Death rite
anthropology
Main
any of the ceremonial acts or customs employed at the time of death and
burial.
Throughout history and in every human society, the disposal of the
dead has been given special significance. The practice was originally
motivated not by hygienic considerations but by ideas entertained by
primitive peoples concerning human nature and destiny. This conclusion
is clearly evident from the fact that the disposal of the dead from the
earliest times was of a ritual kind. Paleolithic peoples, such as the
Neanderthals and later groups, not only buried their dead but provided
them with food, weapons, and other equipment, thereby implying a belief
that the dead still needed such things in the grave. This very
significant practice can be traced back to great antiquity, possibly to
about 50,000 bc.
The ritual burial of the dead, which is thus attested from the very
dawn of human culture and which has been practiced in most parts of the
world, stems from an instinctive inability or refusal on the part of man
to accept death as the definitive end of human life. Despite the
horrifying evidence of the physical decomposition caused by death, the
belief has persisted that something of the individual person survives
the experience of dying. In contrast, the idea of personal extinction
through death is a sophisticated concept that was unknown until the 6th
century bc, when it appeared in the metaphysical thought of Indian
Buddhism; it did not find expression in the ancient Mediterranean world
before its exposition by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 bc).
The belief that human beings survive death in some form has
profoundly influenced the thoughts, emotions, and actions of mankind.
The belief occurs in all religions, past and present, and decisively
conditions their evaluations of man and his place in the universe.
Mortuary rituals and funerary customs reflect these evaluations; they
represent also the practical measures taken to assist the dead to
achieve their destiny and sometimes to save the living from the dreaded
molestation of those whom death had transformed into a different state
of being.
Relevant concepts and doctrines » Life and death
The evidence of Paleolithic burials shows that already, in that remote
age, various ideas were held about death and the state of the dead. The
provision of food, ornaments, and tools in the graves implies a general
belief that the dead continued to exist, with the same needs as in this
life. Other customs, however, indicate the currency of a variety of
notions about postmortem existence, particularly about the
potentialities and destiny of the dead. Thus, the presence of red ochre
in some burials suggests the practice of contagious magic: the corpse
had possibly been stained with the colour of blood in order to
revitalize it. The fact that in Paleolithic burials the skeleton has
often been found lying on its side in a crouched position has been
interpreted by some prehistorians as evidence of belief in rebirth, in
that the posture of the corpse imitated the position of the child in the
womb. In some crouched burials, however, there is reason for suspecting
a more sinister motive; for the limbs are sometimes so tightly flexed
that the bodies must have been bound in that position before rigor
mortis set in. Such treatment of the corpse was doubtless prompted by
fear of the dead, for similar customs have been found among later
peoples. Preventive action of this kind has a further significance, for
it implies a belief that the dead might be malevolent and had power to
harm the living.
That death was sometimes regarded as transforming those who
experienced it into a state of being balefully different from that of
those living in this world is evident in later mortuary rites and
customs. Indeed, the proper performance of funerary rites was deemed
essential by many peoples, to enable the dead to depart to the place and
condition to which they properly belonged. Failure to expedite their
departure could have dangerous consequences. Many ancient Mesopotamian
divinatory texts reveal a belief that disease and other misfortunes
could be caused by dead persons deprived of proper burial. The fate of
the unburied dead finds expression in Greek and Roman literature. The
idea that the dead had to cross some barrier that divided the land of
the living from that of the dead also occurs in many religions: the
Greeks and Romans believed that the dead were ferried across an infernal
river, the Acheron or Styx, by a demonic boatman called Charon, for
whose payment a coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased; in
Zoroastrianism the dead cross the Bridge of the Requiter (Činvato
Paratu); bridges figure also in Muslim and Scandinavian eschatologies
(speculations concerning the end of the world and the afterlife)—the
Ṣirāṭ bridge and the bridge over the Gjöll River (Gjallarbrú)—and
Christian folklore knew of a Brig o’ Dread, or Brig o’ Death.
It is significant that in few religions has death been regarded as a
natural event. Instead, it has generally been viewed as resulting from
the attack of some demonic power or death god: in Etruscan sepulchral
art a fearsome being called Charun strikes the deathblow, and medieval
Christian art depicted the skeletal figure of Death with a dart. In many
mythologies death is represented as resulting from some primordial
mischance. According to Christian theology, death entered the world
through the original sin committed by Adam and Eve, the progenitors of
mankind.
Relevant concepts and doctrines » Human substance and nature
The conception of death in most religions is closely related to the
particular view held about the constitution of human nature. Two major
traditions of interpretation have provided the basic assumptions of
religious eschatologies and have often found expression in mortuary
rituals and funerary practice. The more primitive of these
interpretations has been based on an integralistic evaluation of human
nature. Thus, the individual person has been conceived as a
psychophysical organism, of which both the material and the nonmaterial
constituents are essential in order to maintain a properly integrated
personal existence. From such an evaluation it has followed that death
is the fatal shattering of personal existence. Although some constituent
element of the living person has been deemed to survive this
disintegration, it has not been regarded as conserving the essential
self or personality. The consequences of this estimate of human nature
can be seen in the eschatologies of many religions. The ancient
Mesopotamians, Hebrews, and Greeks, for example, thought that after
death only a shadowy wraith descended to the realm of the dead, where it
existed miserably in dust and darkness. Such a conception of man, in
turn, has meant that, where the possibility of an effective afterlife
has been envisaged, as in ancient Egyptian religion, Judaism,
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islām, the idea of a reconstitution or
resurrection of the body has also been involved; for it has been deemed
essential to restore the psychophysical complex of personality. In
Egypt, most notably, provision was made for the eventual reconstitution
in an elaborate mortuary ritual which included the mummification of the
corpse to preserve it from disintegration.
The alternative view of human nature may be termed dualistic. It
conceives of the individual person as comprising an inner essential self
or soul, which is nonmaterial, and a physical body. In many religions
based on this view of human nature, the soul is regarded as being
essentially immortal and as existing before the body was formed. Its
incarnation in the body is interpreted as a penalty incurred for some
primordial sin or error. At death the soul leaves the body, and its
subsequent fate is determined by the manner in which it has fulfilled
what the particular religion concerned has prescribed for the
achievement of salvation. This view of human nature and destiny finds
most notable expression in Hinduism and, in a subtly qualified sense, in
Buddhism; it was also taught in such mystical cults and philosophies of
the Greco-Roman world as Orphism (an ancient Greek mystical movement
with a significant emphasis on death), Gnosticism (an early system of
thought that viewed spirit as good and matter as evil), Hermeticism (a
Hellenistic esoteric, occultic movement), and Manichaeism (a system of
thought founded by Mani in ancient Iran).
Relevant concepts and doctrines » Forms of survival
The conception of human nature held in any religion has, accordingly,
determined the manner or mode in which postmortem survival has been
envisaged. Where the body has been regarded as an essential constituent
of personal existence, belief in a significant afterlife has inevitably
entailed the idea of the reconstitution of the decomposed corpse and its
resurrection to life. In turn, a dualistic conception of human nature,
which regards the soul as intrinsically nonmaterial and immortal,
envisages postmortem life in terms of the disembodied existence of the
soul. This dualistic conception, in many religions, has also involved
the idea of rebirth or reincarnation. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Orphism
this idea has inspired a cyclical view of the time process and produced
esoteric explanations of how the soul becomes reborn into a physical
body, whether human or animal.
Relevant concepts and doctrines » The ultimate destiny of the dead
Belief in postmortem survival has been productive also of a variety of
images concerning the destiny of the dead. This imagery is closely
related to the conception of man that is held in each religion. Thus,
the magical resuscitation of the dead in ancient Egypt was designed to
enable them to live forever in their well-furnished tombs; according to
Christian and Islāmic belief, God will ultimately raise the dead with
their physical bodies and assess their merits for eternal bliss in
heaven or everlasting torment in hell; the Buddhist concept of Nirvāṇa
(Enlightenment) is achieved only when the individual has eradicated all
desire for existence in the empirical world.
Patterns of myth and symbol » Geography of the afterlife
Inhumation naturally prompted the idea that the dead lived beneath the
ground. The mortuary cults of many peoples indicate that the dead were
imagined as actually residing in their tombs and able to receive the
offerings of food and drink made to them; e.g., some graves in ancient
Crete and Ugarit (Ras Shamra) were equipped with pottery conduits, from
the surface, for libations. Often, however, the grave has been thought
of as an entrance to a vast, subterranean abode of the dead. In some
religions this underworld has been conceived as an immense pit or
cavern, dark and grim (e.g., the Mesopotamian kur-nu-gi-a [“land of no
return”], the Hebrew Sheol, the Greek Hades, and the Scandinavian Hel).
Sometimes it is ruled by an awful monarch, such as the Mesopotamian god
Nergal or the Greek god Hades, or Pluto, or the Yama of Hindu and
Buddhist eschatology. According to the view of man’s nature and destiny
held in a particular religion, this underworld may be a gloomy, joyless
place where the shades of all the dead merely survive, or it may be
pictured as a place of awful torments where the damned suffer for their
misdeeds. In those religions in which the underworld has been conceived
as a place of postmortem retribution, the idea of a separate abode of
the blessed dead became necessary. Such an abode has various locations.
In most religions it is imagined as being in the sky or in a divine
realm beyond the sky (e.g., in Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and
Buddhism); sometimes it has been conceived as the “Isles of the Blessed”
(e.g., in Greek and Celtic mythology) or as a beautiful garden or
paradise, such as the al-firdaws of Islām. Christian eschatology, which
came to conceive of both an immediate judgment and a final judgment,
developed the idea of a purgatory, where the dead expiated their venial
sins in readiness for the final judgment. Although the dead suffered
there in a disembodied state, because their bodies would not be
resurrected until the last day, the purifying flames of purgatory were
usually regarded as burning in a physical sense, as Dante’s Purgatorio
vividly shows. The idea of a postmortem purgatory had been adumbrated in
the 1st and 2nd centuries bc in Jewish apocalyptic literature (I Enoch
22:9–13). The ten hells of Chinese Buddhist eschatology may be
considered as purgatories, for in them the dead expiated their sins
before being incarnated once more in this world.
Patterns of myth and symbol » Means of approach to the afterworld
The idea that the dead had to make a journey to the otherworld, to which
they belonged, finds expression in many religions. The oldest evidence
occurs in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts (c. 2375–c. 2200 bc). The journey
is conceived under various images. The dead pharaoh flies up to heaven
to join the sun-god Re, in his solar boat, on his unceasing voyage
across the sky, or he joins the circumpolar stars, known as the
“Imperishable Ones,” or he ascends a ladder to join the gods in heaven.
Later Egyptian funerary texts depict the way to the next world as beset
by awful perils: fearsome monsters, lakes of fire, gates that cannot be
passed except by the use of magical formulas, and a sinister ferryman
whose evil intent must be thwarted by magic. The idea of crossing water
en route to the otherworld, which first appears in Egyptian eschatology,
occurs in the eschatological topography of other religions, as was noted
above. Many mythologies describe journeys to the underworld; they
invariably reflect the fear felt for the grim experience that was
believed to await the dead. Ancient Mesopotamian literature records the
visit of the goddess Ishtar to the realm of the dead, the way to which
was barred by gates. At each gate the goddess was deprived of some
article of her attire, so that she was naked when she finally came
before Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld. It is possible that this
successive stripping of the celestial goddess was meant to symbolize the
stripping away of the attributes of life that the dead experienced as
they descended into the “land of no return.” An 8th-century Japanese
text, the Koji-ki, tells of the first contact with death experienced by
the primordial pair, Izanagi and Izanami. When his wife died, Izanagi
descended to Yomi, the underworld of darkness, to bring her back. His
request was granted by the gods of Yomi, on condition that he did not
look at her in the underworld. Impatiently he struck a light and was
horrified to see her as a decomposed corpse. He fled in terror and
disgust. Blocking the entrance to Yomi with a great rock, he then sought
desperately to purify himself from the contagion of death.
Such myths doubtless reflect an instinctive feeling that death works
an awful change in those who experience it. The dead cease to belong to
the world of the living and become uncanny and dangerous: hence, their
departure to the world of the dead must be expedited. To assist that
grim journey, various aids have been provided. Thus, on some Egyptian
coffins of the 11th dynasty, a plan of the “Two Ways” to the underworld
was painted, and from the New Kingdom period (c. 1567–1085 bc), copies
of the Book of the Dead, containing spells for dealing with perils
encountered en route, were placed in the tombs. Orphic communities in
southern Italy and Crete provided their dead with directions about the
next world by inscribing them on gold laminae deposited in the graves.
Advice about dying was given to medieval Christians in a book entitled
Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”) and to Tibetan Buddhists in the Bardo
Thödol (“Book of the Dead”). Chinese Buddhists were informed in popular
prints of what to expect as they passed after death through the ten
hells to their next incarnation. More practical equipment for the
journey to the next world was provided for the Greek and Roman dead: in
addition to the money to pay Charon for their passage across the Styx,
they were provided with honey cakes for Cerberus, the fearsome dog that
guarded the entrance to Hades.
Patterns of myth and symbol » Forms of final determination
Those religions that have taught the possibility of a happy afterlife
have also devised forms of postmortem testing of merit for eternal
bliss. Ancient Egypt has the distinction of conceiving of a judgment of
the dead of an essentially moral kind. This conception finds graphic
expression in the vignettes that illustrate the Book of the Dead. The
heart of the deceased is represented as being weighed against the symbol
of Maat (Truth) in the presence of Osiris, the god of the dead. A
monster named Am-mut (Eater of the Dead) awaits an adverse verdict. The
judgment of the dead as conceived in other religions (e.g.,
Christianity, Islām, Zoroastrianism, Orphism) is basically a test of
orthodoxy or ritual status, although moral qualities were included to
varying degrees. The Last Judgment, as presented in Jewish apocalyptic
literature, was essentially a vindication of Israel against its Gentile
oppressors. Religions that held no promise of a significant afterlife
(e.g., those of ancient Mesopotamia and classical Greece) had no place
for a judgment of the dead.
Death and funerary rites and customs » Before and at death
The process of dying and the moment of death have been regarded as
occasions of the gravest crisis in many religions. The dying must be
especially prepared for the awful experience. In China, for example, the
head of a dying person was shaved, his body was washed and his nails
pared, and he was placed in a sitting position to facilitate the exit of
the soul. After the death, relatives and friends called the soul to
return, possibly to make certain whether its departure from the body was
definitive. Muslim custom decrees that the dying be placed facing the
holy city of Mecca. In Catholic Christianity, great care is devoted to
preparing for a “good death.” The dying person makes his last confession
to a priest and receives absolution; then he is anointed with
consecrated oil: the rite is known as “anointing of the sick” (formerly
called extreme unction). According to medieval Christian belief, the
last moments of life were the most critical, for demons lurked about the
deathbed ready to seize the unprepared soul as it emerged with the last
breath.
Death and funerary rites and customs » Modes of preparation of the
corpse and attendant rites
After death, it has been the universal custom to prepare the corpse for
final disposal. Generally, this preparation has included its washing and
dressing in special garments and sometimes its public exposure. In some
religions this preparation is accompanied by rites designed to protect
the deceased from demonic attack; sometimes the purpose of the rites has
been to guard the living from the contagion of death or the malice of
the dead; for it has often been believed that the soul continues to
remain about the body until burial or cremation. The most elaborate
known preparation of the dead took place in ancient Egypt. Because the
Egyptians believed that the body was essential for a proper afterlife, a
complex process of ritual embalmment was established. This process was
intended not only to preserve the corpse from physical disintegration
but also to reanimate it. The rites were based upon the belief that,
because the dead body of the god Osiris had been preserved from
decomposition and raised to life again by the gods, the magical
assimilation of a dead person to Osiris and the ritual enacting of what
the gods had done would achieve a similar miracle of resurrection. One
of the most significant of these ritual transactions was the “opening of
the mouth,” which was designed to restore to the mummified body its
ability to see, breathe, and take nourishment.
Mummification in cruder forms has been practiced elsewhere (notably
in Peru), but not with the same complex motives as in Egypt. The
preparation of the corpse has also frequently included the placing on or
in it of magical amulets; these were variously intended to protect or
vitalize the corpse. Evidence found in tombs of the Shang dynasty (c.
1766–c. 1122 bc) suggests that the Chinese placed life-prolonging
substances, such as jade, in the orifices of the corpse. Crosses or
crucifixes are frequently placed upon the Christian dead, and sometimes
in the Middle Ages the consecrated bread of the Eucharist (the Lord’s
Supper) was buried with the body. It has also been a Christian custom to
furnish a dead priest with a chalice and paten, the instruments of his
sacerdotal office.
Death and funerary rites and customs » Modes of disposal of the corpse
and attendant rites
The form of the disposal of the dead most generally used throughout the
world in both the past and present has been burial in the ground. The
practice of inhumation (burial) started in the Paleolithic era,
doubtless as the most natural and simplest way of disposal. Whether it
was then prompted by any esoteric motive, such as the return to the womb
of Mother Earth, as has been suggested, cannot be proved. Among some
later peoples, who have believed that primordial man was formed out of
earth, it may have been deemed appropriate that the dead should be
buried—the idea found classical expression in the divine pronouncement
to Adam, recorded in Genesis 3:19: “You are dust, and to dust you shall
return.” There is evidence that in ancient Crete the dead were believed
to serve a great goddess, who was the source of fertility and life in
the world above and who nourished and protected the dead in the earth
beneath.
The mode of burial has varied greatly. Sometimes the body has been
laid directly in the earth, with or without clothes and funerary
equipment. It may be placed in either an extended or crouched position:
the latter posture seems to have been more usual in prehistoric burials.
Sometimes evidence of a traditional orientation of the corpse in the
grave can be distinguished, which may relate to the direction in which
the land of the dead was thought to lie. The use of coffins of various
substances dates from the early 3rd millennium bc in Sumer and Egypt.
Intended probably at first to protect and add dignity to the corpse,
coffins became important adjuncts in the mortuary rituals of many
religions. Their ritual use is most notable in ancient Egypt, where the
mummies of important persons were often enclosed in several human-shaped
coffins and then deposited in large, rectangular wooden coffins or stone
sarcophagi. The interiors and exteriors of these coffins were used for
the inscription of magical texts and symbols. Sarcophagi, elaborately
carved with mythological scenes of mortuary significance, became
fashionable among the wealthier classes of Greco-Roman society. Similar
sarcophagi, carved with Christian scenes, came into use among Christians
in the 4th and 5th centuries and afford rich iconographic evidence of
the contemporary Christian attitude to death.
In the ancient Near East, the construction of stone tombs began in
the 3rd millennium bc and inaugurated a tradition of funerary
architecture that has produced such diverse monuments as the pyramids of
Egypt, the Tāj Mahal, and the mausoleum of Lenin in Red Square, Moscow.
The tomb was originally intended to house and protect the dead. In Egypt
it was furnished to meet the needs of its magically resuscitated inmate,
sometimes even to the provision of toilet facilities. Among many
peoples, the belief that the dead actually dwelt in their tombs has
caused the tombs of certain holy persons to become shrines, which
thousands visit to seek for miracles of healing or to earn religious
merit; notable examples of such centres of pilgrimage are the tombs of
St. Peter in Rome, of Muḥammad at Medinah, and, in ancient times, the
tomb of Imhotep at Ṣaqqārah, in Egypt.
The disposal of the corpse has been, universally, a ritual occasion
of varying degrees of complexity and religious concern. Basically, the
funeral consists of conveying the deceased from his home to the place of
burial or cremation. This act of transportation has generally been made
into a procession of mourners who lament the deceased, and it has often
afforded an opportunity of advertising his wealth, status, or
achievements. Many depictions of ancient Egyptian funerary processions
graphically portray the basic pattern: the embalmed body of the deceased
is borne on an ornate sledge, on which sit two mourning women. A priest
precedes the bier, pouring libations and burning incense. In the cortege
are groups of male mourners and lamenting women, and servants carry the
funerary furniture, which indicates the wealth of the dead man. Ancient
Roman funerary processions were notable for the parade of ancestors’
death masks. In Islāmic countries, friends carry the corpse on an open
bier, generally followed by women relatives, lamenting with disheveled
hair, and hired mourners. After a service in the mosque, the body is
interred with its right side toward Mecca. In Hinduism the funeral
procession is made to the place of cremation. It is preceded by a man
carrying a firebrand kindled at the domestic hearth; a goat is sometimes
sacrificed en route, and the mourners circumambulate the corpse, which
is carried on a bier. Cremation is a ritual act, governed by careful
prescriptions. The widow crouches by the pyre, on which in ancient times
she sometimes died. After cremation, the remains are gathered and often
deposited in sacred rivers.
Christian funerary ritual reached its fullest development in medieval
Catholicism and was closely related to doctrinal belief, especially that
concerning purgatory. Hence, the funerary ceremonies were invested with
a sombre character that found visible expression in the use of black
vestments and candles of unbleached wax and the solemn tolling of the
church bell. The rites consisted of five distinctive episodes. The
corpse was carried (in a coffin if one could be afforded) to the church
in a doleful cortege of clergy and mourners, with the intoning of psalms
and the purificatory use of incense. The coffin was deposited in the
church and covered with a black pall, and the Office of the Dead was
recited or sung, with the constant repetition of the petition: “Eternal
rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.”
Next, requiem mass was said or sung, with the sacrifice offered for the
repose of the soul of the deceased. After the mass followed the
“Absolution” of the dead person, in which the coffin was solemnly
perfumed with incense and sprinkled with holy water. The corpse was then
carried to consecrated ground and buried, while appropriate prayers were
recited by the officiating priest. Changes in these rites, including the
use of white vestments and the recitation of prayers emphasizing the
notions of hope and joy, were introduced into the Catholic liturgy only
following the second Vatican Council (1962–65).
In some societies the burial of the dead has been accompanied by
human sacrifice, with the intention either to propitiate the spirit of
the deceased or to provide him with companions or servants in the next
world. A classic instance of such propitiatory sacrifice occurs in
Homer’s Iliad (xxiii:175–177): 12 young Trojans were slaughtered and
burned on the funeral pyre of the Greek hero Patroclus. The royal graves
excavated at the Sumerian city of Ur, dating c. 2700 bc, revealed that
retinues of servants and soldiers had been buried with their royal
masters. Evidence of a similar Chinese practice has been found in
Shang-dynasty graves (12th to 11th centuries bc) at An-yang. In ancient
Egypt models of servants, placed in tombs, were designed to be magically
animated to serve their masters in the afterlife. A particular type of
these models, known as an ushabti (“answerer”), was inscribed with
chapter VI of the Book of the Dead, commanding it to answer for the
deceased owner if he were required to do service in the next world.
The custom has also existed among some peoples of dismembering the
body for burial or subsequently disinterring the bones for storage in
some form. There is Paleolithic evidence of a cult of skulls, which
suggests that the rest of the body was not ritually buried. The
Egyptians removed the viscera, which were preserved separately in four
canopic jars. The Romans observed the curious rite of the os resectum:
after cremation a severed finger joint was buried, probably as a symbol
of an earlier custom of inhumation. In medieval Europe the heart and
sometimes the intestines of important persons were buried in separate
places: e.g., the body of William the Conqueror was buried in St.
Étienne at Caen, but his heart was left to Rouen Cathedral and his
entrails for interment in the church of Chalus. To be noted also is the
Zoroastrian and Parsi custom of exposing corpses on dakhmas (“towers of
silence”) to be devoured by birds of prey, thus to avoid polluting earth
or air by burial or cremation.
The alternative use of inhumation or cremation for the disposal of
the corpse cannot be interpreted as generally denoting a difference of
view about the fate of the dead. In India, cremation was indeed
connected with the fire god Agni, but cremation does not necessarily
indicate that the soul was thus freed to ascend to the sky. Burial has
been the more general practice, whether the abode of the dead be located
under the earth or in the heavens.
Death and funerary rites and customs » Post-funerary rites and customs
Funerary rites do not usually terminate with the disposal of the corpse
either by burial or cremation. Post-funerary ceremonies and customs may
continue for varying periods; they have generally had two not
necessarily mutually exclusive motives: to mourn the dead and to purify
the mourners. The mourning of the dead, especially by near relatives,
has taken many forms. The wearing of old or colourless dress, either
black or white, the shaving of the hair or letting it grow long and
unkempt, and abstention from amusements have all been common practice.
The meaning of such action seems evident: grief felt for the loss of a
dear relative or friend naturally expresses itself in forms of
self-denial. But the purpose may sometimes have been intended to divert
the ill humour of the dead from those who still enjoyed life in this
world.
The purification of mourners has been the other powerful motive in
much post-funerary action. Death being regarded as baleful, all who came
in contact with it were contaminated thereby. Consequently, among many
peoples, various forms of purification have been prescribed, chiefly
bathing and fumigation. Parsis are especially intent also on cleansing
the room in which the death occurred and all articles that had contact
with the dead body.
In some post-funerary rituals, dancing and athletic contests have had
a place. The dancing seems to have been inspired by various but
generally obscure motives. There is some evidence that Egyptian mortuary
dances were intended to generate a vitalizing potency that would benefit
the dead. Dances among other peoples suggest the purpose of warding off
the (evil) spirits of the dead. Funeral games would seem to have been,
in essence, prophylactic assertions of vitalizing energy in the presence
of death. It has been suggested that the funeral games of the Etruscans,
which involved the shedding of blood, had also a sacrificial
significance.
Another widespread funerary custom has been the funeral banquet,
which might be held in the presence of the corpse before burial or in
the tomb-chapel (in ancient Rome) or on the return of the mourners to
the home of the deceased. The purpose behind these meals is not clear,
but they seem originally to have been of a ritual character. Two curious
instances of mortuary eating may be mentioned in this connection. There
was an old Welsh custom of “sin eating”: food and drink were handed
across the corpse to a man who undertook thereby to ingest the sins of
the deceased. In Bavaria, Leichennudeln, or “corpse cakes,” were placed
upon the dead body before baking. By consuming these cakes, the kinsmen
were supposed to absorb the virtues and abilities of their deceased
relatives.
A remarkable post-funerary custom has been observed in Islām; it is
known as the Chastisement of the Tomb. It is believed that, on the night
following the burial, two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, enter the tomb. They
question the deceased about his faith. If his answers are correct, the
angels open a door in the side of the tomb for him to pass to repose in
paradise. If the deceased fails his grisly interrogation, he is terribly
beaten by the angels, and his torment continues until the end of the
world and the final judgment. In preparation for this awful examination
the roof of the tomb is constructed to enable the deceased to sit up;
and, immediately after burial, a man known as a fiqī (or faqih) is
employed to instruct the dead in the right answers.
Cults and memorials of the dead » Commemorative rites and services
The attitude of the living toward the dead has also been conditioned by
the particular belief held about the human nature and destiny. Where
death is regarded as the virtual extinction of the personality, the dead
should logically have no more importance beyond that which their memory
might stir in those who knew them. Even in the negative eschatologies of
ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, however, the dead were thought of as
still existent and capable of malevolent action if food offerings were
not made to them. In those religions that have envisaged a more positive
afterlife, the tendance of the dead has been developed in varying ways.
In Egypt, it led to the building and endowment of mortuary temples or
chapels, in which portrait images preserved the memory of the dead and
offerings of food and drink were regularly made. In China, an elaborate
ancestor cult flourished. The ancestral shrine contained tablets,
inscribed with the names of ancestors, which were revered and before
which offerings were made. The number of tablets displayed in the shrine
was determined by the social status of the family. When the tablet of a
newly deceased member was added to the collection, the oldest tablet was
deposited in a chest containing still older ones: offerings to the
remoter ancestors were made collectively at longer intervals. In India,
three generations of deceased ancestors are venerated at the monthly
śrāddha festival, at which mortuary offerings were made.
The Christian cult of the dead found early expression in the
catacombs, where mural paintings and inscriptions record the names of
those buried there and the hopes of eternal peace and felicity that
inspired them. Special chapels were made where the bodies of martyrs
were entombed, and the anniversaries of their martyrdoms were
commemorated by the celebration of the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper).
The development of cults of martyrs and other saints in the medieval
church centred on the veneration of their relics, which were often
divided among several churches. The introduction of the doctrine of
purgatory profoundly affected the postmortem care devoted to the
ordinary dead. It was believed that the offering of the sacrifice of the
mass could alleviate the sufferings of departed souls in purgatory.
Consequently, the celebration of masses for the dead proliferated, and
wealthy Christians endowed monasteries or chantry chapels where masses
were said regularly for the repose of their own souls or those of their
relatives. Prayers for the well-being of the dead have an important
place in Mahāyāna Buddhism, and so-called “masses for the dead” were
celebrated by Chinese Buddhists, influenced originally perhaps by the
practice of the Nestorian Christians, who entered China in the 7th
century ad.
In many religions, in addition to private cults of the dead, periodic
commemorations of the dead have been kept. The oldest of the Hindu
sacred texts, the Rigveda (Ṛgveda), records the practice of the ancient
Aryan invaders of India. The sacred beverage called soma was set out on
“the sacred grass,” and the ancestors were invited to ascend from their
subterranean abode to partake of it and to bless their pious
descendants. A similar ceremony, called the Anthesteria, was held in
ancient Athens. On the day concerned, the souls of the dead (kēres) were
believed to leave their tombs and revisit their former homes, where food
was prepared for them. At sundown they were solemnly dismissed to the
underworld with the formula: “out, kēres, the Anthesteria is ended.”
Buddhist China kept a Feast of Wandering Souls each year, designed to
help unfortunate souls suffering in the next world. The Christian All
Souls’ Day, on November 2, which follows directly after All Saints’ Day,
commemorates all the ordinary dead: requiem masses are celebrated for
their repose, and in many Catholic countries relatives visit the graves
and place lighted candles on them. After World War I the public
commemoration of the fallen was instituted on November 11, the day of
the armistice in 1918, in many of the countries concerned: the memory of
the dead was solemnly recalled in a two-minute silence during the
ceremony. The body of an unknown soldier, killed in the fighting, was
also buried in the capital cities of many countries and has become the
accepted focus of national reverence and devotion.
Cults and memorials of the dead » Cult of the dead
Among many peoples it has been the custom to preserve the memory of the
dead by images of them placed upon their graves or tombs, usually with
some accompanying inscription recording their names and often their
achievements. This sepulchral iconography began in Egypt, the portrait
statue of King Djoser (second king of the 3rd dynasty [c. 2686–c. 2613
bc]), found in the serdab (worship chamber; from the Arabic word for
cellar) of the Step Pyramid being the oldest known example. The Egyptian
images, however, had a magical purpose: they not only recorded the
features of the deceased but also provided a locus for his ka, the
mysterious entity that constituted an essential element of the
personality. The sculptured gravestones of classical Athens deserve
special notice, for they are among the noblest products of funerary art.
They are expressive of a restrained grief for those who had departed to
the virtual extinction of Hades. The deceased are often shown performing
some familiar act for the last time. The inscriptions are very brief and
usually record only the name and parentage; sometimes the word farewell
is added. Etruscan mortuary art is characterized by the effigy of the
deceased, sometimes with his wife, represented as reclining on the cover
of the funerary casket. These images are obviously careful portraits,
but whether they had some magical use as substitute bodies or are only
commemorative is unknown. Roman funerary images seem to have been
essentially commemorative, as were those of Palmyra.
Christianity has provided the richest legacy of funerary monuments.
In the catacomb art of the 4th and 5th centuries, the deceased was
sometimes depicted on the plaster covering of the niche in which his
body was laid. From the early Middle Ages onward, the more affluent dead
were represented in sculptured effigy or engraved in outline on stone or
brass. In this tomb iconography, they are shown in a variety of
postures: lying, kneeling, seated, standing, and sometimes on horseback.
They are generally presented in the dress appropriate to their office or
social standing: kings wear crowns, knights their armour; bishops are in
copes and mitres and ladies in the fashionable attire of the day. This
iconography is patently commemorative of the appearance in life, the
achievements, and the status of the persons concerned. In the later
Middle Ages, however, there was a remarkable innovation in this funerary
art, which was designed to emphasize the horror and degradation of
death. In what are known as memento mori tombs, below the effigies of
the deceased as they were in life, there were placed effigies of their
naked decaying corpses or skeletons. Such tomb sculpture reflected a
contemporary obsession with the corruption of death.
Psychological and sociological aspects of death
The Paleolithic burials reveal that the pattern of man’s reaction to the
fact and phenomena of death has been set from the dawn of culture.
Unlike the other animals, man has been unable to ignore the mysterious
cessation of activity and lapse of consciousness that cause his body to
decay and befall members of his own kind. Death has, accordingly,
constituted a problem for man, and he has felt impelled to take special
action to cope with it. The pattern of his reaction has been twofold:
confronted with the deaths of his companions, he has recognized an
obligation to attend to their needs as he has conceived them, believing
that they continued to exist in some form, either in the grave or in an
underworld to which the grave gave access. But man’s concern with death
has not been confined to his tendance of the dead; for in the deaths of
his fellows he has seen a presage of his own demise. This anticipation
on the part of the living of the experience of dying has been a factor
of immense psychological and social import. It is essentially a human
characteristic; it stems from a consciousness of time, of which the
immense cultural significance is only now beginning to be properly
evaluated.
Awareness of time in its three categories of past, present, and
future has decisively contributed to man’s success in the struggle for
existence. For it has enabled him to draw upon past experience in the
present to anticipate future needs. Thus, from the making of the first
stone tools to the complex structure of his modern technological
civilization, man has sought by planning to render himself economically
secure and to improve the standard of his living. But his time
consciousness, which has made this immense achievement possible, is an
ambivalent endowment. For, although it has enabled man to win economic
security, it has also made him acutely aware of his own mortality and
the inevitability of his own demise. Hence, his anticipation of death
presents him with a profound emotional challenge, unknown to other
species. The repercussions of this challenge can be traced in almost
every aspect of his social and cultural life; but it is in his religions
that man’s reaction to death finds its most significant expression. All
religion is concerned with postmortem security—with linking mortal man
to an eternal realm—whether it be achieved by ritual magic, divine
assistance, or mystic enlightenment.
Modern notions of death » Continuation of traditional responses
Religious rites and customs continue to be practiced, because of
conservatism, long after the ideas and beliefs that originally inspired
them may be forgotten or abandoned. This is particularly true with
regard to rites and customs pertaining to death. It is difficult to
assess to what extent in the more sophisticated societies of the modern
world the traditional eschatologies are still effectively held. Although
a general skepticism obviously manifests itself toward the medieval
imagery of death and judgment, of purgatory, heaven, and hell, modern
modes of thinking have not lessened the mystery of death and its impact
on the emotions. Indeed, in modern society, where expectation of life
has been prolonged and standards of living raised, the negation of death
is probably felt more keenly and also more hopelessly than in any other
age.
Modern notions of death » Avowed secular inattention and unconcern
The reaction to death most apparent today among those having no
effective religious faith is that of seeking to treat it as a
disagreeable happening that must be dealt with as quickly and
unobtrusively as possible. Funerals are no longer elaborately organized,
mourning attire is rarely worn, and graveyards are landscaped, thus
discreetly removing the earlier memorials of death. The increasing use
of cremation facilitates this disposition to reduce the social intrusion
of death and banish the traditional grave as a reminder of human
mortality.
Modern notions of death » Rites and customs among secular materialists
It is significant, however, that, even where secularist principles are
consciously professed, the dead are rarely disposed of without some
semblance of ceremony. A deeply rooted feeling prompts most people to
treat a dead human body with a respect that is not felt for a dead
animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages to the graves
of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great effort is
being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those who
died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of
Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s and, if possible, to bring their
ashes there. In America, morticians strive to preserve the features of
the dead as did the embalmers of ancient Egypt, though for somewhat
different motives. Finally, as further evidence of modern preoccupation
with death, it may be noted that, in Western society, Spiritualism
witnesses to a widespread desire to have communication with the dead,
and recently, in England, there has even been a recrudescence of
necromancy.
The Rev. Samuel G.F. Brandon
