The Dead : Culture Of Humanity

At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people.

Ashanti people believe that dead person will eventually become a spirit and in return take care of them. Visitor gather as the body is prepared to offer their condolences to the family while close family member stay with body expressing their solidarity. Man’s social group

African culture demonstrates a strong connection with deceased person, and believes that only a correct burial will bring a dead person peace. People in Africa strongly believe in spiritual life, thus their main goal during burial ceremonies is to address a spirit of a deceased person. An African funeral begins with removal of the body from home, which is done through a previously made hole in the wall of the home. Africans remove a dead body through the hole, instead of a door, to confuse a spirit and make sure that a spirit of a deceased person will not return back home, as a hole in the wall is immediately closed after removal of the body. In effort to confuse a spirit even more, they place thorns and sticks in a zigzag pattern along the way as body being taken to the place of burial.

Every individual experiences the act of death, and most persons experience the death of someone they know of. Whether family, kin, or someone infamous, the living deal with the process of dying. Anthropology seeks to understand the universal process of death ritual and how different cultures deal with death differently. An anthropologist can extract social values of a given culture, past or present, from how death ceremony is practiced. Such values could be regarding political hierarchy or an individual’s status in a society, and about a culture’s spiritual or religious faith. By exploring death ceremony in ancient Egypt, contemporary Hindu death practice in India, and current North American funerary rites, it can be illustrated that

Dead?" AlterNet. In this article, Frankie Colmane looks into how dead bodies are treated in the United State even after Mitford's expose of the funeral industry was published. The article takes both a philosophical and scientific issue with the procedure of embalming sighting proven negative effects to human beings and the environment. Colmane shows that even though people are aware of the malfeasance and misappropriations of the funeral industry following pieces like Mitford's, very little has changed. Therefore problems that have been discussed in earlier works should not be forgotten. Rather they should be continually brought up until the issue is solved. During the 1800s, embalming became common practice because the dead family member would lie in state within the home for a period of days or weeks until it would be buried (Colmane 2010). The article shows the duplicity such as when "funeral directors were arguing forcefully against charges that their mediation between the living and the dead translated into social obstruction that barred the stricken from facing death with maturity, realism, and honest" (page 2). This article will be used to illustrate that things have not changed with funereal practices despite the publication of Mitford's essay.

Tomorrow we celebrate the Day of the Dead--a ceremony where a society pays homage to those who have passed, and planted their seeds in the lives of others. Our ancestors influence us and the lessons they have passed down throughout generations; however, not all lessons were the same. All were influenced by their time period and personal sense of morality. That influence was then conveyed to their child--or whoever was willing to listen. These stories are what provided us with culture.

Culture ties into every aspect of the human life, including death. There may be right and wrong ways to handle the death of someone, as well as time periods involved. There may also be set people that need to know over others in certain cultures or religions. It is important to not disrespect anyone’s family or even themselves when it comes to that time of life. For example, Buddhists believe that after taking one’s last breath, the body should

As a student of funeral service, Reverence for the Dead is extremely important. I found this book interesting and it made me think a lot more about ethical practices. Todd Van Beck has been a wonderful teacher, but my time being his student has made me come to realize that he’s also a very good person. Todd Van Beck talks about very serious topics in this book from death, to funerals, to caring for the dead in a correct manner. Van Beck gives us his beliefs on the subjects along with beliefs of many well-known psychologists. The passage about Dr. Edgar N. Jackson (1910-1994) had a strong impression on me. I joined this career path because I believe in the importance of preparation, preservation, and beautification of the dead also. Dr.

Death has always been and will be a topic that just a few want to talk, but since time immemorial man has worshiped their dead, and this is reflected in the various rituals and forms of burial. The anguish of death has been considered the deepest anguish of man. Death is the inevitable companion of life, is the final stage. It can occur at any age, suddenly or after a long illness. Despite knowing that someday we will have to die the death of a loved one is a terrible fact, very difficult to accept, that affects everyone around the deceased person. When the link with the deceased breaks, the suffering is so great, that they put into question the fundamentals of being, of human existence and our deepest beliefs, affecting significantly the basic family and social relationships.

As a result of many deaths traditions tend to get lost in the bad times of these deaths. A lot of cultural knowledge is lost since most adults and elders are leaving the world. Some traditions like making a proper funeral is important since they strongly believed in that sort of stuff. In most of the American Indian cultures, healing was a part of their religious ceremonies. When they failed to cure the European diseases there was a lot of faith in the traditional Indian spiritual ways was lost. Lots of Native Americans started to lose faith in what they believed in their whole life. Some Indians began to rethink and they said it must be the power of their religion that saved most of them.

Instead, they believe the body must be cremated quickly after death. As Lama (2004, p. 1) maintains, “The belief that once it sheds its body, the soul prepares to depart immediately on its karmic journey, and as such, it’s very important to cremate the body as soon as practical so as not to provide any allurement for the soul to linger on this side of the world.” In such cultures there is little relating to the bargaining or depression stages of Kubler-Ross’ theory, but acceptance certainly applies to both Hindus and Buddhists. In fact, for the gerontologist, increased cultural understanding of the death and dying process aids overall quality of care. As Barker (1999, p. 161) reports on one study conducted on Hindus in a British community, “…poor communication due to linguistic and cultural distance between relatives and hospital staff, as well as lack of sensitivity involving the latter, may be most distressful to the dying and their relatives.”

When an individual dies, their death can greatly impact the loved ones they leave behind. Each mourner may feel and perceive the death differently from one another, but one common factor that can influence the mourner’s beliefs, values, and views about a person’s death is their culture. Their culture can regulate the way the mourner copes with the death of a loved one, what they do with the physical deceased body, and how they may honor the dead afterwards (Cartaret, 2011). For me, my culture is relatively related to the Catholic, Hispanic American culture, which is a broad and subjective category, but it is what I believe that guides my views towards life and death. I have additionally chosen to learn about the cultural practices of Hinduism of Indians on death

Death is a subject we tend to shy away from, but why? It’s a natural occurrence that happens all the time, and it’s something we cannot avoid. At least once in our lives we will attend a funeral, but how many times will we visit the diseased once they are gone? A cemetery is a burial ground where those who have passed away lay to rest for the rest of eternity, and it gives their loved ones a place to go and visit them.

The dead are within the community, but invisible to the living. Shells and noisemakers were used to wake the dead from their sleep. The Day of the Dead is a celebration where music is important for the joyous atmosphere. Family members cleaned and decorated the graves and ofrendas of loved ones with different items that were related to the person being commemorated. They also kept the skulls as trophies and displayed them during the rituals. The skulls symbolized death and rebirth. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life (a a sad and mournful event), the natives

Mankind’s history of burial practices and funeral customs are as old as civilization itself. There is no specific way to planning a funeral. Every civilization and culture has provided for their dead in different ways. Religion and personal beliefs play an important role in the burial practices and funeral customs of a given culture or civilization. Furthermore, each civilization and cultured ever studied have three things in common: some type of funeral rites, rituals, and ceremonies; A sacred place for the dead; and memorialization of the dead. As far back as the time of Christ, burials have been noted to take place. In time burial and funeral customs have become very distinct, interesting and