You don't know beans about Lemuria

The Lemuralia or Lemuria was a feast in the religion of ancient Rome during which the Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome specters of the restless dead, called lemures or larvae, were propitiated with offerings of beans. On those days, the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa, a salted flour cake, from the first ears of wheat of the season.
 
In the Julian calendar the three days of the feast were May 9, 11, and 13. Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and repeating the incantation, "I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine" (Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis.) nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!" nine times.

Because of this annual exorcism of the noxious spirits of the dead, the whole month of May was rendered unlucky for marriages, whence the proverb Mense Maio malae nubent ("They wed ill who wed in May").
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Damien's note: It is odd that the story of the ghost at the play Sunday night will not go away. Perhaps I need to suggest that President Samiam process barefoot through the library at midnight, tossing black  beans over his shoulders. The Kappas would probably be willing to bang on pots for him.