Reddit Reposting, Episode 5: Ghosts & Funerals

As always, I'll probably entirely rewrite the preface to my original Reddit post and replace it with 2022 commentary. In this case, I encourage you all to open up a discussion on unicorn vs. alicorn magic that I shouted out back in 2017 with an easily-buried link in a new tab as something else to read after you've finished here. I won't be republishing its contents, as I was uninvolved in that discussion. Multiple worthwhile comment threads.

Again, I've included another discussion between Logarithmicorn and myself after the body of the main post. Half of these posts existed purely because of a discussion we got into in the comments of the previous week's post. This week's discussion extends the speculation on funerary practices from just the pegasi to the other breeds before veering off into wild speculation on the prehistorical population composition of Equestria.

Onto the actual post.

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Apparitions of the departed

(As far as I know, there is only speculation here)

There are two types of supernatural encounters with deceased ponies in Equestria (magically reanimated skeletons don't count since they're under the control of somepony else):

1. True Ghosts

A true ghost is exceedingly rare since it only can be created when a pony dies suddenly in a freak accident or murder. They are notable for being a fully sentient disembodied spirit of a pony who can make its own independent decisions. They exist and can act whether or not somepony is there to see them.

2. Echoes

An echo is somewhat similar to a ghost version of the mirror pool Pinkie Pies or, to use a biological analogy, they are the virus to a true ghost's bacterium. Magically powerful ponies leave their imprint upon the ambient magic of Equestria long after they are dead, and their effects can still be sensed by ponies of all races many years later. Most ghost sightings are actually echoes.

Echoes are non-sentient and only perform the departed pony's stereotypical behavior and only exist while they are visible. The twinkling stars that represent AJ's parents are prime examples of echoes.

Pegasus Funerary Practices

While the CMC are singing about finding the perfect stallion for Miss Cheerilee, the stallion that is "too old" is shown giving the funeral eugoogalie for another pony, showing that ponies have funerary practices similar to humans (casket for the deceased, eulogy, buried six feet under, &c.).

However, this is yet another area where pegasi proudly maintain their "old" habits when compared to ground-based ponies (is there a better collective term for non-pegasi races?—Publiq's 2022 note: I still have yet to find one—). Pegasi have what humans would recognize as a variant of a Viking funeral. When a pegasus dies, the body is placed on a cloud for a very long afternoon nap: the funeral services are traditionally held in the early to mid-afternoon.

The late pegasus is surrounded by their most distinctive and prized possessions on the funeral cloud. If the departed is the last member of a household, their physical house is physically divided among their heirs with a room (never a bedroom and often the living room, since they are taking a long nap, not entering eternal night) from that house being placed upon the funerary cloud to house their distinctive possessions and mark that they were the last resident of that house to pass on.

The dearly beloved who gather for the funeral take the cloud to the edge of the known world (often over an ocean) and create a breeze that lasts until the cloud is pushed out of sight. There are always rumors of griffins who, despite their strong preference for fresh prey, occasionally receive mana from heaven, but there has never been any conclusive evidence one way or the other on the reality of that practice.

For pegasi that have been missing long enough to be presumed dead, a cloud loaded with a majority of their possessions (excluding things that are valuable to the next-of-kin) is sent in the direction where they were last known to be alive as the funeral. This is an attempt to unite the departed with their things. More practically, this provides hope that if the missing pony is alive, they will be able to use the things to survive and make a miraculous return home.

Digression about Alicorns & phylogeny

There really needs to be some better terminology for all ponies that aren't a specific race. I've been using "ground-based ponies" as my collective for Unicorns and Earth Ponies, but that always seems clunky. "Non-flying ponies" isn't truly accurate since Unicorns can use spells to fly temporarily. "Non-magical ponies" works well enough for non-Unicorns, since it's fairly obvious that the magic in question is spellcasting magic and not ambient Equestrian harmony. I can't think of a good term for non-Earth Ponies. I've left the status of alicorns ambiguous in these collectives because they're a high-impact low-volume population.

Speaking of alicorns, I'm borrowing some ideas from this discussion on the nature of alicorns.

In symbolic and rhetorical terms, alicorns are the union of all three races in equal harmony. However, they are winged unicorns in their daily lives for most functional purposes. Before Hasbro canonized the term "alicorn," the princesses were officially "winged unicorns." Accepting the comics' truth on Cadence originally being a pegasus, it is clear that she lives her princess life as a magic user first and a flying pony as an added benefit.

However, due to the recent creation of two princesses, it is now suspected that despite both being magic users, alicorns are, in fact, least related to unicorns of the three races. Why? Their magical plumbing is suspected, though not proven, to be significantly different from normal unicorns. In a biological analogy that I may be dismembering, archaea and eukaryotes are more closely related to each other than to bacteria. However, in the usual freshman biology overview of the kingdoms and domains of life, bacteria and archaea sound much more similar, and eukaryotes seem different.

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Comment from Log about the funerary practices of the different tribes ["breeds" in G5 parlance]

• While unicorns often cremated their dead in arcane flame - the ashes being stored in large ossuary complexes - important or influential members of unicorn society were petrified shortly after death. Particularly powerful unicorns were transmuted into gems, as this was believed to be closer to returning them to the flow of magic. A historical curiosity is that the diamond corpse of Princess Platinum vanished shortly after being interred.
• Although Pegasi typically sent their dead on a "final flight" with their possessions, a few particularly large Equestrian cities - where dense pegasus populations and prevailing winds produced the odd falling corpse on inhabited lands - cremation has also popped up as a viable alternative. Starting the flame with lightning is traditional, and the ashes are scattered in the wind.
• Earth ponies have perhaps changed the least. Always adhering to a "from the earth, to the earth" mentality, corpses are buried in fields (at considerable depth) and new crops are planted over the bodies. The exact plant varies; the Apple Family, for instance, inters their dead with seeds of their namesake product.
• Crystal Ponies follow a similar but more unusual process. Bodies are placed in a cave or mine complex, which, when full, is sealed. Within a few years, the bodies chemically decompose until nothing remains but rock; the complexes are then reopened. One of the greatest horrors wrought on the Crystal Empire by Sombra was the seizure of corpses for experimentation, denying them proper return.

I do like your ideas about "Echoes" of the undead, though - one of the greatest fan ideas I've seen (admittedly not my own, but coming from the incredibly talented author Estee) is that earth ponies maintain a magical contact with the land that can be sensed by other earth ponies. When an earth pony dies, the family remains in place mourning until the last of the deceased's "voice" has faded.

My reply to Log

When making these posts and outlining what I'd want to say for future episodes, I completely forgot about the Crystal Ponies. They seem to be almost like an alternate timeline of Equestria. I wonder if anyone has any theories about the origin of crystal ponies: I'm not thinking of anything creative and sensible on this issue. Regarding chemically decomposing crystal ponies, do you think they are all based on an easy-to-decompose mineral—their different colorations are due to metals their mothers ate while pregnant—or are their colors due to different chemical compositions—some crystal ponies take much longer to decompose than others? Or do they use special caves with chemicals that dissolve minerals faster than ordinary groundwater?

I slightly disagree that population density is the main consideration of whether pegasi go out on a cloud or go for cremation: prevailing winds, ocean currents, and proximity to the open sea are the primary factors. Burial is simply not an option for pegasi, for they must always be free to roam.

It's at least somewhat canon that general Equestrian culture is largely a blend of Unicorn and Earth Pony cultures, while Pegasi usually have distinct rituals for everything. With the exception of places like Canterlot or, to a lesser degree, Ponyville (re: magic other than basic levitation being forbidden from their Winter Wrap-Up), most places in Equestria treat Earth Pony and Unicorn traditions as interchangeable options where there's only a slight race-based preference.

Speculation of pre-Equestrian population dynamics

Somewhat related to the origin of cultural mores, here's some speculation about pony life pre-Equestria. I think the story given in the Hearthswarming Eve pageant is a simplification of the actual history. Mainly, that pageant implies that the total pony population was much smaller back then, such that each race was a single tribe and that their populations (or maybe just the fighting power of their combined population) were equal.

A fuller picture would be that the situation presented in the pageant represented the three tribes from the specific area that became the core of modern Equestria, likely somewhere in what is now the Everfree Forest. However, they were only one tribe of many of each of their types, and the more general situation was even worse than (quoting the wiki) "Earth ponies grew food, and in payment for providing weather, the Pegasi demanded some of the food. The Unicorns also demanded payment for magically raising the sun and moon. None of the tribes cared what happened to each other."

In most places, Earth ponies and Unicorns lived separately and grew food for themselves. Unicorns with cutie marks of meteorological significance were in great demand for their talent from both Earth ponies and Unicorns. Sometimes temporary alliances were formed between the Unicorns and Earth ponies of a small area, but the sources of grief for Earth ponies were that weather-talented Unicorns were greedy and demanded excessive fees for their services. Unicorns did not like that Earth ponies had a habit of kidnapping and enslaving Unicorns when negotiations broke down (though Unicorns also occasionally gave up one of their own into Earth pony slavery if a particular Unicorn was too greedy even for Unicorns or otherwise beyond the pale of pony behavior).

Pegasi had their war-like reputation for a reason: they (generally) were scavengers who raided their food from tribes of the other two races breeds. They had a notably smaller population—the pre-Equestrian population was about 60-30-10 E-U-P in composition, and pegasi married and had foals at an older age than other races to prevent the population from growing. Both other races did not like pegasi for obvious reasons, and times when they figured out a peaceful solution where pegasi, rather than weather unicorns, controlled the weather were unusual. In the sector where the tribes of the Hearthswarming Pagent lived, they had an arrangement like this, so the population ratio was closer to 55-25-20 E-U-P. Modern Equestria, depending on your assumptions on the demographics of the off-screen parts, is somewhere between evenly split and a 40-25-35 E-U-P ratio. Only cooperation between the races breeds can support pegasus populations of these sizes.