Death Rituals

1
Death Rituals

• Funeral Rituals
• Mainly done to comfort the living, while
  providing a way for the soul to remove itself
  from the community.
• Murngin of Australia
• Dying person is surrounded by wailing, singing
  mourners attempting to comfort him/her. Men tend
  more towards expressions of revenge, while women
  display grief, cutting their heads with sharp
  sticks.
• Ancient Egypt
• Professional mourners would be hired to walk
  behind the coffin of the Pharaoh, wail and tear
  at their hair.
• Tana Torajans of Indonesia
• Sadness and anger thought to be disruptive to
  interpersonal relationships and bad for ones
  health. Only during specific times at a funeral
  are public displays of grief appropriate.
• Nuer of East Africa
• Body is quickly buried and the grave obliterated
  so that the ghost does not cause problems for the
  living.
• Dani of New Guinea
• The ghost is seen as a particular problem and
  elaborate rituals are performed to appease the
  ghost and allow it to move on.
• Disposal of the Body
• Depends on cultural perceptions of an
  individuals corporeal self
• Secondary Burials
• Cremation
• Mummification
• 19th century U.S. culture
• Present-day U.S. culture

2
Burials

• The most common disposal method. Sometimes the
  body may be buried quickly and not carry much
  meaning, as with the Nuer of East Africa. More
  often, the body is elaborately buried
• Burial under/near dwelling or special preparation
  of the body was also common
• Ancient Egypt Predynastic (pre-3,000 B.C.E.)
  non-elite burials
• Deceased wrapped in a shroud, placed in a small
  wooden coffin.

3
Secondary Burials

• Secondary Burials
• Often marks the end of the mourning period.
  Commonly involves, digging up, processing and
  reburying the body in some way. Sometimes
  thought that what happens to the body also
  happens to the soul
• http//video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/p
  laces/culture-places/beliefs-and-traditions/taiwan
  _secondburial.html
• Murngin of Australia
• After 2-3 months (or more) body is exhumed, bones
  are washed of any remaining flesh. Cleaned bones
  are placed in a bundle and watched over for
  several months, then taken out, smashed up and
  placed into a log which is then left to rot.
• A finger or other small bone may be saved as a
  relic for the family
• An object of religious veneration, especially a
  piece of the body or a personal item of
  religiously important person, such as an ancestor
  or saint.

4
Cremation

• Funerary practice of burning the body. Practiced
  for a variety of reasons
• A way to destroy the corpse, so ghost cannot
  haunt the living.
• Reaction to the indignity of the decay process.
• Economically cheaper than burial.
• Yanomamö Body is decorated, burned on a pyre in
  the middle of the community. Smoke is thought to
  be contaminating so all children and the sick
  leave the village during cremation. Bits of
  teeth and ashes saved in a hollow log to be
  crushed and consumed in a soup later on.
• The Yanomamö are Endocannibalistic
  anthropophagers meaning that they eat the bodies
  of their own people.

5
Mummification

• The technique of preserving a dead body involving
  drying and preservatives.
• Story time

6
Exposure

• Getting rid of the body by leaving it to nature
• Inuit Exposure done out of necessity, ground too
  hard for burial
• North American societies Tree/high platform for
  elements.
• American Southwest Body left in cave, becomes a
  natural mummy
• Tibet Sky burials where body is left to be eaten
  by birds.

7
U.S.A. 19th Century Death Rituals vs. Today

• 19th Century Death Rituals
• Person usually dies at home surrounded by friends
  and family. Female family members prepare the
  body for the funeral, create a burial shroud.
  Body stays in the parlor for about 3 days and is
  then transported the funeral home. Body would
  stop at church for service by a special
  horse-drawn carriage and then interred either on
  family land or a local cemetery
• The African Burial Ground
• Over 400 skeletons uncovered (50 children) in
  Lower Manhattan, New York, perhaps as many as
  10,000 people interred total.
• Forensic Anthropologists A specialist in the
  analysis of the human skeleton in a legal
  context.
• Children of slaves not provided accurate food or
  shelter (disease and malnutrition evident in
  bones).
• Muscle strains, tears, fractures evident on bones
  from carrying heavy loads.
• Civil War changed everything
• Massive, national cemeteries (Arlington National
  Cemetery). Over 600,000 died.
• Embalming, used previously only on medical
  cadavers, was practiced on a large scale to keep
  servicemen intact when shipped

8
U.S.A. 19th Century Death Rituals vs. Today

• U.S. Funeral Rituals Today
• Death is announced through network of friends and
  family
• A mortician will prepare the body and the body is
  almost always embalmed.
• Terminology has also changed funeral director
  for undertaker, casket for coffin. Why is this?
  Why might we not be as comfortable with death as
  other cultures? What is our overall attitude
  towards death?
• Roadside Memorials
• Should they be allowed? Block traffic?
• Sacred Remains
• Even if body is damaged upon death, may have
  elaborate and expensive methods of reconstruction
  for funeral services.
• Servicemen who have died overseas. The funeral
  is not complete without the body.

9
Days of Death

• Halloween/Eve of All Saints/All Saints
  Day/Samhain
• Halloween
• Eve of All Saints (Even of All Hallows)
• All Saints Day
• Samhain
• Dia de los Muertos
• Beautiful Feast of the Valley (Heb Nefer En Inet)