funeral customs

Different cultures, different customs

20 June 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: cremation, funeral customs, funeral pyres, open-air cremation

Very interesting photo-essay here about the ghats at Varanasi. Good text, too. 

Sometimes poorer people cannot afford enough wood to completely burn a body. In this case charred body parts are simply flung into the river with the ashes. Certain people, such as small children, pregnant women and holy men, are not cremated at all, but instead simply have their bodies weighted down with stones and are dropped into the Ganges. Not too pleasant for the many bathers around the ghats.

As a solution to the problem of human remains clogging up the Ganges, snapping turtles were bred and released into the river specifically to eat the corpses and bones. A good idea, maybe, but since bodies and body parts are still seen floating around the river today, perhaps not as effective as originally hoped. 

What do Quakers and atheists have in common?

19 June 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funeral customs, Religious funerals

Posted by our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson

You’d think Quakers and atheists were poles apart but I’ve been pondering a similarity. On the surface, Quaker funerals are very different from humanist funerals, and that’s aside from faith in God. The former involves silent reflection and prayer, the latter tends to be dominated by words and music celebrating the life of the deceased. What they share in common is the emphasis on individuality.

Quaker founder George Fox was an earnest Leicestershire lad who rejected parental pressure to become a ‘hireling minister’, as neither the Church of England nor any of the dissenting sects of the 17th century matched his perception of how the Almighty should be worshipped and obeyed.

In response to a dream in which he was told to take a lonely journey in search of the light, he left home with nothing but his Bible, and wandered the country for a few years. Finding no consolations in organised religion, he began accepting his own idiosyncratic imaginings as revelations.

Founding his opinions on isolated Bible texts, he gradually evolved a system at variance with every existing form of Christianity. His central dogma was that of the ‘inner light’, communicated directly to the individual soul by Christ.

Creeds and churches, rites and sacraments were discarded as outward things. Carrying the Protestant doctrine of private judgment to its logical conclusion, even the Scriptures were to be interpreted by the inner light. Inconvenient passages, such as those establishing Baptism and the Eucharist, were interpreted in an allegorical sense, while other passages were insisted upon with a literalness previously unknown.

From the text ‘Swear not at all’, Fox drew the illicitness of oaths, even when demanded by the magistrate. War, even if defensive, was declared unlawful. Art, music, drama, sports, dancing and ornamental attire and interiors were rejected as unbecoming the gravity of a Christian.

As Fox began public preaching, his ideas gained numerous converts. The Society of Friends was born, later called Quakers as a derogatory term. As a growing army of missionaries spread Fox’s word around the world, they made enemies with the establishment and dissenters alike. During the reign of Charles II, thousands of ‘Quakers’ were imprisoned in England. They fared worse in the Puritan colonies in Massachusetts, where members were hanged for heresy.

Due to the excesses of some of his followers, Fox was later compelled to introduce a code of discipline to guide the ‘inner light’. The early Quakers, and those around today, often admit the so-called external, fundamental dogmas of Christianity, as expounded in the Apostle’s Creed. They may reject as non-Scriptural the term Trinity but they confess the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, plus the doctrine of the Redemption and salvation through Christ.

And though Fox dismissed ‘steeple-houses’, he was forced to gather his followers into congregations in meeting houses. They worship without liturgy and in silence until someone is moved by the Spirit to ‘give testimony’, the value of which is gauged by the common sense of the assembly.

In this respect, they certainly differ both from faiths using liturgy-based ceremony, and from secularists, whose services–though individualised–tend to rely on crafted scripts for their structure.  

  

Religious funerals: why Jews bury their dead

23 May 2012
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: funeral customs, funerals in other cultures, Religious funerals
Posted by our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson

The first crematorium to be opened in London, in 1902, is directly opposite Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, opened in 1895. Apart from their Hoop Lane location, they share little in common. Traditional Jews, like traditional Christians and Muslims, believe in burial: and burial only in a Jewish cemetery, with a funeral at which only fellow Jews handle the body, carry the coffin and fill the grave. While Jews, like Christians, are free to lapse and go with the relativist secular flow, orthodox Jewish teaching is absolutely clear on this, whether or not it seems counter-cultural in modern liberal society.

‘Earth you are, and to earth you will return,’ were God’s words to Adam in Genesis. Jews believe the body’s natural decomposition in the earth, the source of all life, is directly commensurate with the soul’s ability to return to its divine root. They hold that the soul does not depart the body immediately, meaning incineration in a furnace would be spiritually traumatic: the soul is in an in-between state when it has no body with which to relate to the world, and is not yet free of its tenuous bonds.

This belief contrasts with the more pragmatic view, held by Buddhists and atheists alike, that upon death what is left is only matter and how remains are treated is of no consequence to the well being of the departed.

As a deterrent to cremation, ashes should not be interred in a Jewish cemetery, and the bereaved are even encouraged to go against the wishes of the deceased if contrary to tradition. Scholarly Rabbi Naftali Silberberg says: ‘While ordinarily Jewish law requires the deceased’s children to go to great lengths to respect the departed’s wishes, if someone requests to be cremated or buried in a manner which is not in accordance with Jewish tradition, we nevertheless provide him/her with a Jewish burial’.

By way of justification, he explains: ‘It is believed that since the soul has now arrived to the World of Truth it surely sees the value of a proper Jewish burial, and thus administering a traditional Jewish burial is actually granting what the person truly wishes at the moment.

‘Furthermore, if anyone, all the more so your father and mother, asks you to damage or hurt their body, you are not allowed to do so. For our bodies do not belong to us, they belong to God’.

The belief that the body is a sacred vessel for the soul, and simply on loan from God, is complemented by the belief that Man was created in God’s image, further strengthening the case against bodily mutilation. These two reasons combine to explain why religious Jews oppose tattoos and piercings, and autopsies and embalming which violate the body’s completeness, defacing it so it cannot be returned in its entirety, as it was given.

As with most laws, there are, however, exceptions. ‘After the Holocaust, many conscientious Jews gathered ashes from the extermination camp crematoria and respectfully buried them in Jewish cemeteries,’ says Silberberg.

He adds: ‘An individual who was raised in a non-religious atmosphere and was never accorded a proper Jewish education cannot be held responsible for his or her lack of observance. This general rule applies to individuals who opt to be cremated because their education and upbringing did not equip them with the knowledge necessary to make an informed choice in this area. This assumption impacts some of the legal results presented’.

While no one would deny the victims of the Nazi death camps the funeral of their faith, some might find the latter clause perhaps offers ‘wriggle room’ too far. Religious doctrine is full of such dilemmas which, on the one hand, demonstrate compassion but, on the other hand, dilute and contradict the absolutes of orthodoxy. If an unschooled Jew is, as a consequence, lapsed, should he/she have a Jewish funeral anyway? And would he/she, and the bereaved family, expect or demand one? When posed with such a question, people invariably ask, ‘What would God say?’

Footnote: The death last year of tattooed Jewish-lite pop star Amy Winehouse illustrates the reality of religious compromise. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium after a Jewish funeral service, and her remains are buried at Edgewarebury Jewish Cemetery.

Next week: Hindu funerals

Kiwi death rites

16 May 2012
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: crematoria, direct cremation, funeral customs, funerals in other cultures

From an article in Stuff.co.nz:

New Zealanders may be shy and reserved, but we hold long, personalised funerals for our loved ones, and show far more emotion than Norwegians, Swedes, English and Scots.

Our funerals lean towards the American style, where everything – down to the cup of tea and biscuits afterwards – is organised by a funeral home.

Auckland researcher Sally Raudon, with the assistance of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust grant, researched death, dying and funerals in New Zealand, and the four other countries.

The results were surprising, given the perceived similarities between the countries, particularly when it came to the time between death and a funeral.

In New Zealand funerals generally happen about three to five days after someone has died.

In England one to three weeks is the norm, and in Stockholm, Sweden, the average interval between death and the funeral is five to six weeks.

And the Swedish do not embalm, she said.

“We embalm almost automatically. That’s because a lot of our funeral directors went to the US in the middle of last century and came back with these techniques to be more professional.”

In New Zealand many people speak, and most ceremonies last about an hour. “When we have a funeral it is not uncommon for someone from the family to talk, maybe a work colleague, someone from a sports club. Sometimes it is like an open mic session. And if it is a young person who has died, it’s common for up to 12 people to talk,” Raudon said.

“Our funerals are very unusual because we focus intimately on the person. New Zealand funerals often bring together all the parts of someone’s life to present a biography.

“We think things like using a celebrant, showing photos of the person and having several people speaking, are normal. But that isn’t what happens in other countries.”

“In Norway and Sweden using photos is frowned on as too personal, and in England they say they don’t have time for that kind of personalisation.

Raudon said there was now a trend in New Zealand at the other end of the emotional scale – direct disposal – where a person could request they be put in a plain casket and taken directly to be cremated, without a funeral service or viewing.

Tamara Linnhoff of the Good Funeral Guide NZ here tells me in an email that  “NZ is still way behind the UK in terms of talking openly about funeral wishes and so the vast majority of families make decisions guided by traditional funeral directors.” 

Find the Stuff.co.nz article here.

Green Light For Tower of Silence In English Seaside Town

1 April 2012
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, bureaucracy, cremation, funeral customs, funeral pyres, funerals in other cultures, open-air cremation, viking funeral

Posted by Charles

In a move which is sending shockwaves through an English tourist resort, council chiefs in Weymouth, Dorset, have given the go-ahead for followers of the Zoroastrian religion to expose the bodies of their dead in the midst of sunbathing holidaymakers.

The down-at-heel, bucket-and-spade seaside town has granted the Zoroastrian Council of Great Britain (ZCGB) controversial planning permission to build a Tower of Silence in a prominent position on its historic seafront. 

 Zoroastrians believe that dead bodies pollute the earth. When they die, their bodies are placed on raised platforms, more correctly known as dakhmas, where they are exposed to the elements and birds of prey. The Weymouth tower will stand 300 feet high and the dead will be brought up to the platform by means of a lift in the central column.

Although the dead bodies will not be visible from the ground, some Weymouth residents are up in arms about the scheme.

Single mother Tracey Brockway said “It’s  disgusting. The whole town will be covered in flies. How can anyone lie on the beach knowing what’s going on up there? As far as I’m concerned this is the last nail in the coffin for Weymouth.”

However, most Weymouth residents are in favour of the tower. In common with many seaside resorts, the town’s tourist trade has been in decline for decades and many have rallied round the council’s initiative.

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s brief holder for Leisure and Tourism, Peter Traskey, said: “Traditional tourist streams are drying up as people increasingly holiday abroad. We need to diversify, and we see multicultural funeral tourism as the future for our town.”

Mr Traskey also gave credence to reports that the council is in discussion with the Hindu community to establish a burning ghat on the quay recently vacated by Condor Ferries. The River Wey is currently undergoing an elaborate consecration process. 

The council is even considering a scheme submitted by the Natural Death Centre to hold spectacular Viking funerals in Weymouth Bay in a Viking longboat made of steel which can be re-used after each open-air cremation. “I think it’s a great idea,” said Traskey. “We are right behind this initiative.”

The RSPB is supporting the Weymouth Tower of Silence. RSPB spokesperson Jonathan Taylor told us, “We anticipate that the region’s dwindling cormorant population will boosted by this important food source.”

Mel Stewart, landlady of the Bon Repos boarding house, told the GFG, “This town has been on its backside (actually she said arse) for years. When the Olympics are over, what will there be for us? I’m doing a complete ethnic refurb and re-naming my place Memories of Mecca. I’m advertising my full Zoroastrian breakfast and funeral teas. These people are going to be a shot in the arm for the local economy.”

Local police chief,  Inspector Richard Honeysett, told us: “We are seeking permission from the ZCGB to detain unconscious drunks and drug addicts on the tower overnight. When they come round and find themselves surrounded by dead bodies it’s going to be a wake-up call for them. “

Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of the ancient empire of the Medes and Persians until it was displaced by Islam. Its devotees found a safe haven in India. The 2010 Census revealed that the number of worshippers in the UK stands at roughly 350,000. 

Weymouth was made famous by King George III, who holidayed there throughout his reign. It is distinguished by its fine Georgian and Regency architecture, and by its public lavatory, which still sports a cannonball fired into it by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army.

The town is held in low esteem by its rugged and dynamic neighbours, the inhabitants of the Isle of Portland, who have never reconciled themselves to their local government partnership with Weymouth, and are holding themselves aloof from the tower initiative.

A salt-caked island fisherman commented, “This tower they’re all talking about — they’re clutching at straws, aren’t they? I’ll tell you what I think of the council. It’s a council of despair.” 

Ahura Massada, a spokesperson for the ZCGB, said, “We have been searching for a site for a Tower of Silence for many past years. On every occasion we have come eyebrow to eyebrow with prejudice. But the people of Weymouth have enfolded us in their bosom, and we thank them from our hearts.” 

In July and August this year, Weymouth will host the Olympic 2012 sailing events. The Tower of Silence is planned to open on 1 April 2013.

Would you book doves for your funeral?

27 March 2012
Charles
18 Comments
Categories: funeral customs

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

I’ve always associated the ritual of releasing white doves with Hello!-funded weddings between footballers and the singers in girl bands. They make a cute photo-op as they flutter from their gilded cage, perfectly colour-co-ordinating with the bride’s gown. They may symbolise love, peace and faith but, at a funeral, might they may be more distracting than moving?

The White Dove Company, which operates across Greater London and the Home Counties, charges £80 for a single dove, £100 for a pair, and then £10 each for additional birds.

It assures concerned customers that its homing doves are fed like prize athletes and undergo training to help them to navigate back to their loft, which can be up to 150 miles away. It also puts minds at rest that the doves will not crap on guests as they ‘like to perch before they mess’.

However, the company warns against releasing doves in fog, rain and sub-zero temperatures. It also berates some rivals for using untrained birds which cannot find their way home.

Spoilsport

20 March 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, funeral customs, funerals in other cultures, Grief

My father told me that he attended a funeral in the parish of Tuosist, in South Kerry, at the turn of the century. As the coffin was being taken in a cart to the local graveyard at Kilmackillogue, three women keeners sat on top of it, howling and wailing at intervals. The parish priest, on horseback, met the funeral near Derreen, a few miles from the graveyard, and rode at its head along the road. As soon as he heard the three women howl loudly , he turned his horse around and trotted back until he reached them, where they sat on the coffin. He started to lash them with his whip, as the cart passed by, and ordered them to be silent. This they did, but on reaching the graveyard, they again took up their wailings, whereupon the priest forced them down from the coffin with his whip. They were afraid to enter the graveyard to howl at the graveside. This put an end to the hiring of keening women in that parish. 

Ó Suilleabháin, 1973

If we can get a better ref for this, we’ll give it to you. Sent in by Phoebe Hoare, to whom we say thank you. 

Victorian deathmyths

8 March 2012
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, funeral customs

Here’s a collection of Victorian superstitions around death and funerals. Of course, everyone didn’t believe all of them but, even so, it’s remarkable (perhaps) how few have survived.

If the deceased has lived a good life, flowers would bloom on his grave; but if he has been evil, only weeds would grow.

If several deaths occur in the same family, tie a black ribbon to everything left alive that enters the house, even dogs and chickens. This will protect against deaths spreading further.

Never wear anything new to a funeral, especially shoes.

You should always cover your mouth while yawning so your spirit doesn’t leave you and the devil never enters your body.

It is bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on. If you see one approching, turn around.  If this is unavoidable, hold on to a button until the funeral cortege passes.

Large drops of rain warn that there has just been a death.

Stop the clock in a death room or you will have bad luck.

To lock the door of your home after a funeral procession has left the house is bad luck.

If rain falls on a funeral procession, the deceased will go to heaven.

If you hear a clap of thunder following a burial it indicates that the soul of the departed has reached heaven.

If you hear 3 knocks and no one is there, it usually means someone close to you has died. The superstitious call this the 3 knocks of death. 

If you leave something that belongs to you to the deceased, that means the person will come back to get you.

If a firefly/lightning bug gets into your house someone will soon die.

If you smell roses when none are around someone is going to die.

 If you don’t hold your breath while going by a graveyard you will not be buried.

If you see yourself in a dream, your death will follow.

If you see an owl in the daytime, there will be a death.

If you dream about a birth, someone you know will die.

If it rains in an open grave then someone in the family will die within the year.

If a bird pecks on your window or crashes into one that there has been a death.

If a sparrow lands on a piano, someone in the home will die.

If a picture falls off the wall, there will be a death of someone you know.

If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the spilt salt over your shoulder to prevent death.

Never speak ill of the dead because they will come back to haunt you or you will suffer misfortune.

Two deaths in the family means that a third is sure to follow.

The cry of a curlew or the hoot of an owl foretells a death.

A single snowdrop growing in the garden foretells a death.

Having only red and white flowers together in a vase (especially in hospital) means a death will soon follow.

Dropping an umbrella on the floor or opening one in the house means that there will be a murder in the house.

A diamond-shaped fold in clean linen portends death.

A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen. It can be reversed by reaching under the bed and turning over a shoe.

All in a state funeral

6 March 2012
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: death and funerals, funeral, funeral customs

Posted by Vale

When is a state funeral not a state funeral?

Back in 2008 there was speculation in the press about plans for a state funeral honouring the life and achievements of Lady Thatcher.

The rumours were denied at the time but have never gone away or stopped being controversial. Look at the reactions to the recent film The Iron Lady. It’s clear that the memory of Lady Thatcher still has the power to stir people up. One conservative commentator has has even argued that she should forego the honour – not because she doesn’t deserve one, but because celebrating her life so publicly would divide rather than unite the nation.

Here at GFG we have no political views. We are aloof. We rise above.

We do recall though that the last PM honoured in this way was Sir Winston Churchill – a great man who was himself not universally loved. And we were intrigued by the epetition that appeared recently on the Direct Government site here. It simply states that ‘we the undersigned believe that’:

In keeping with the great lady’s legacy, Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral should be funded and managed by the private sector to offer the best value and choice for end users and other stakeholders.

The undersigned believe that the legacy of the former PM deserves nothing less and that offering this unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded.

We do not comment on the merits or not of the idea. We do, though, wonder what a privatised ‘state’ funeral might look like?

State funerals are rare. They involve lying in state and a funeral procession in which the coffin is drawn on a gun carriage by sailors from the Royal Navy. Royal Ceremonial Funerals (as for State but minus gun carriage and sailors) happen more frequently. Princess Diana’s and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s funerals’ were Royal Ceremonials.

So what might a ‘private’ state funeral look like? Fewer sailors, but more cars? The cavalcade that took Diana to Althorp would be an example. What could the industry do for Lady Thatcher?

Last Will and Testament

29 February 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral customs, Humour, music

Posted by Vale

The late, very great and much lamented Jake Thackray with his Last Will and Testament. By the way, isn’t You Tube a marvel? This version is awfully close to the black and white On the Braden Beat Saturday night image that flickers in my memory. Astonishing to find it preserved here:

I, the under-mentioned, by this document
Do declare my true intentions, my last will, my testament.
When I turn up my toes, when I rattle my clack, when I agonise,
I want no great wet weepings, no tearing of hair, no wringing of hands,
No sighs, no lack-a-days, no woe-is-me’s and none of your sad adieus.
Go, go, go and get the priest and then go get the booze, boys.

Death, where is thy victory? Grave, where is thy sting?
When I snuff it bury me quickly, then let carousels begin –
But not a do with a few ham sandwiches, a sausage roll or two and “A small port wine, please”.
Roll the carpet right back, get cracking with your old Gay Gordons
And your knees up, shake it up, live it up, sup it up, hell of a kind of a time.
And if the coppers come around, well, tell them the party’s mine, boys.

Let best beef be eaten, fill every empty glass,
Let no breast be beaten, let no tooth be gnashed.
Don’t bother with a fancy tombstone or a big-deal angel or a little copper flower pot:
Grow a dog-rose in my eyes or a pussy-willow
But no forget-me-nots, no epitaphs, no keepsakes; you can let my memory slip.
You can say a prayer or two for me soul then, but – make it quick, boys.

Lady, if your bosom is heaving don’t waste your bosom on me.
Let it heave for a man who’s breathing, a man who can feel, a man who can see.
And to my cronies: you can read my books, you can drive around in my motor car.
And you can fish your trout with my fly and tackle, you can play on my guitar,
And sing my songs, wear my shirts. You can even settle my debts.
You can kiss my little missus if she’s willing then, but – no regrets, boys.

Your rosebuds are numbered;
Gather them now for rosebuds’ sake.
And if your hands aren’t too encumbered
Gather a bud or two for Jake.

If you want to find out more about Jake, there’s lots here.