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What they did with their dead ​….

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tiompan T
tiompan Jun 13, 2016 11:58:30
Replying to moss

moss wrote:
Interesting article though grisly, we should remember of course our 'romantic vision' of prehistory does not always line up with reality.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3633135/Grisly-Stone-Age-pits-Orkney-islanders-chopped-dead-relatives-mixing-mass-graves.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490


edit; though of course the Daily Mail always goes for the salacious, and a pinch of salt should be taken with their articles ;)

What do we do with our dead ?
It's not all burning and internment .
There are various world wide anthro accounts but something a bit more local is "Cults of death in Northwestern Portugal " by Jao De Pinas -Cabral , which details some contemporary European practices including the not uncommon one of secondary burial/disposal ,whereby corpses are dug up after a period of approx five years and depending on the state of corruption could lead to whipping of the corpse .
Elswhere thay may be danced with or liquids smeared on living bodies etc .

M Markoid
Markoid Jun 13, 2016 12:48:54
Replying to tiompan

Quite oddly I went to an Islamic burial last week via work with a patient of ours, and it was exceptionally emotional. Of course for him, as it was his younger brother. But for us also. A proper burial. Real people do it. Shovels and dirt. Not gravediggers. Islamic prayers and stuff. Real people with real love.

Not like my fathers funeral. He was dead a coffin in our house for 3 days! And I was asked looking at a dead body must be odd. Well, it is. Not that odd though. Acceptance of mortality I guess takes time.

Burials are more common than cremations in many faiths than you may think. Some Italians exhume bodies every year for 5 years and then keep the bones in a housing. Now that is strange.

The Mexicans have a celebration. I like that. We just cry for a while.

A comment I made last week was "We may not be equal when alive< but equal in death"

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