funeral customs

Shouldering responsibility

10 March 2011
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: ceremony, coffins, funeral customs

You will have your own feelings about a coffin being carried on shoulders of undertakers.

It unsettles me. I don’t like to see those big men in black macs in such a close relationship with the body. It wouldn’t do for any of mine. I don’t want men I’ve never met carrying anyone of mine.

That’s a point of view, and points of view are not prescriptive. Lots of people like to see a coffin shouldered in this traditional and dignified way, and I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong. But I would be perfectly happy to expand on my disinclination.

There is obvious symbolism in raising high the dead person. But to rest the weight on one shoulder? Bio-mechanically speaking, it’s not a sensible thing to do. Spines hate it. It would make much better physical sense for bearers to carry the coffin on the tops of their heads in much the same way African women carry water pots. But that would look wrong, would it?

Sure, you don’t need to be a skilled bearer to hang on safely to a shouldered coffin. Rookies do it all the time, clinging in some terror to the jacket on the other side. But whoever does it, it doesn’t look comfortable. It looks hesitant and a bit wobbly, especially going up steps or through doors. Bio-mechanics are against it. It’s against nature. It’s also against women. How often do you see a woman shouldering a coffin?

I like to see family members and friends carry a coffin – if there are enough of them. I’d go so far as to say that it’s a duty owed. In life, in death, in the words of the U2 song, ‘We get to / Carry each other.’ Carrying the coffin is something people who don’t deliver eulogies, read poems, arrange flowers, can do. A good funeral is one where people shoulder responsibility and do as much of what needs to be done as they can. Taking the weight is in itself symbolic.

But a coffin needs to be carried at arm’s length. That way, everyone can join in. Women, children, the old. Four or five down each side, one at the head and another at the foot, some perhaps only making physical contact. In relays, if necessary, as they still do in parts of Scotland.

It creates a much better mood. In my opinion.

Fogey funerals

1 February 2011
Charles
14 Comments
Categories: funeral, funeral customs, funeral trends, funerals in other cultures

There are two ways of looking at it – aren’t there always? Either funerals, by loosening up, jettisoning the f-word and calling themselves celebrations of life, are becoming more meaningful, more expressive of what people want to express; or they have become merely conventions of gaudily-clad denialists engaged in an altogether silly and fruitless buck-u-uppo displacement activity.

Wherever the truth lies we have reached a pass – it’s a sign of progress – where certain folk are going to dig their heels in, wind back the clock and go for something retro.

Blogger Matt Archbold (thanks for this link, Pam Vetter) is a Catholic and he wants to restore the oft-dropped tradition of praying for souls in Purgatory (well, his soul, anyway). Active interventions by the living to ensure the wellbeing of their dead, practised to the max by the excellent Hmong, died out with the Churches’ downgrading of Purgatory and the Other Place. All sorts of theological reasons. They don’t seem to be consistent with a loving and merciful God, do they, Purgatory and Hell? As for Protestants, they are taught that salvation is down to whether or not you deserve it. No amount of cheering from the touchline can possibly sway a just and omniscient Supreme Being.

Archbold holds no truck with this revisionism: “Here’s what I want you guys to say at my funeral: Matt Archbold was fairly despicable at times. He was meaner than he was kind, proud of his humility, and not all that nice to his family or friends. Vain. Sarcastic. Selfish. While these may be qualities of a good blogger, they do not bode well for sainthood.

“We have no reason to suspect that Matt Archbold is in Heaven. In fact, I’d just about guarantee he’s not. If God in his infinite mercy somehow allowed Matthew to enter Purgatory it would be a reflection of His mercy rather than any attributes Matt evidenced throughout his life.

“Let us all assume, to be safe, that Matthew is in the bottom rung of Purgatory. Matthew’s fingernails are firmly dug into a cliff at the furthest edge of the Purgatory city limits and he’s hanging on there, his little feet dangling over Hell.

“And the only way you can get him out of there and nearer to Heaven is through your prayers. Pray now. Pray on the ride home. Pray when you get home. Pray. Pray. Pray for days, weeks, and years to come. Please pray.”


Sky News journalist Colin Brazier, who recently survived cancer, shares related retrogressive tastes in funerals:


“Do not go to Tesco and buy one of the supermarket’s tasteless In Sympathy cards. They come in a range of bright colours. Many of them display a lily – popular even before the death of Our Lady Of Versace – but even more so now.


“Do not buy one of the Hallmark cards which could easily be mistaken for an invitation to a child’s birthday party. Contrary to the message these cards are trying to communicate – death is actually grim, frequently bleak, and my (hopefully) grieving family will not be comforted by mass produced frivolity.


“Do not, if you are invited to my funeral, turn up wearing colours of a celebratory hue. I deplore the fashion for “wearing bright colours” – a trend in danger of becoming every bit as obligatory as the rigid absurdities of Victorian widow’s weeds were a century ago. There is nothing starchy and stuffy about wearing black. Dignified dark clothing is not an expression of despair. It is a way of stopping other people bathing in the attention which should be reserved for the deceased and his or her close family. I want my life to be remembered, not celebrated. I do not want my faults airbrushing from history.”

More Matt Archbold here.

More Colin Brazier here.

Aghori

22 January 2011
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, funeral customs

The ascetic’s refusal to accept worldly comforts is venerated by Hindus, but the awesome, horrifying renunciation of the AGHORI sadhu seems to defy the norms of civilized life. He will live only in the cremation ground, cook his food on the fires of the funeral pyre, eat and drink from a hollow skull that he uses as the sadhu’s bowl. No food or drink is taboo to him and aghori is known to eat faeces and human corpses and drink urine. He will wear a necklace of bones or one of human skulls, use shrouds and shawls removed from the dead at the cremation ghat for his bedding, smear himself with the ash of the pyre and generally stay naked or use the bark of a tree as a garment. The aghori will make his medicant’s bowl by cutting a man’s skull just above the line of the eyes and use the hollow scalp both in rituals and for his daily needs; the aghori code specifying that only the skull of a dead male may be used. Sadhus normally keep a bowl to collect alms in and to eat from and will use a kamandalu for water. The aghori uses the skull-bowl for all purposes, including the shamanistic tantric rites, with which he aspires to achieve the powers of the secret mantras.

[Source]

Smoothie

14 January 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral customs, funeral pyres, funerals in other cultures

I enjoyed this blog post from an American woman living in Paraguay. Her husband is some sort of religious minister. Here’s the custom out there:

In the jungle, among the Ye’kwana tribe, burials also had to be done quickly. If the family was christian, the dying person would be allowed to remain in his hammock and home to die. If not believers, the ailing one would be taken off and left alone in the jungle to perish, away from the community, so as not to bring evil spirits into the village. Once known, or hoped, to be dead, another tribe would be paid to retrieve the body and bury it in a place unknown to the Ye’kwanas.

And here is a Paraguayan open-air cremation. This delight Richard Martin over at Scattering Ashes:

The first time I experienced this was at the invitation of the family of a Sanema woman. I walked across the log which was the foot bridge between our two villages, I climbed a muddy bank and was led to the clearing in the center of their small village where a large pyre of wood had been laid.

The elderly women were already writhing in grief, moaning and swaying to and fro. It was as if their hearts were ripping open and a wounded animal sound was gushing out from their very soul. The children roamed around confused and bewildered, the men stood stoically by, and the shaman was painted and covered by a jaguar skin making inhuman sounds and growls.

I sat on a bit of log taking in the sights and sounds around me. I felt the despair, I heard the anguish, I was chilled to the bone by the actions of the shaman as he danced and waved his rattle fiercely, seemingly, in my direction. Do not judge me, for you were not there!

Then, the body, wrapped in a tattered old hammock was slung onto the fire. A new sound emerged, a cracking, popping sounds, and a new smell filled the air. It takes a long time to burn a body. More logs needed to be added to the fire every so often. People fainted. Others went into drug induced dazes. Some wept until they had no more tears.

When the fire was allowed to extinguish itself and was left to cool, the entire tribe seemed to have been given new energy. I watched in amazement as the women ran to the cooling embers and began frantically digging with their hands and sifting through the ashes. I noticed they were placing things into a blackened cooking pot. Finally, the shaman came over and prodded the dying fire with his big toe and then nodded to the women who ran off with the pot and its contents.

I saw as they began to use a simple mortar and pestle to grind the fragments in the pot. I saw as they added this fine powder to a prepared banana drink. I saw the family members of the deceased line up.

I saw them drink the bones.

Burning issue

15 December 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral customs, funeral pyres, funerals in other cultures, open-air cremation

There was much excitement when Davender Ghai won his case for open-air cremation at the Court of Appeal in February 2010.

It established the legality of the principle of open-air cremation but, as Rupert Callender noted at the time:

“this is only a battle that has been won, not the war. The next impenetrable ring of defence, our Orwellian and inscrutable planning system and our perversely selective Environmental Health department will no doubt dig in for a long siege. For those of us who dream of blazing hilltops lighting up the night sky and illuminating dancing crowds, we still have miles to go before we sleep.” [Source]

In court, the battle raged around the legal definition of a crematorium. Baba Ghai’s lawyers argued: “The expression crematorium should mean any building fitted with appliances for the burning of human remains. ‘Building’ is not defined. We say it should be given a broad meaning.”

When the judgement was delivered, everyone noted the difficulties which could be thrown up by planning and public health legislation should an application be submitted.

Over in India a new, eco-friendly pyre is catching on – the Mokshda green cremation system, a simple heat-retaining and combustion- efficient technology. The Mokshda crematorium is a high-grade, stainless steel and man-sized bier with a hood and sidewall slates that can withstand temperatures of up to 800 degrees Celsius.

It’s a building, all right. That’s encouraging.

But it doesn’t solve the vapourised mercury problem…

Read more here and here. Read other blog posts on this: click on a category below to bring up the archive.

 

Newsy morsels

10 December 2010
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral customs, funerals in other cultures

Two really nice stories here.

First, a marvellous and extraordinary insight into funerals in Gaza — community, ritual and politics. Here.

Second, the ten most loathsome lunacies of the Westboro Baptist Church (the GOD HATES people), who are so biblecrazy they once protested outside a shop selling Swedish vacuum cleaners after a Swedish pastor was prosecuted for being horrible about homosexuals. Now they’re going to protest at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral on the grounds that she did not praise God enough while dying of breast cancer. Here.

Have a lovely weekend!

She’s on 29

25 November 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral customs, funeral music, funerals in other cultures, Religious funerals

Have you been following Gail Rubin’s 30 funerals in 30 days? I hope so. If you haven’t,  you can easily catch up. Go over to her site as soon as you’ve read this and take up where you left off.

The cultural differences are intriguing. The preaching at religious funerals in the US is hotter. More friends and family stand up and talk. Photo and video montages are much, much more common — as are tables with photos and memorabilia. And I like the custom of giving people rubber wristbands — over there they’re the new armbands. My overall impression so far is that Americans do it better. Not that we do it well, of course, we’ve got a long way to go.

Today Gail attended the funeral of a young man — he was 24. Among the songs played at his funeral was When I Get Where I’m Going by Brad Paisley. Here’s one for you celebrants (a good day, this, for celebrants). Another was If Die Young by the Band Perry, which even I’ve heard so I guess everyone has. Again, a good one for a funeral like this.

Listen to Brad (I can’t embed him, I’m not allowed). Then go straight over to Gail.

The sacred and the propane

24 November 2010
Charles
13 Comments
Categories: alternative funerals, Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, burial, cremation, funeral customs, Religious funerals

It was a deepseated thing, this duty we felt we owed our dead. A sacred duty – literally. It goes back to the beginning of time. Throughout human history the dead body has always been treated in accordance with sacred diktat, its valedictory hullabaloos performed by shaman or sorcerer, soothsayer or priest. For the full extent of human memory the bodies of the dead have been disposed of in places held sacred – demarcated patches of ground, rivers.

We’re getting much too evolved for all that rannygazoo and mystery-making juju now. Too sensible, too pragmatic. Oh yes, we can see a dead body for what it is. A dead body. A waste disposal matter after it’s had its corneas and other useful stuff taken out. The growth of cremation may well have hastened this thinking. Brutal. Rapid. Get your head around that and you’ll get your head around anything.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. It’s the way of unemployed librarian and blogger Amy Campbell in the US.

It set me thinking. We don’t yet dispose of our dead by direct cremation as they increasingly do in the States. But what of our secular rituals, the ones performed by those possessed of no shamanic attributes – everyday unsanctified civvies like our own dear Gloriamundi? Are these ceremonies mere sentimental vestiges ripe for replacement by less formal, body-free celebrations of memory in restaurants, at tea parties, on picnics, over a couple of beers?

I wonder where we’re going. Take away the sacred and… Does that make all the difference?

Death in the community

11 November 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, funeral customs, funerals in other cultures, Reasons to go to a funeral

This put a spring in my step. It is extracted from a letter to the Irish Times:

I never cease to be amazed at how we Irish continue to celebrate and embrace death so excellently.

The morgue is now giving way to families’ increasing desire to bring the body home for a wake, not just for a few hours but overnight, so that neighbours and friends can gather as a community for lashings of tea, cakes, sandwiches, etc, all prepared by the neighbours as genuine gestures of friendship and community.

The importance of the community wake is also to be seen in the new development of taking the body directly from home to church, not on the evening before burial but on the morning of the service, with the community present in full support to the bereaved.

We Irish celebrate and embrace death so well that a good funeral is still a more social event than a good wedding.

The whole letter is worth reading here. It is a response to this article here.

Different cultures, different customs

1 November 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral customs, funerals in other cultures

Here’s how they do it in Swaziland:

EZULWINI – The funeral of Ziggy Carvalho was turned into a ‘mini rally’ as mourners watched his friends showing off with their cars.

This happened at KaBhelina yesterday morning during a short prayer held at his home.

This was before his body was taken to the burial site at Nyonyane, about 500 metres from KaMchoza Bar, past Calabash Restaurant.

Carvalho attended the Simunye Fair last weekend but was stabbed in the stomach by one of the revellers just as he and his family members were preparing to go back home.

Yesterday’s service started just before 7am and only lasted 15 minutes.

While the service proceeded, mourners who were waiting outside watched some of Carvalho’s friends bidding farewell to their friend in a rather unique way.

Carvalho’s friends, mostly those who were driving BMWs, revved the vehicles so loud that all those who had gone to pay their last respects came out to watch. While the drivers played with their accelerators, some of the mourners, especially those who spent most of their lives with Carvalho, began to celebrate.

They jumped up and down, encouraging the drivers to continue revving the cars until the casket was taken into the hearse.

At one point in time, one of the mourners asked the driver of one of the three BMWs to spin his car but could not because there was no space.

Whole story here.