Death Rites

The following list is of the more interesting funeral rites that I have found: Endocannibalism, Tibetan Buddhist Celestial Burials, Sati, and the mortuary totem poles. For some cultures, the best way to honor the dead is by eating them. Such was the tradition of funerary cannibalism of the Wari’ tribe (pib.socioambiental.org). The rite of Endocannibalism was used by the Wari’ to dispose of the body of deceased family. Among family you were either close family or distant family. The close family prepared the funeral doing the “cooking” of the body and preparing to burn the deceased person possessions. When the distant family arrived and the funeral takes place, the distant family take part by feeding on the cooked meat of the corpse (pib.socioambiental.org).

The ritual of Endocannibalism by the Wari’ was used as a way for the living to connect with the deceased one last time on a spiritual level as well as a physical one. However, the avid consumption of the cooked meat as if it were game meat was frowned upon (since it was a time of mourning). To make it more of a time of mourning, the deceased was cooked after rotting making ingestion an unpleasant and often impossible experience (pib.socioambiental.org).

This ritual has assumptions of reincarnation (after a fashion). When the dead from the Wari’ return in a “Day of the Dead”-like festival, they return as white-lipped peccaries (which is like a wild rainforest pig), and are then hunted, cooked, lamented as if they were dead family, and then eaten for their spirits to be released once again (pib.socioambiental.org). The modern concept of life and death vastly remains the same. A majority of people around the world believe in a kind of soul or spirit and there are still people who believe in reincarnation. However, I think that some of the assumptions such as a release of the spirit by bodily consumption have been lost due to the constantly changing social norms of various cultures including the “pacification” of the Wari’ tribe (which ended their traditional warrior lifestyle).

The Tibetan Buddhist Celestial Burials were actually featured in an episode of the television show Bones. This ritual is also known as a sky burial and has been and still is today a common death practice related to Tibetan Buddhism (tibettravel.org). The ritual itself is rather interesting and the views on ascension are interesting as well. First, the deceased is wrapped in a white Tibetan cloth and placed on the corner of the house for a few days to allow monks and lamas (the Holy Men not the animals) to pray and read scripture over the body to cleanse that person’s spirit of sins and to guide him/her out of purgatory (tibettravel.org).

Then, the body is carried by a certified “body carrier” and dissected in order for the burial to take place. The burial rite itself is not for family or strangers to attend, only certified holy men and the body carriers are allowed so that person’s soul can ascend to heaven. Now, the way the person ascends to heaven is if his soul is free of sins; this is known if the vultures who are drawn by the smell of burning “Su” smoke. Once done, the remainder of the body is cremated with chanting of mantras to cleanse remaining negative sins and energy (tibettravel.org).

Many assumptions persist from ancient burials of Tibet and modern day sky burials. One such thing being the existence of a soul or spirit, another is the concept of a tiered afterlife of heaven, hell, and purgatory, and finally the concept of the ascension of the soul. The one thing about this burial is the perception of sin and the afterlife as it really isn’t seen as death. Death is normally an end, however, with sky burials, souls live on after death and become forever alive in a heaven, hell, and purgatory system. The existence of a soul or spirit is a common held belief in the vast majority of cultures in some fashion and this persists from the older death rituals of Tibet and into the modern era (tibettravel.org).

The third interesting ritual is the Sati tradition of self-immolation by Hindu widows. This tradition comes from various places in India, a historically Hindu country. Historically, a Sati was simply a widow who was, by law, supposed to remain chaste or pure (with chaste and pure being the interpretation of the Sanskrit word Sati) (chnm.gmu.edu). However, over the years, the practice of a widow to throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre came to be known as Sati as well as the woman who commits the act.

Whatever you may think of the practice, throughout British interaction with India there was a lot of debate about Sati practices. While many saw it as barbaric and awful, it was allowed on the basis of devotion and peace, and even many British men and evangelicals who came to India praised the devotion of the wife towards her husband (chnm.gmu.edu). However, this is not the traditionally held belief about the practice of Sati. Traditionally, it was thought that self-immolation was the ultimate sacrifice of purity as fire has always symbolically meant purification and widows were supposed to remain pure. Even further, the act of self-immolation by widows was said to promote the most devout widows to the status of being a goddess and ritual headstones were placed at many Sati sites to honor and praise such women for good luck pilgrimages and holy blessings (chnm.gmu.edu).

The overall view of death in this ritual is based on the Hindu faith and the possibility of human beings ascending to be gods and goddesses. Even further is the concept of sin and purity which we have seen throughout historical religious contexts. The concept of remaining pure and cleansing oneself of sin is a major focus of the Sati ritual (chnm.gmu.edu).

The final ritual is the mortuary totem poles. Unlike the others, this one is not as abnormally weird to Americans as the others. Historically, totem poles tell stories of life, war, and culture. Mortuary poles, do the same thing, they tell a story (unusual deaths, 2015).

Mortuary poles tell the story of how a person lived, his great accomplishments, and the story of his death. Normally, the mortuary totem poles were made for chiefs, shamans, and notable warriors who have great deeds to tell stories about. The totem poles would be carved from a solid tree with images that depict great events and accomplishments. These images would then guide the person’s spirit into the afterlife, warding away evil (unusual deaths, 2015). The person’s body was beaten to a pulp (literally) and then placed in a small wooden box in a groove near the top of the pole. On the other side of this, individuals who did not merit this rite of death were thrown into a pit and endured a “scavenging ritual” where animals would scavenge the bodies until nothing was left which allowed them to return to the earth. In this ritual, the ideas of a spirit and afterlife are quite prevalent as well as the idea of evil (unusual deaths, 2015).

Overall, there are many death rituals throughout history and all of them have had some common elements. The concepts of the afterlife, spirit, soul, purification, release from the earthly realm to the spirit realm, etc. are all examples. I think that, in the end, modern conceptions of human life have not changed that much, just the rituals involved with the end of that life. We still, mostly, believe in the existence of an afterlife, of a spirit/soul, and of evil and purification no matter what faith you follow (or not).

Across cultures, major emphasis is put on the sacred nature of life, and the sacred nature of death and a person’s death ritual is important even in America. Despite the various conflicts between faith, creed, race, ethnicity, etc. major assumptions of life haven’t changed. In fact, I think that the difference in people’s beliefs about death help to preserve the major assumptions about life in a way that is entirely human. The differences make apparent the common elements associated with life in all cultures.

References

H. (2015). 25 Unusual Death Rituals from Around the World. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://cloudmind.info/25-unusual-death-rituals-from-around-the-world/

Sky Burial in Tibet ,Tibetan Funeral Customs. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.tibettravel.org/tibetan-local-customs/tibetan-funeral.html

Wari' (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/wari/865

Women in World History : MODULE 5. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson5/lesson5.php?s=0