMAS

BURNT IN DIJON CATHEDRAL PRECINCT

Dijon, 24 December
Father Christmas was hanged yesterday afternoon from the railings of Dijon
Cathedral and burnt publicly in the precinct. This spectacular execution took
place in the presence of several hundred Sunday school children. It was a
decision made with the agreement of the clergy who had condemned Father
Ch ri stmas as a usurper and heretic. He was accused of `paganizing' the Christ-
mas festival and installing himself like a cuckoo in the nest, claiming more
and more space for himself. Above all he was blamed for infiltrating all the
state schools from which the crib has been scrupulously banished.
On Sunday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the unfortunate fellow with
the white beard, scapegoated like so many innocents before him, was executed
by his accusers. They set fire to his beard and he vanished into smoke.
At the time of the execution a communiqué was issued to the following
effect:
`Representing all Christian homes of the parish keen to struggle against
 Father Christmas Executed 39
lies, 250 children assembled in front of the main door of Dijon Cathedral and
burned Father Christmas.
`It wasn't intended as an attraction, but as a symbolic gesture. Father Christ-
mas has been sacrificed. In truth, the lies about him cannot arouse religious
feeling in a child and are in no way a means of education. Others may say
and write what they want about Father Christmas, but the fact is he is only
the counterweight of a modern-day Mr Bogeyman.
`For Christians the festivity of Christmas must remain the annual celebration
of the birth of the Saviour.'
Father Christmas's execution in the Cathedral precinct got a mixed response
from the public and provoked lively commentaries even from Catholics.
The affair has divided the town into two camps.
Dijon awaits the resurrection of Father Christmas, assassinated yesterday
in the cathedral precinct. He will arise this evening at six o'clock in the Town
Hall. An official communiqué announced that, as every year, the children of
Dijon are invited to Liberation Square where Father Christmas will speak to
them from the floodlit roof of the Town Hall.
Canon Kir, depu ty-mayor of Dijon, will not take part in this delicate
affair.

The same day, the torture of Father Christmas became front-page

news. Not one newspaper missed an article on it, some—like France-
soir, which has the highest circulation of all French papers—even went
so far as to make it the subject of an editorial. There was general
disapproval towards the attitude of the Dijon clergy. It would seem
that the religious authorities were right to withdraw from the battle,
or at least to keep silent. Yet they are apparently divided on the issue.
The tone of most of the articles was one of tactful sentimentality: it's
so nice to believe in Father Christmas, it doesn't harm anyone, the
children get such satisfaction from it and store up - such delicious
memories for their adulthood, etc.
They are, in fact, begging the question. It is not a matter of rational-
izing why children like Father Christmas, but rather, why adults
invented him in the first place. Widespread reaction to the issue,
however, clearly suggests a rift between public opinion and the
Church. The incident is important, despite its apparent pettiness; since
the war there has been a growing reconciliation in France between a
largely non-believing public and the Church: the presence of a political
party as distinctly denominational as the MRP' on government com-
mittees is proof of this. The anti-clerical faction was well aware of the
unexpected opportunity offered to them: they are the ones in Dijon
40 Claude Lévi-Strauss
and elsewhere who are acting as protectors of the threatened Father
Christmas. Father Christmas, symbol of irreligion—what a paradox!
For in this case everything is happening as if it were the Church
adopting an avidly critical attitude on honesty and truth, while the
rationalists act as guardians of superstition. This apparent role reversal
is enough to suggest that the whole naïve business is about something
much more profound. We are in fact witnessing an important example
of a very rapid shift of customs and beliefs both in France and else-
where. It is not every day that an anthropologist gets the chance to
observe in his own society the sudden growth of a rite, even a cult; to
research its causes and study its impact on other forms of religious life;
and, finally, to understand how both mental and social transformations
relate to the seemingly superficial issue on which the Church, so
experienced in these matters, has in fact been right to point out a
deeper significance.

In the past few years the celebration of Christmas has expanded in a

way unknown since before the war. This development, both in form
and content, is undoubtedly the direct result of the influence and
prestige of the USA. Thus we have simultaneously witnessed the
appearance of large illuminated and decorated Christmas trees at
crossroads and along motorways; decorated wrapping paper for Christ-
mas presents; illustrated Christmas cards and the custom of displaying
them on the mantelpiece during the fateful week; pleas for contri-
butions from the Salvation Army with their great begging bowls on
squares and streets; and finally, people dressed up as Father Christmas
listening to the requests of children in department stores. All these
customs which just a few years ago seemed so puerile and weird
to French visitors in the USA, showing clear evidence of a basic
incompatibility of mentality between the two cultures, have been intro-
duced to, and spread through, France with an ease that offers food
for thought to cultural historians.
In this case we are witnessing a huge process of diffusion, similar
to remote examples of ancient technological innovations in fire-lighting
or boat-building techniques. Yet it is both easier and more difficult
to analyse events that are happening before our very eyes in our own
society. It is easier because ongoing experience is protected in all its
moments and nuances. Yet it is harder because it is on such rare
occasions that we can see the extreme complexity of even the most
subtle social transformations; and because the obvious explanations of
 Father Christmas Executed 41
events in which we ourselves arc involved are very different from the
real causes.
Thus it would be too easy to explain the development of the celebra-
tion of Christmas in France simply in terms of influence from the
USA. This alone is inadequate. Consider briefly the obvious expla-
nations along these lines: there are more Americans in France celebrat-
ing Christmas according to their own customs; the cinema, `digests'
and American novels, articles in the national press have all introduced
American customs that are backed up with American economic and
military power. It is even possible that the Marshall Plan, directly or
indirectly, may have encouraged the import of various products linked
to the rites of Christmas. But none of that is enough to explain the
phenomenon. Customs imported from the USA influence strata of the
population that do not realize their origin. Thousands of workers for
whom communist influence would discredit anything marked made in
USA, are adopting them as readily as others. In addition to simple
diffusion we need to recall the important process first identified by
Kroeber called stimulus diffusion, whereby an imported practice is not
assimilated but acts as a catalyst. In other words, its mere presence
stimulates the appearance of a similar practice which had already
existed in a nascent state in the secondary environment. To illustrate
this with an example from our subject: a paper manufacturer goes to
the USA, at the invitation of American colleagues or a member of an
economic mission, and notices that they make special wrapping paper
for Christmas. He borrows the idea: that is an example of diffusion.
A Parisian housewife goes to her local paper shop to buy some wrap-
ping paper and notices some paper on display that she finds more
attractive than the sort she usually buys. She is not aware of American
customs, but the paper pleases her aesthetically and expresses an exist-
ing emotional state which previously lacked expression. In using it,
she is not directly borrowing a foreign custom (as the paper manufac-
turer was), but the behaviour, as soon as it catches on, stimulates the
spread of an identical custom.
Second, it should be remembered that before the war the celebration
of Christmas was on the increase both in France and the rest of
Eufope. Though this is most obviously linked to a general rise in the
standard of living, there are also more subtle causes. Christmas as we
know it is essentially a modern festival in spite of its archaic character-
istics. The use of mistletoe is not a direct survival from druid times.
Rather, it seems to have come back in fashion in the Middle Ages.
42 Claude Lévi-Strauss
The Christmas tree is only mentioned for the first time in some seven-
tcenth-century German texts. It appears in England in the eighteenth
century and not in France until the nineteenth century. Littré hardly
seemed to know of it at all, or only in a form quite different from the
one we know.' As he says: `in some countries a branch of pine or
holly, decorated in different ways, covered with sweets and toys for
the children, makes up the festival'. The variety of names given to the
person who distributes the children's toys—Father Christmas, Saint
Nicholas, Santa Claus—shows that it is a result of a process of conver-
gence and not an ancient prototype preserved everywhere intact.
Yet the contemporary development is not an invention either: it is
an old celebration pieced together with various fragments which have
not quite been forgotten. If, for Littré, the Christmas tree seems an
almost exotic institution, Cheruel notes, significantly, in his Historic
Dictionary of French Institutions, Customs and Practices (in the author's
opinion, a revision of the Dictionary of National Antiquities of Sainte
Palaye, 1697-1781): `Christmas ... was for several centuries and up
until recently (author's emphasis) an occasion for family festivities'.
There follows a description of eighteenth-century Christmas festivities
which seem to bear no resemblance to ours. So the importance of our
ritual has already fluctuated through the course of history; it has had
its ups and downs. The American version is just its most recent form.
Let it be said in passing that these brief indicators are enough to
show how in problems of this sort we must beware of overly easy
explanations by an automatic appeal to `relics' and `survivals'. If in
prehistoric times there had never been a cult of tree worship that
continued in a variety of folklore customs, modern Europe would no
doubt not have invented the Christmas tree. Yet—as shown above—
it is also a recent invention. None the less, this invention was not born
from nothing. Other medieval practices testify to this perfectly: the
yule log (turned into cakes in Paris) made from a log big enough to
burn through the night; Christmas candles, large enough to achieve
the saine result; the decoration of buildings (a custom in existence
since the Roman Saturnalia, which we will return to) with green
branches of ivy, holly, pine. Finally, and with no relation to Christmas,
stories of the Round Table refer to a supernatural tree all covered in
lights. In this context the Christmas tree seems to be a syncretic
response, that is to say, it focuses on one object previously scattered
attributes of others: magic tree, fire, long-lasting light, enduring green-
ness. Conversely, Father Christmas is, in his actual form, a modern
 Father Christmas Executed 43
invention. Even more recent is the belief (which makes Denmark run
a special postal se rv ice to answer the letters from children all over the
world) that he lives in Greenland, a Danish possession, and travels in
a sleigh harnessed to reindeer. Some say this aspect of the legend
arose during the last war because of American troops stationed in
Iceland and Greenland. And yet the reindeer are not there by chance,
for English texts from the Renaissance mention the display of antlers
during Christmas dances long before any belief in Father Christmas,
much less the development of his legend.
Very old elements are thus shuffled and reshuffled, others are intro-
duced, original formulas perpetuate, transform, or revive old customs.
There is nothing specifically new in what might be called (no pun
intended) the rebirth of Christmas. Then why does it arouse such
emotion and why is Father Christmas the focus for hostility from
some?

Father Christmas is dressed in scarlet: he is a king. His white beard,

his furs and his boots, the sleigh in which he travels evoke winter. He
is called `Father' and he is an old man, thus he incarnates the benevol-
ent form of the authority of the ancients. That is quite clear, yet in
what category can he be placed from the point of view of religious
typology? He is not a mythic being, for there is no myth that accounts
for his origin or his function. Nor is he a legendary figure, as there is
no semi-historical account attached to him. In fact, this supernatural
and immutable being, eternally fixed in form and defined by an exclu-
sive function and a periodic return, belongs more properly to the family
of the gods. Moreover, children pay him homage at certain times of
the year with letters and prayers; he rewards the good and punishes
the wicked. He is the deity of an age group of our society, an age
group that is in fact defined by belief in Father Christmas. The only
difference between Father Christmas and a true deity is that adults
do not believe in him, although they encourage their children to do
so and maintain this belief with a great number of tricks.
Father Christmas thus first of all expresses the difference in status
between little children on the one hand, and adolescents and adults
on the other. In this sense he is linked to a vast array of beliefs and
practices which anthropologists have studied in many societies to try
and understand rites of passage and initiation. There are, in fact, few
societies where, in one way or another, children (and at times also
women) are not excluded from the company of men through ignorance
44 Claude Lévi-Strauss
of certain mysteries or their belief—carefully fostered—in some illu-
sion that the adults keep secret until an opportune moment, thus
sanctioning the addition of the younger generation to the adult world.
At times these rites bear a surprising resemblance to those considered
here. For example, there is a startling analogy between Father Christ-
mas and the katchina of the Indians of the south-west United States.
These costumed and masked beings are gods and ancestors become
incarnate who return periodically to visit their village and dance. They
also come to punish or reward children, who do not recognize their
elders in their traditional disguise. Father Christmas certainly belongs
to the saine family as now long-forgotten associates: Croquemitaine,
Père Fouettard, etc. Significantly, the same educational trends which
today forbid appeal to these punitive `katchina' have succeeded in
exalting the benevolent character of Father Christmas instead of—as
the development of rationalism would have us suppose—dismissing
him in a similar way. Education is in this sense not so rational as it
might seem, for Father Christmas is no more `rational' than Père
Fouettard—the Church is right about this. Rather, what we are wit-
nessing is a shift of myth and it is this that needs explaining.
Initiation rites and myths have a practical function in human
societies: they help the elders to keep the younger generation in order
and disciplined. All through the year we tell children Father Christmas
is coming, to remind them that his generosity is in proportion to their
good behaviour. Giving presents only at certain times is a useful way
of disciplining children's demands, reducing to a brief period the
time when they really have the right to demand presents. This simple
explanation alone is enough to challenge the tenets of utilitarian expla-
nations. For where do children get rights in the first place, and how
is it these rights are imposed so imperiously on adults that they are
obliged to work out an expensive and complex ritual in order to satisfy
them? It can be seen straight away that belief in Father Christmas is
not just a hoax imposed by adults on children for fun; it is, to a
large extent, the result of a very onerous transaction between the two
generations. He is part of a complete ritual, like the evergreens—pine,
holly, ivy, mistletoe—with which we decorate our homes. Today a
simple luxury, in some regions they were once the object of an exchange
between two social groups. On Christmas Eve in England up until the
end of the eighteenth century women used to go gooding, that is,
begging from house to house and offering evergreen branches in
return. We find children in the same bargaining position and it is
 Father Christmas Executed 45
worth noting here that when they beg on Saint Nicholas's Eve, children
sometimes dress up as women—women, children: in both cases, the
uninitiated.
Now, there is a very important aspect of initiation rituals which has
not always been given adequate attention but which clarifies their
nature far better than the utilitarian models discussed above. Consider
the example of the katchina ritual of the Pueblo Indians mentioned
earlier. If children are kept in the dark about the human nature of the
people incarnating the katchina, is this simply to get them to fear,
respect, and behave well? Of course, but that is only a secondary
function of the ritual. There is another explanation which the myth of
origin clarifies perfectly. This myth explains that the katchina are souls
of the first native children who were dramatically drowned in a river at
the time of the ancestral migrations. So the katchina are simultaneously
proof of death and evidence of life after death. Moreover, when the
Indians' ancestors finally settled in their village, the myth relates how
the katchina used to come every year to visit them and, when they left,
took away the children. The Indians, desperate at losing their off-
spring, made a deal with the katchina that they would stay in the
other world in exchange for promising to honour them every year with
masked dances. If the children are excluded from the secret of
the katchina it is not primarily to intimidate them. I would say just the
opposite: it's because they are the katchina. They are kept out of the
mystery because they represent the reality with which the mystery
constitutes a kind of compromise. Their place is elsewhere—not with
the masks and the living, but with the gods and the dead—with the
gods who are the dead. And the dead are the children.
Arguably this interpretation can be extended to all initiation rites
and even to all occasions when society is divided into two groups.
`Non-initiation' is not just a state of deprivation defined in terms of
ignorance, illusion, or other negative connotations. There is a positive
aspect to the relationship between initiates and non-initiates. It is a
complementary relationship between two groups where one represents
the dead and the other the living. Moreover, even during the course
of a ritual the roles are often reversed, for the duality engenders a
reciprocity of perspectives which, like a reflection in a mirror, can be
endlessly repeated. If the uninitiated are the dead, they are also the
super-initiated. And if, as also often happens, it is the initiates who
personify the spirits of the dead to scare the novices, it will be their
responsibility at a later stage of the ritual to disperse them and warn
46 Claude Levi-Strauss
of their return. Without pushing the argument too much further, it
should still be pointed out that, to the extent that rituals and beliefs
linked to Father Christmas relate to a sociology of initiation (and that
is beyond doubt), it reveals that beyond the conflict between children
and adults lies a deeper dispute between the living and the dead.

I reached this conclusion by a synchronic analysis of the function of

certain rituals and the content of myths that give rise to them. Yet a
diachronic analysis would have produced the same result. For histori-
ans of religion and folklorists both generally agree that the distant
origin of Father Christmas is to be found in the Abbé de Liesse, Abbas
Stultorum, Abbé de la Malgouverné, a replica of the English Lord of
Misrule, all characters who rule for a set period as kings of Christmas
and who are all heirs of the King of the Roman Saturnalia. Now the
Saturnalia was the festival of the larvae, those who died a violent death
or were left unburied. The aged Saturn, devourer of his children,
is the prototype for a number of similar figures: Father Christmas,
benefactor of children; the Scandinavian Julebok, horned demon from
the underworld who brings presents to the children; Saint Nicholas,
who revives them and inundates them with presents; finally, the
katchina, prematurely dead children who renounce their role as child
murderers to become dispensers of punishments and presents. It
should be added that, like the katchina, the ancient proto type of Saturn
is a god of germination. In fact, the contemporary character of Santa
Claus or Father Christmas is a result of a syncretic fusion of several
different characters: Abbé de Liesse, child-bishop elected by Saint
Nicholas; Saint Nicholas himself from whose festival beliefs in stock-
ings, shoes, and chimneys originated. The Abbé de Liesse reigned on
25 December, Saint Nicholas on 6 December, the child-bishops were
elected on Holy Innocents Day, i.e. 28 December. The Scandinavian
Jul was celebrated in December. This leads us straight back to the
libertas decembris of which Horace speaks and which du Tillot cited as
early as the eighteenth century linking Christmas with the Saturnalia.
Explanations in terms of survivals are always inadequate. Customs
neither disappear nor su rvive without a reason. When they do survive,
the reason is less likely to be found in the vagaries of history than in
the permanence of a function which analysing the present allows us
to discover. The reason for giving so much prominence in this dis-
cussion to the Pueblo Indians is precisely because there is a lack of
any conceivable historical link between their institutions and ours (with
 Father Christmas Executed 47
the exception of some late Spanish in fl uence in the seventeenth cen-
tury). This demonstrates that with the Christmas rituals we are witness
not just to historical relics but to forms of thought and behaviour which
illustrate the most general conditions of social life. The Saturnalia and
the medieval celebration of Christmas do not contain the ultimate
explanation for an otherwise inexplicable ritual devoid of meaning, but
they do provide useful comparative material for making sense of the
survival of institutions.
It is not surprising that non-Christian aspects of Christmas resemble
the Saturnalia, as there are good reasons to suppose the Church fixed
the date of the Nativity on 25 December (instead of March or January)
to substitute its commemoration for the pagan festival that originally
began on 17 December, but which at the end of the empire spread
out over seven days, i.e. until the 24th. In fact, from antiquity up until
the Middle Ages the `festivals of December' show similar character-
istics. First, the decoration of buildings with evergreens; next, the
exchange, or giving to children, of gifts; gaiety and feasting; and finally,
fraternization between rich and poor, masters and se rvants.
Looking more closely at the facts, certain structural analogies
become strikingly evident. Like the Roman Saturnalia, medieval
Christmas had two syncretic and opposite traits. It was first of all a
gathering and a communion: distinction between class and status was
temporarily abolished. Slaves and se rvants sat next to masters, and
these became their se rvants. Richly stocked tables were open to every-
body. There was cross-dressing. Yet at the same time the social group
split into two. Youth formed itself into an autonomous group, elected
a sovereign, the Abbot of Youth or, as in Scotland, Abbot of Unreason,
and, as the title suggests, they indulged in outlandish behaviour taking
the form of abuse directed at the rest of the population and which we
know, up until the Renaissance, took extreme forms: blasphemy, theft,
rape, and even murder. During both Christmas and the Saturnalia
society functions according to a double rhythm of heightened solidarity
and exaggerated antagonism and these two aspects act together in bal-
anced opposition. The character of the Abbé de Liesse acts as a kind
of mediator between the two extremes. He is recognized and even
enthroned by the regular authorities. His mission is to demand excess
while at the same time containing it within certain limits. What connec-
tion is there between this character and his function, and the character
and function of Father Christmas, his distant descendant?
At this point it is important to distinguish between the historical
48 Claude Lévi-Strauss
and the structural points of view. Historically, as we have already
seen, the Father Christmas of Western Europe, with his partiality for
chimneys and stockings, is purely and simply a result of a recent shift
from the festival of Saint Nicholas which has been assimilated to
the celebration of Christmas, three weeks later. This explains how the
young abbot has become an old man, though only in part, for the
transformations are more systematic than historical accidents and
calendar dates might suggest. A real person has become a mythical
person. A figure of youth, symbolizing antagonism to adults, has
changed into a symbol of maturity which is favourably disposed towards
youth. The Lord of Misrule has taken charge of sanctioning good
behaviour. Instead of open adolescent aggression to parents, we now
have parents hiding behind false beards to gratify their children with
kindness. The imaginary mediator replaces the real mediator, while
at the same time as he changes his nature he begins to function in the
opposite way.
There is no point in discussing points which are not essential to
the debate and which risk confusing the issue. `Youth' has largely
disappeared as an age group from contemporary society (although
there have been several attempts in recent years to revive it, it is too
early to know what the result will be). So far as Christmas is concerned,
a ritual that once affected three groups of protagonists—little children,
youth, and adults—now only affects two: adults and children. The
`madness' of Christmas has thus largely gone; it has been displaced
and at the same time toned down and only survives in adult groups
during the Réveillon at nightclubs and, on the night of Saint Sylvester,
at Times Square. But let us consider the role of children instead.
In the Middle Ages children did not wait patiently for their toys to
come down the chimney. Variously disguised they gathered in groups
which were known as `guisarts' and went from house to house singing
and offering their good wishes, in return for fruit and cakes. Sig-
nificantly, they invoked death to back up their demands. Thus in
eighteenth-century Scotland they sang this verse:
Rise up, good wife, and be no' swier [lazy]
To deal your bread as long's you're here;
The time will come when you'll be dead,
And neither want nor meal nor bread.
(Brand 1900: 243)

Even without this valuable piece of information and the no less signifi-
 Father Christmas Executed 49
cant one of disguises that change the actors into ghosts or spirits, there
are still others concerning children's quests. It is known that these are
not limited to Christmas (see on this point Varagnac 1948: 92, 122,
and passim). They go on during the whole critical time of autumn
when night threatens day just as the dead menace the living. Christmas
quests begin several weeks before the Nativity—usually three, thus
establishing a link between the similar quests of Saint Nicholas (which
also use disguises), when dead children come to life, and the even
more clearly defined initial quest of the season, that of Hallow-Even,
which was turned into All Saints' Eve by ecclesiastical decision. Even
today in Anglo-Saxon countries, children dressed up as ghosts and
skeletons hassle adults unless they reward them with small presents.
The progress of autumn from its beginning until the solstice, which
marks the salvation of light and of life, is accompanied, in terms of
rituals, by a dialectical process of which the principal stages are as
follows: the return of the dead; their threatening and persecuting
behaviour; the establishment of a modus vivendi with the living made
up of an exchange of services and presents; finally, the triumph of life
when, at Christmas, the dead laden with presents leave the living in
peace until the next autumn. It is revealing that up until the last century
the Latin Catholic countries put most emphasis on Saint Nicholas, in
other words, the most restrained version, while the Anglo-Saxon coun-
tries willingly split it into the two extreme and antithetical forms of
Halloween, when children play the part of the dead to make demands
on adults, and Christmas, when adults indulge children in celebration
of their vitality.

As a result of this, apparently contradictory aspects of the Christmas

rites become clear: for three months the visit of the dead among the
living becomes more and more persistent and tyrannical. Thus on the
day of their departure it becomes permissible to entertain them and
give them a last chance to raise hell. But who can personify the dead
in a society of the living if not those who, one way or another, are
incompletely incorporated into the group, who, that is, share the
otherness which symbolizes the supreme dualism: that of the dead and
the living? Therefore it should come as no surprise that foreigners,
slaves, and children become the main beneficiaries of the festival.
Inferior political or social status becomes equated with age difference.
There is in fact a great deal of evidence, especially from Scandinavia
and the Slav countries, that the real essence of the Réveillon is a meal
50 Claude Lévi-Strauss
offered to the dead, where the guests play the part of the dead, as the
children play that of the angels, and the angels themselves, the dead.
It is thus not surprising that Christmas and New Year (its double)
should be festivals for present-giving. The festival of the dead is basi-
cally the festival of the others, while the fact of being other is the
nearest image we can get of death.
This brings us back to the two questions posed at the beginning of
the essay. Why did the figure of Father Christmas develop, and why
has the Church been worried about its development?
It has been shown that Father Christmas is the heir to, as well as
the opposite of, the Abbé de Liesse. This transformation primarily
indicates an improvement in our relationships with death. We no
longer find it necessary to settle our debts with death and allow it
periodic transgression of order and laws. The relationship is now
dominated by a slightly disdainful spirit of goodwill. We can allow
ourselves to be generous, because this now consists of nothing more
than offering presents or toys—that is, symbols. Yet this weakening
of the relationship between the living and the dead has not been made
at the expense of the character who embodies it. On the contrary, it
could even be said to have improved. This contradiction would be
inexplicable if it were not that another attitude towards death seems
to be gaining sway in our society. It is no longer the traditional fear
of spirits and ghosts that prevails, but instead a dread of everything
death represents, both in itself and in life: degeneration, desiccation,
and deprivation. We should reflect on the tender care we take of
Father Christmas, the precautions and sacrifices we make to keep his
prestige intact for the children. Is it not that, deep within us, there is
a small desire to believe in boundless generosity, kindness without
ulterior motives, a brief interlude during which all fear, envy, and
bitterness are suspended? No doubt we cannot fully share the illusion,
but sharing with others at least gives us a chance to warm our hearts
by the flame that burns in young souls. The belief that we help to
perpetuate in our children that their toys come from `out there' gives
us an alibi for our own secret desire to offer them to those `out there'
under the pretext of giving them to the children. In this way, Christmas
presents remain a true sacrifice to the sweetness of life, which consists
first and foremost of not dying.
Salomon Reinach once wrote with much insight that the main
difference between ancient and modern religions was that `pagans
prayed to the dead, while Christians prayed for the dead' (Reinach
 Father Christmas Executed 51
1905: i. 319). No doubt it is a long way from the prayer to the dead
to this muddled prayer we increasingly offer each year to little children
—traditional incarnations of the dead—in order that they consent, by
believing in Father Christmas, to help us believe in life. We have
disentangled the threads that testify to a continuity between these two
manifestations of the same reality. The Church was certainly not wrong
to `denounce the belief in Father Christmas, one of the most solid
bastions and active centres of paganism in modern humanity. It
remains to be seen if modern humanity can defend its right to be
pagan. One final remark: it is a long way from the King of the Satur-
nalia to Father Christmas. Along the way an essential trait—maybe
the most ancient—of the first seems to have been definitely lost. For,
as Frazer showed, the King of the Saturnalia was himself the heir of
an ancient prototype who, having enjoyed a month of unbridled excess,
was solemnly sacrificed on the altar of God. Thanks to the auto-da-fé
of Dijon we have the reconstructed hero in full. The paradox of this
unusual episode is that in wanting to put an end to Father Christmas,
the clergymen of Dijon have only restored in all his glory, after an
eclipse of several thousand years, a ritual figure they had intended to
destroy.

Editor's notes
The Editor would like to thank Diana Gittins for her translation of this article
and Prof. Lévi -Strauss for his permission to have the article translated and
included in this collection. The French original appeared as: `Le Père Noël
supplicié' in Les Temps modernes 77 (March 1952), 1572-90.

1 MRP is a reference to the Mouvement Républicain et Populaire, a left-wing

Catholic political party of the period.
2 The reference is to the entry `Noël' in E. Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue
française (Paris: Hachette, 1876), iii. 732.

References
BRAND, J. (1900). Observations of Popular Antiquities. New edn., London.
REINACH, S. (1905). `L'Origine des prières pour les morts', in Cultes, mythes,
religions. Paris.
VARAGNAC, A. (1948). Civilisation traditionelle et genres de vie. Paris.