H1) ‘Clothesure’: How a Pilgrim’s Clothes Can Become ‘Sacred’ and Contribute to Narrative Identity

This paper provides the story which explains how pilgrim-identity is created and endures through the clothes they wear; and why pilgrims are reluctant to throw their clothes, boots, and gear away preferring instead to dispose of them ceremoniously; for instance, burning them. We understand our lives as stories. Narrative is what unifies a life, and chapters of that life, into a whole, with a beginning, middle and end. The choices of what to link together into a story are what makes meaning out of that which would otherwise be a random collection of events. Stories come to an end, which provides the punctuation of closure which all stories must have. This paper will explain how narrative creates meaning using three arguments. First, the very process of linking together selected events, which are chosen as relevant, creates the idea that these events explain an end result. Clothe are part of this unifying narrative. Second, it is argued that the unique and irreplaceable history of a set of pilgrim clothes—and not their utility-value—is what gives them meaning. Third, support will be provided for the idea that sacred things are created by ritual and ceremony in the context of a community. All narratives come to an end, with ‘closure’ at the appropriate time. The narrative of a pilgrim clothes comes to a fitting end, a ‘clothesure,’ with ceremony.