Floral Friday :: All Saints Flowers - The Yellow Poui

These flowers are everywhere at this time of the year, upon every hill in the distance, they seem to have taken over the island. They are the yellow poui flower. We seem to call them all saints flowers as they bloom around all saints time. Here where I live we do not have Halloween but we do have what I think is our equivalent: all saints day and all souls day.

November 2nd - On all souls day a large number of the population goes out to the graves of their loved ones and place a lit candle on their grave in remembrance. Folklore says that on this day you are likely to see spirits roaming the earth, that sometimes they come back to visit in hopes of finding their loved ones among the masses out placing flowers on their graves and if you are unlucky one will lure you to your death and the after life from whence they came.

It is said that they are granted this one night to visit the land of the living and their loved ones, so people will light a candle on their door step or on their windowsill so that they can find their way back to the house and visit.

It is said that if your candle goes out, your loved one will not be able to find their way back to eternal rest and so will stay with you, at your house and haunt you all your year. As a result, neighbourhood children have been known to run around and blow out peoples candles so they will be haunted by spirits  (your candle must burn all night) It is also said if I remember correctly, that if you are holding a candle on your way home from the cemetery you must keep it lit or unwanted spirits will follow your light and walk with you home where they will stay with you and haunt you.

November 1st - On all saints day people place lit candles in remembrance of the saint. Admittedly I do not know much else as I am not catholic so have not taken much interest in this day.

These is also a beautiful short story of how the poui came to be in existence. A tale of native Indian girl born of fair complexion and golden hair. (sounds familiar if you're born with albinism) Her people feared her and locked her away in a high tower. At the end of the story she dies but she is turned into millions and billions of little yellow poui flowers and scattered about the entire island so that she will never and can never be forgotten.

 I didn't do any editing of most of these shots because I really liked the way the light was coming though them. No pun intended.

Sorry for the slightly spooky post but I do so love a bit of folklore and the folklore of the islands is ever so fascinating to me haha.

Peace. Love. Culture.
This post is a part of the Floral Fridays series and link up.