...Introduction Whereas death is a universal experience for every human being, the behaviors that are associated with grief are very much different. The heartache process is a culturally bound process that has been associated with specific groups. Death and grief are very normal events; different cultures have come up with ways of coping with death and honoring the dead in the most respectful way possible at least according to them. Interferences with these cultural practices would alter the way people would normally deal with the passing of a loved one. While the health care fraternity are not expected to know the different traditional practices of cultures concerning death, and how best to honor the dead understanding the basic concepts about how to respond and prepare for death is important. However, it poses a challenge to the doctors and the entire health department to ask those crucial questions concerning death. Questions that would board on the understanding of what happens after death, that is in relation to their cultures. What is the families’ role in handling of death? What are the changes that as a medical practitioner one has to follow when handling the family? The Hindu culture is one such community that has developed different ways of coping with before and after death. The firm doctrines that they operate on are considered strict on how to handle and deal with the dead. The paper examines the Hindu culture in respect to the way they handle death, and how it has...
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...world and their funeral services differed in many ways. These two civilizations’ strong conviction in the afterlife was expressed through their multifaceted and interesting funeral services and burial rituals. But, unlike the Egyptians that preserved their deceased’s body and placed them in a sarcophagus or coffin, the Romans buried the dead after cremating those bodies. To illustrate their practices, I have chosen two artifacts displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met): a sarcophagus from Ancient Egypt and a cinerary urn from Ancient Roman’s times. Both pieces portray a different way of treating the corpses of their deceased and the preparation for the journey to the other world was, without a doubt, a long and elaborate process. For Ancient Romans, the physical world was only temporarily and the only purpose of the physical body was to host the soul for a period long enough to develop good physical and spiritual qualities. However, depending on how the...
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...Takamore v Clarke [2012] NZSC 116, [2013] 2 NZLR 733. This case concerned the burial of Ms Clarke’s long-term partner, Mr Takamore, who was of Tūhoe descent. Without Ms Clarke’s permission, members of his Tūhoe whānau buried Mr Takamore in accordance with Māori tikanga in the Bay of Plenty. Ms Clarke, executor of his will, sought to recover his body and bury him in Christchurch, where they had lived together for the previous 20 years with their two children. Ms Clarke succeeded in the High Court. Ms Takamore, sister of the deceased, appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal, which upheld Ms Clarke’s right to dispose of Mr Takamore’s body. The Supreme Court (“The Court”) granted Ms Takamore leave to appeal from the Court of Appeal. Ms Takamore claimed that Mr Takamore should be buried according to Māori burial custom, which provides for the return of whānau to tribal burial grounds. Ms Clarke contended that she had the right as executor to dispose of his body. The first issue concerns whether the executor has exclusive right to determine the disposal of the deceased. The second issue addresses the role of tikanga Māori in common law. The Court unanimously dismissed the appeal and granted Ms Clarke the right to have Mr Takamore reburied. The majority, Tipping, McGrath and Blanchard JJ and minority, Elias CJ, concluded with different reasoning. I Executor Rule A Decision The Court agreed that no statute specified who had authority to dispose...
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...available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They help families and friends work through this terrible situation by consoling and comforting loved ones as they work to lay the deceased to rest. It’s very important to the grieving family to have proper closure for their loved one. There are two main methods of burial traditional and cremation. A traditional burial consists of embalming, then laying the person to rest in the ground in his or her casket and vault. A cremation requires no embalming because the body is actually burned and the ashes of the person are what are left as a byproduct. Embalming is necessary if the family wants a public visitation before the actual cremation of the body. Immediately after death, a body has to be released from the hospitals or family care and signed over to the funeral home. For this to happen a death certificate has to be signed by either the doctor or medical examiner at he hospital and the funeral director. This ensures that the body has been released and is in protective care of the funeral home. The next step in getting a body ready for burial or visitation is what is called the embalming is the process where the body is...
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...laboratory at Duke University Medical Center as a “cherry place.” He is very descriptive throughout and his descriptions were helpful to me as the reader. He asks a lot of questions such as, “What, exactly, would science do with me?” He questions whether or not his body would be appreciated by the students, “Would my remains be unceremoniously tossed out in the orange biohazard trash container?” There’s a quote that mentions that the bodies wanted to be there so they could be a gift to science. It seems like he includes this to give himself comfort and peace of mind. He’s very descriptive and honest, without being overly graphic and gruesome. I believe he is respectful of all values. He describes how the process of human dissection is a gentle and respectful process, “The moment between the living and the dead is remarkably gentle.” He also ends his piece with how there’s a memorial service when the human dissection is complete. His piece lacks humor, but paints a vivid picture that describes something that most people never have the chance of seeing firsthand. There is a great deal of respect and understanding for the dead in this piece. “The Last Stop” by Brian Cable uses a lot more humorous elements, but isn’t offensive or too over-the-top. One of the first humorous remarks I noticed was, “What the hell, I though, mortuaries are concerned with time, too.” As I read the piece, I could tell that Cable was uneasy because early in the story he mentions that “mortality...
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...On A Budget? Deciding between A Green Burial or Cremation It’s common that when people are making arrangements for after they pass on that they want a method that is environmentally friendly. Two popular options that it leaves are a green burial or cremation. When deciding between these two, the question that often comes up is which method will be most affordable. Here is some information that will help you decide on an affordable and environmentally burial method. Cremation The concept of being cremated is something that many people are already familiar with. It involves heating the body to a very high temperature causing the remains to turn to ash. This is considered a more environmentally friendly option when compared to a standard burial...
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...developed drifting away from burial, moving towards cremation. Technically there is no set routine for a death, due to the fact that personal modifications and customs can change an arrangement. This new pattern is not firmly fixed (indeed, variations, improvisations and personal customizations are marks of the new rituals) but it generally includes the following characteristics: • a memorial service instead of a funeral (i.e., a service focused on remembering the deceased, often held many days after the death, with the body or the cremated remains of the deceased not present) (Thomas) • a brief, simple, highly personalized and customized service, often involving several speakers. (as opposed to the standard church funeral liturgies presided over primarily by clergy) (Thomas) • a focus on the life of the deceased (often aided by a physical display of photos and other mementos) (Thomas) • an emphasis on joy rather than sadness, a celebration of life rather than an observance of the somber reality of death. (Thomas) • a private disposition of the body, often done before the memorial service, with an increasing preference for cremation. (Thomas) Burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy because Christians care for the bodies of humans even though they are deceased. "The dead deserve as respectful a burial as can be provided, this is a minimum," says Father Richard Rutherford of the University of Portland. Although cremation is allowed by the church, the bishops stressed...
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...In “The American Way of Death” Jessica Mitford tells us about a funeral ceremony, how a deceased body turns into "Beautiful Memory Picture", and in details explains how it is getting done. Each procedure performed on the body, changes it beyond recognition, creating a false picture. Thus, it can be confirmed that the entire preparation for the funeral ceremony is a hidden lie for most Americans. Common American funeral practises include many steps for the transformation of the deceased body, which are serious lies like “Facade” and “Delusion”. The body is prepared before it can be shown to people. In order to create a deceptive image, different steps are used. One of the important steps is to make a body look like it is not dead but is simply...
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...Cremation is on the rise as more people choose it as part of their final wishes instead of traditional burial services. Often less expensive than standard burials, it reduces the financial burden for families who have just experienced the loss of a loved one. Cremation, though, is not the final step. Once cremains are delivered, family still has to decide what to do with the ashes. For those who loved art during their lifetime, choices exist to leave a lasting artistic impression. Specialty artists can use portions of cremains to create artwork that literally contain a loved one. This is a perfect choice for those who loved to create art using different mediums or those who were just a little bit different. They are also a wonderful way to...
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...In relation to World War One poetry, “Dead Man’s Dump” by Isaac Rosenberg and “Attack” by Siegfried Sassoon, I agree that thematic concerns are developed through the extensive use of symbolism and imagery. A poet is an artist and the poetry he writes is his art. The words he uses to write them, however, are the ever so essential paint brushes and tools used to create art. Through their meticulous choice of words, Rosenberg and Sassoon effectively conveyed their outlook on the concept of way and helped myself, the reader, to understand the destructive nature of war. Thus, the use of imagery and symbolism is imperative in order for the reader to fully understand their argument. “Dead Man’s Dump” follows the journey of a limber navigating through a scene of horror littered with “sprawled dead.” One of the key themes developed in “Dead Man’s Dump” through the use of symbolism and imagery is the idea of war stripping an individual of any power or control. War is symbolically depicted as a “shrieking pyre” that the soldiers were “flung on” to. This is a direct metaphor towards war being a ‘dead man’s dump’ and helps us understand that Rosenberg perceives war as a funeral pyre because war instigates death and the men who are drafted in war might as well be “flung on to a shrieking pyre.” The limber that is carrying the “rusty freight” or barbed wires is embodied as “many crowns of thorns… stuck out… over the shattered track/ Upon our brothers dear.” This religious allusion is representative...
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...According to Renard (2001), “Incidents of sati still occasionally make headlines, but increasing social action on behalf of women’s rights continues to improve the situation all over India” (p. 302). Sati is the ritual suicide of a wife throwing herself or being thrown onto her dead husband’s funeral pyre to join him in the afterlife. The burial rituals that a society sets for itself help to build identity because a person is constantly in contact with the community that the person belongs to when they are born or married into it. According to Stutz (2010): Identity, it is argued, is constantly reproduced through inter-action with others (Barth 1969; Díaz-Andreu and Lucy 2005; Insoll 2007 etc.), and practices play a central role in this process (Jones 1997; 2007 [1996]). In other words, the ways in which we do things create markers of difference and similarity between groups of people. (p. 36) In other...
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...The day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. They see death as a friend and also make death humorous; in the film they showed different articles where they even made fun of the president. In the film they also showed famous murals for this occasion such as Diego Rivera’s famous mural dedicated to the day of the dead. Flowers also play a key role on this day; many people use yellow flowers, they say the yellow flowers have the smell of death. Before the event the women prepare food to take to the cemetery for their loved ones that are gone, many believe they come back to cemetery on this day. On November 1st , they light thousands of candles and incenses to help guide the dead to the cemetery. At midnight the dead are supposed to be there. The Day of the Dead, is celebrated during the same time frame as Halloween. Both events are centered on tradition rooted in paying respect to the dead. Though mostly different, a few characteristics of both holidays make them similar. Both Halloween and the Day of the Dead use food as part of the celebration. Halloween involves trick or treating where children knock on doors to receive candy, sweets and treats. Though food is also used during the Day of the Dead, the food is placed on alters at the grave sites of those being remembered during the holiday...
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...Some religions greatly respect the dead, and honoring them is extremely important to their family death rituals. In this essay, I will reveal my family death rituals that have traditionally been practiced over the years, and state the current death rituals that are still practiced today. The Catholic religion beliefs was all I knew while growing up, and our family respected and always made time to attended a rosary and burial service for the person that has passed. Since Mexicans are incredibly family oriented, and to be involved of a loved one or close friend funeral is an important gesture to do in life. When someone in our family passes, we usually contact all family members and set up a proper burial service for them. The funeral process includes a rosary praying service the night before the burial, praying the rosary is a Mexican tradition and it includes the well-known prayers of the Apostles Creed, the Our Father (Lord's Prayer), the Hail Mary and the Glory Be (Williams). The rosary prayer is prayed with an open casket at a church, and then family members usually say some kind words of the person and the life he or she lived. Then, the following day everyone will meet at the cemetery for the burial service, and they are usually buried in the same area with other relatives that have passed. A short prayer is said then everyone gradually throw flowers and dirt on top of the casket to show their respects and it is their way in saying goodbye. Family and friends have a potluck...
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...Cremation: The clash of tradition and pragmatism I. Introduction Main claim: In light of the rising costs of funeral and wake services, cremation becomes a more practical option for Filipinos because it is more affordable, and allows for a more efficient use of space, as well as accessibility to visitors; nevertheless, it is still controversial to those who rigidly follow traditional Catholic burial rites. A. Difference between cremation and traditional burial B. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines or CBCP’s preference for inhumation (traditional burial rites) and the liturgical guidelines on practicing cremation C. Filipinos’ initial reaction when introduced to the practice of cremation and their present response II. Presentation of Criteria A. Affordability 1. Claim: Cremation is more affordable than traditional burial rites, and many Filipinos—especially the financially incapable—will benefit more in cremating their deceased loved ones. 2. Supports: Price range of cremation versus that of funeral services (caskets, lawn lots, maintenance); Statistics of the increasing number of Filipinos choosing cremation for its lower expenses B. Availability of Space 1. Claim: Cremation allows for a more efficient use of space than traditional funerals, which require burial lawn lots. 2. Supports: Report on how major cities in the NCR are running out of burial plots to accommodate the deceased; Increase in sales of ash vaults...
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...Justin Kruczek 830793223 Paper 1 Residential Burial Sites Residential Burial Sites Upon conducting my research, I found multiple sites that I will be referencing in my paper. The main purpose of this paper is to inform people about the residential burial methods used in Thailand and Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. In one of the articles I found it describes residential burials by saying, “Residential burial” or “intramural burial” has often been used to denote subfloor or other types of burials within residential structures, such as those within structure walls. (Residential Burial in Global Perspective Ron L. Adams Simon Fraser University and Stacie M. King Indiana University, PG. 3) This is to give a basic idea on what will be further discussed in this paper. In the article that was found, there were multiple burial sites where archeologists found remains and burial methods all over Thailand. These places in Thailand where they found these residential burial sites are, “The mortuary remains from most of these low mound sites including Ban Kao (Sørensen 1967), Non Nok Tha (Bayard 1984, 1996–97), Ban Na Di (Higham and Kijngam 1984a, 1984b, 1984c), Khok Phanom Di (Higham and Thosarat 1994:23), Nong Nor (Higham and Thosarat 1998), Ban Wang Hai (Pautreau et al. 2001), Ban Lum Khao (Higham and O’Reilly 2004:301), Noen U-Loke (Talbot 2007:305), and Ban Non Wat (Higham 2008, 2009a; Higham and Thosarat 2006), have all been discussed explicitly in terms of being “cemeteries” (Residential...
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