| RELIGIOUS RITES |
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| 4 THE CONCEPT AND FORMS OF RITUAL |
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Throughout history and in every human
society, the disposal of the dead has been given special significance. The
practice was originally motivated not by hygienic considerations but by ideas
entertained by primitive peoples concerning human nature and destiny. This
conclusion is clearly evident from the fact that the disposal of the dead from
the earliest times was of a ritual kind. Paleolithic peoples, such as the Neanderthals
and later groups, not only buried their dead but provided them with food,
weapons, and other equipment, thereby implying a belief that the dead still
needed such things in the grave. This very significant practice can be traced
back to great antiquity, possibly to about 50,000 BC. (see also primitive religion,
Paleolithic Period) |
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The ritual burial of the dead, which is
thus attested from the very dawn of human culture and which has been practiced
in most parts of the world, stems from an instinctive inability or refusal on
the part of man to accept death as the definitive end of human life. Despite the
horrifying evidence of the physical decomposition caused by death, the belief
has persisted that something of the individual person survives the experience of
dying. In contrast, the idea of personal extinction through death is a
sophisticated concept that was unknown until the 6th century BC, when it
appeared in the metaphysical thought of Indian Buddhism; it did not find
expression in the ancient Mediterranean world before its exposition by the Greek
philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC). (see also afterlife) |
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The belief that human beings survive
death in some form has profoundly influenced the thoughts, emotions, and actions
of mankind. The belief occurs in all religions, past and present, and decisively
conditions their evaluations of man and his place in the universe. Mortuary
rituals and funerary customs reflect these evaluations; they represent also the
practical measures taken to assist the dead to achieve their destiny and
sometimes to save the living from the dreaded molestation of those whom death
had transformed into a different state of being. |
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The evidence of Paleolithic burials
shows that already, in that remote age, various ideas were held about death and
the state of the dead. The provision of food, ornaments, and tools in the graves
implies a general belief that the dead continued to exist, with the same needs
as in this life. Other customs, however, indicate the currency of a variety of
notions about postmortem existence, particularly about the potentialities and
destiny of the dead. Thus, the presence of red ochre in some burials suggests
the practice of contagious magic: the corpse had possibly been stained with the
colour of blood in order to revitalize it. The fact that in Paleolithic burials
the skeleton has often been found lying on its side in a crouched position has
been interpreted by some prehistorians as evidence of belief in rebirth, in that
the posture of the corpse imitated the position of the child in the womb. In
some crouched burials, however, there is reason for suspecting a more sinister
motive; for the limbs are sometimes so tightly flexed that the bodies must have
been bound in that position before rigor mortis set in. Such treatment of the
corpse was doubtless prompted by fear of the dead, for similar customs have been
found among later peoples. Preventive action of this kind has a further
significance, for it implies a belief that the dead might be malevolent and had
power to harm the living. (see also
resurrection, spirit) |
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That death was sometimes regarded as
transforming those who experienced it into a state of being balefully different
from that of those living in this world is evident in later mortuary rites and
customs. Indeed, the proper performance of funerary rites was deemed essential
by many peoples, to enable the dead to depart to the place and condition to
which they properly belonged. Failure to expedite their departure could have
dangerous consequences. Many ancient Mesopotamian divinatory texts reveal a
belief that disease and other misfortunes could be caused by dead persons
deprived of proper burial. The fate of the unburied dead finds expression in
Greek and Roman literature. The idea that the dead had to cross some barrier
that divided the land of the living from that of the dead also occurs in many
religions: the Greeks and Romans believed that the dead were ferried across an
infernal river, the Acheron or
Styx, by a demonic boatman called Charon,
for whose payment a coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased; in Zoroastrianism
the dead cross the Bridge of the Requiter (Cinvato Paratu); bridges
figure also in Muslim and Scandinavian eschatologies (speculations concerning
the end of the world and the afterlife)--the Sirat bridge and the
bridge over the Gjöll River (Gjallarbrú) -- and Christian folklore
knew of a Brig o' Dread, or Brig o' Death. (see also
Mesopotamian religion, Greek
religion, Roman religion,
Christianity) |
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It is significant that in few religions
has death been regarded as a natural event. Instead, it has generally been
viewed as resulting from the attack of some demonic power or death god: in
Etruscan sepulchral art a fearsome being called Charun strikes the deathblow,
and medieval Christian art depicted the skeletal figure of Death with a dart. In
many mythologies death is represented as resulting from some primordial
mischance. According to Christian theology, death entered the world through the original
sin committed by Adam and Eve, the progenitors of mankind. |
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The conception of death in most
religions is closely related to the particular view held about the constitution
of human nature. Two major traditions of interpretation have provided the basic
assumptions of religious eschatologies
and have often found expression in mortuary rituals and funerary practice. The
more primitive of these interpretations has been based on an integralistic
evaluation of human nature. Thus, the individual person has been conceived as a
psychophysical organism, of which both the material and the nonmaterial
constituents are essential in order to maintain a properly integrated personal
existence. From such an evaluation it has followed that death is the fatal
shattering of personal existence. Although some constituent element of the
living person has been deemed to survive this disintegration, it has not been
regarded as conserving the essential self or personality.
The consequences of this estimate of human nature can be seen in the
eschatologies of many religions. The ancient Mesopotamians, Hebrews, and Greeks,
for example, thought that after death only a shadowy wraith descended to the
realm of the dead, where it existed miserably in dust and darkness. Such a
conception of man, in turn, has meant that, where the possibility of an
effective afterlife has been envisaged, as in ancient Egyptian
religion, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, the
idea of a reconstitution or resurrection of the body has also been involved; for
it has been deemed essential to restore the psychophysical complex of
personality. In Egypt, most notably, provision was made for the eventual
reconstitution in an elaborate mortuary ritual which included the mummification
of the corpse to preserve it from disintegration. |
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The alternative view of human nature may
be termed dualistic. It conceives of the individual person as comprising an
inner essential self or soul, which is nonmaterial, and a physical body. In many
religions based on this view of human nature, the soul is regarded as being
essentially immortal and as existing before the body was formed. Its incarnation
in the body is interpreted as a penalty incurred for some primordial sin or
error. At death the soul leaves the body, and its subsequent fate is determined
by the manner in which it has fulfilled what the particular religion concerned
has prescribed for the achievement of salvation. This view of human nature and
destiny finds most notable expression in Hinduism and, in a subtly qualified
sense, in Buddhism; it was also taught in such mystical cults and philosophies
of the Greco-Roman world as Orphism
(an ancient Greek mystical movement with a significant emphasis on death), Gnosticism
(an early system of thought that viewed spirit as good and matter as evil), Hermeticism
(a Hellenistic esoteric, occultic movement), and Manichaeism
(a system of thought founded by Mani in ancient Iran). (see also
human body) |
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The conception of human nature held in
any religion has, accordingly, determined the manner or mode in which postmortem
survival has been envisaged. Where the body has been regarded as an essential
constituent of personal existence, belief in a significant afterlife has
inevitably entailed the idea of the reconstitution of the decomposed corpse and
its resurrection to life. In turn, a dualistic conception of human nature, which
regards the soul as intrinsically nonmaterial and immortal, envisages postmortem
life in terms of the disembodied existence of the soul. This dualistic
conception, in many religions, has also involved the idea of rebirth or reincarnation.
In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Orphism this idea has inspired a cyclical view of the
time process and produced
esoteric explanations of how the soul becomes reborn into a physical body,
whether human or animal. |
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Belief in postmortem survival has been
productive also of a variety of images concerning the destiny of the dead. This
imagery is closely related to the conception of man that is held in each
religion. Thus, the magical resuscitation of the dead in ancient Egypt was
designed to enable them to live forever in their well-furnished tombs; according
to Christian and Islamic belief, God will ultimately raise the dead with
their physical bodies and assess their merits for eternal bliss in heaven or
everlasting torment in hell; the Buddhist concept of Nirvana
(Enlightenment) is achieved only when the individual has eradicated all desire
for existence in the empirical world. (see also Last Judgment) |
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Inhumation naturally prompted the idea
that the dead lived beneath the ground. The mortuary cults of many peoples
indicate that the dead were imagined as actually residing in their tombs and
able to receive the offerings of food and drink made to them; e.g., some graves in ancient Crete and Ugarit (Ras Shamra) were
equipped with pottery conduits, from the surface, for libations. Often, however,
the grave has been thought of as an entrance to a vast, subterranean abode of
the dead. In some religions this underworld has been conceived as an immense pit
or cavern, dark and grim (e.g., the
Mesopotamian kur-nu-gi-a ["land
of no return"], the Hebrew Sheol, the Greek Hades, and the Scandinavian
Hel). Sometimes it is ruled by an awful monarch, such as the Mesopotamian god
Nergal or the Greek god Hades, or Pluto, or the Yama of Hindu and Buddhist
eschatology. According to the view of man's nature and destiny held in a
particular religion, this underworld may be a gloomy, joyless place where the
shades of all the dead merely survive, or it may be pictured as a place of awful
torments where the damned suffer for their misdeeds. In those religions in which
the underworld has been conceived as a place of postmortem retribution, the idea
of a separate abode of the blessed dead became necessary. Such an abode has
various locations. In most religions it is imagined as being in the sky or in a
divine realm beyond the sky (e.g., in Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and Buddhism);
sometimes it has been conceived as the "Isles of the Blessed" (e.g.,
in Greek and Celtic mythology) or as a beautiful garden or paradise, such as
the al-firdaws of Islam. Christian eschatology, which came to
conceive of both an immediate judgment and a final judgment, developed the idea
of a purgatory, where the dead
expiated their venial sins in readiness for the final judgment. Although the
dead suffered there in a disembodied state, because their bodies would not be
resurrected until the last day, the purifying flames of purgatory were usually
regarded as burning in a physical sense, as Dante's Purgatorio
vividly shows. The idea of a postmortem purgatory had been adumbrated in the
1st and 2nd centuries BC in Jewish apocalyptic literature (I
Enoch 22:9-13). The ten hells
of Chinese Buddhist
eschatology may be considered as purgatories, for in them the dead expiated
their sins before being incarnated once more in this world. (see also
heaven) |
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The idea that the dead had to make a
journey to the otherworld, to which they belonged, finds expression in many
religions. The oldest evidence occurs in the Egyptian Pyramid
Texts (c. 2375-c. 2200 BC). The
journey is conceived under various images. The dead pharaoh flies up to heaven
to join the sun-god Re, in his solar boat, on his unceasing voyage across the
sky, or he joins the circumpolar stars, known as the "Imperishable
Ones," or he ascends a ladder to join the gods in heaven. Later Egyptian
funerary texts depict the way to the next world as beset by awful perils:
fearsome monsters, lakes of fire, gates that cannot be passed except by the use
of magical formulas, and a sinister ferryman whose evil intent must be thwarted
by magic. The idea of crossing water en route to the otherworld, which first
appears in Egyptian eschatology, occurs in the eschatological topography of
other religions, as was noted above. Many mythologies describe journeys to the
underworld; they invariably reflect the fear felt for the grim experience that
was believed to await the dead. Ancient Mesopotamian literature records the
visit of the goddess Ishtar to
the realm of the dead, the way to which was barred by gates. At each gate the
goddess was deprived of some article of her attire, so that she was naked when
she finally came before Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld. It is possible
that this successive stripping of the celestial goddess was meant to symbolize
the stripping away of the attributes of life that the dead experienced as they
descended into the "land of no return." An 8th-century Japanese text,
the Koji-kitells of the first contact with death experienced by the primordial pair, Izanagi
and Izanami. When his wife
died, Izanagi descended to Yomi, the underworld of darkness, to bring her back.
His request was granted by the gods of Yomi, on condition that he did not look
at her in the underworld. Impatiently he struck a light and was horrified to see
her as a decomposed corpse. He fled in terror and disgust. Blocking the entrance
to Yomi with a great rock, he then sought desperately to purify himself from the
contagion of death. |
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Such myths doubtless reflect an
instinctive feeling that death works an awful change in those who experience it.
The dead cease to belong to the world of the living and become uncanny and
dangerous: hence, their departure to the world of the dead must be expedited. To
assist that grim journey, various aids have been provided. Thus, on some
Egyptian coffins of the 11th dynasty, a plan of the "Two Ways" to the
underworld was painted, and from the New Kingdom period (c. 1567-1085 BC), copies of the Book of the Dead, containing spells
for dealing with perils encountered en route, were placed in the tombs. Orphic
communities in southern Italy and Crete provided their dead with directions
about the next world by inscribing them on gold laminae deposited in the graves.
Advice about dying was given to medieval Christians in a book entitled Ars
moriendi ("The Art of Dying") and to Tibetan Buddhists in the Bardo Thödol ("Book of the Dead"). Chinese Buddhists
were informed in popular prints of what to expect as they passed after death
through the ten hells to their next incarnation. More practical equipment for
the journey to the next world was provided for the Greek and Roman dead: in
addition to the money to pay Charon for their passage across the Styx, they were
provided with honey cakes for Cerberus, the fearsome dog that guarded the
entrance to Hades. |
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Those religions that have taught the
possibility of a happy afterlife have also devised forms of postmortem testing
of merit for eternal bliss. Ancient Egypt has the distinction of conceiving of a
judgment of the dead of an essentially moral kind. This conception finds graphic
expression in the vignettes that illustrate the Book
of the Dead. The heart of the deceased is represented as being weighed
against the symbol of Maat (Truth) in the presence of Osiris,
the god of the dead. A monster named Am-mut (Eater of the Dead) awaits an
adverse verdict. The judgment of the dead as conceived in other religions (e.g.,
Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Orphism) is basically a test of
orthodoxy or ritual status, although moral qualities were included to varying
degrees. The Last Judgment, as presented in Jewish apocalyptic literature, was
essentially a vindication of Israel against its Gentile oppressors. Religions
that held no promise of a significant afterlife (e.g.,
those of ancient Mesopotamia and classical Greece) had no place for a
judgment of the dead. (see also
Ma'at) |
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The process of dying and the moment of
death have been regarded as occasions of the gravest crisis in many religions.
The dying must be especially prepared for the awful experience. In China, for
example, the head of a dying person was shaved, his body was washed and his
nails pared, and he was placed in a sitting position to facilitate the exit of
the soul. After the death, relatives and friends called the soul to return,
possibly to make certain whether its departure from the body was definitive.
Muslim custom decrees that the dying be placed facing the holy city of Mecca. In
Catholic Christianity, great care is devoted to preparing for a "good
death." The dying person makes his last confession to a priest and receives
absolution; then he is anointed with consecrated oil: the rite is known as "anointing
of the sick" (formerly called extreme unction). According to
medieval Christian belief, the last moments of life were the most critical, for
demons lurked about the deathbed ready to seize the unprepared soul as it
emerged with the last breath. (see also
Chinese religion, Islam) |
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After death, it has been the universal
custom to prepare the corpse for final disposal. Generally, this preparation has
included its washing and dressing in special garments and sometimes its public
exposure. In some religions this preparation is accompanied by rites designed to
protect the deceased from demonic
attack; sometimes the purpose of the rites has been to guard the living from the
contagion of death or the malice of the dead; for it has often been believed
that the soul continues to remain about the body until burial or cremation. The
most elaborate known preparation of the dead took place in ancient Egypt.
Because the Egyptians believed that the body was essential for a proper
afterlife, a complex process of ritual embalmment was established. This process
was intended not only to preserve the corpse from physical disintegration but
also to reanimate it. The rites were based upon the belief that, because the
dead body of the god Osiris had been preserved from decomposition and raised to
life again by the gods, the magical assimilation of a dead person to Osiris and
the ritual enacting of what the gods had done would achieve a similar miracle of
resurrection. One of the most significant of these ritual transactions was the
"opening of the mouth," which was designed to restore to the mummified
body its ability to see, breathe, and take nourishment. (see also
mummy) |
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Mummification in cruder forms has been
practiced elsewhere (notably in Peru), but not with the same complex motives as
in Egypt. The preparation of the corpse has also frequently included the placing
on or in it of magical amulets;
these were variously intended to protect or vitalize the corpse. Evidence found
in tombs of the Shang dynasty (c. 1766-c.
1122 BC) suggests that the Chinese placed life-prolonging substances, such
as jade, in the orifices of the corpse. Crosses or crucifixes are frequently
placed upon the Christian dead, and sometimes in the Middle Ages the consecrated
bread of the Eucharist (the
Lord's Supper) was buried with the body. It has also been a Christian custom to
furnish a dead priest with a chalice and paten, the instruments of his
sacerdotal office. |
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The form of the disposal of the dead
most generally used throughout the world in both the past and present has been burial
in the ground. The practice of inhumation (burial) started in the Paleolithic
era, doubtless as the most natural and simplest way of disposal. Whether it was
then prompted by any esoteric motive, such as the return to the womb of Mother
Earth, as has been suggested, cannot be proved. Among some later peoples, who
have believed that primordial man was formed out of earth, it may have been
deemed appropriate that the dead should be buried--the idea found classical
expression in the divine pronouncement to Adam, recorded in Genesis 3:19:
"You are dust, and to dust you shall return." There is evidence that
in ancient Crete the dead were believed to serve a great goddess, who was the
source of fertility and life in the world above and who nourished and protected
the dead in the earth beneath. |
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The mode of burial has varied greatly.
Sometimes the body has been laid directly in the earth, with or without clothes
and funerary equipment. It may be placed in either an extended or crouched
position: the latter posture seems to have been more usual in prehistoric
burials. Sometimes evidence of a traditional orientation of the corpse in the
grave can be distinguished, which may relate to the direction in which the land
of the dead was thought to lie. The use of coffins
of various substances dates from the early 3rd millennium BC in Sumer and Egypt.
Intended probably at first to protect and add dignity to the corpse, coffins
became important adjuncts in the mortuary rituals of many religions. Their
ritual use is most notable in ancient Egypt, where the mummies of important
persons were often enclosed in several human-shaped coffins and then deposited
in large, rectangular wooden coffins or stone sarcophagi.
The interiors and exteriors of these coffins were used for the inscription of
magical texts and symbols. Sarcophagi, elaborately carved with mythological
scenes of mortuary significance, became fashionable among the wealthier classes
of Greco-Roman society. Similar sarcophagi, carved with Christian scenes, came
into use among Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries and afford rich iconographic
evidence of the contemporary Christian attitude to death. |
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In the ancient Near East, the
construction of stone tombs
began in the 3rd millennium BC and inaugurated a tradition of funerary
architecture that has produced such diverse monuments as the pyramids of Egypt,
the Taj Mahal, and the mausoleum of Lenin in Red Square, Moscow. The tomb
was originally intended to house and protect the dead. In Egypt it was furnished
to meet the needs of its magically resuscitated inmate, sometimes even to the
provision of toilet facilities. Among many peoples, the belief that the dead
actually dwelt in their tombs has caused the tombs of certain holy persons to
become shrines, which thousands visit to seek for miracles of healing or to earn
religious merit; notable examples of such centres of pilgrimage
are the tombs of St. Peter in Rome, of Muhammad at Medinah, and, in
ancient times, the tomb of Imhotep at Saqqarah, in Egypt. (see
also resurrection) |
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The disposal of the corpse has been,
universally, a ritual occasion of varying degrees of complexity and religious
concern. Basically, the funeral consists of conveying the deceased from his home
to the place of burial or cremation. This act of transportation has generally
been made into a procession of mourners who lament the deceased, and it has
often afforded an opportunity of advertising his wealth, status, or
achievements. Many depictions of ancient Egyptian funerary processions
graphically portray the basic pattern: the embalmed body of the deceased is
borne on an ornate sledge, on which sit two mourning
women. A priest precedes the bier, pouring libations and burning incense. In the
cortege are groups of male mourners and lamenting women, and servants carry the
funerary furniture, which indicates the wealth of the dead man. Ancient Roman
funerary processions were notable for the parade of ancestors' death masks. In
Islamic countries, friends carry the corpse on an open bier, generally
followed by women relatives, lamenting with disheveled hair, and hired mourners.
After a service in the mosque, the body is interred with its right side toward
Mecca. In Hinduism the funeral procession is made to the place of cremation.
It is preceded by a man carrying a firebrand kindled at the domestic hearth; a
goat is sometimes sacrificed en route, and the mourners circumambulate the
corpse, which is carried on a bier. Cremation is a ritual act, governed by
careful prescriptions. The widow crouches by the pyre, on which in ancient times
she sometimes died. After cremation, the remains are gathered and often
deposited in sacred rivers. (see also
Roman religion) |
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Christian funerary ritual reached its
fullest development in medieval Catholicism and was closely related to doctrinal
belief, especially that concerning purgatory. Hence, the funerary ceremonies
were invested with a sombre character that found visible expression in the use
of black vestments and candles of unbleached wax and the solemn tolling of the
church bell. The rites consisted of five distinctive episodes. The corpse was
carried (in a coffin if one could be afforded) to the church in a doleful
cortege of clergy and mourners, with the intoning of psalms and the purificatory
use of incense. The coffin was deposited in the church and covered with a black
pall, and the Office of the Dead was recited or sung, with the constant
repetition of the petition: "Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon him." Next, requiem mass was said or sung, with
the sacrifice offered for the repose of the soul of the deceased. After the mass
followed the "Absolution" of the dead person, in which the coffin was
solemnly perfumed with incense and sprinkled with holy water. The corpse was
then carried to consecrated ground and buried, while appropriate prayers were
recited by the officiating priest. Changes in these rites, including the use of
white vestments and the recitation of prayers emphasizing the notions of hope
and joy, were introduced into the Catholic liturgy only following the second
Vatican Council (1962-65). (see also Roman Catholicism) |
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In some societies the burial of the dead
has been accompanied by human
sacrifice, with the intention either to propitiate the spirit of the
deceased or to provide him with companions or servants in the next world. A
classic instance of such propitiatory sacrifice occurs in Homer's Iliad(xxiii:175-177): 12 young Trojans were slaughtered and burned on the funeral
pyre of the Greek hero Patroclus. The royal graves excavated at the Sumerian
city of Ur, dating c.
2700 BC, revealed that retinues of servants and soldiers had been buried
with their royal masters. Evidence of a similar Chinese practice has been found
in Shang-dynasty graves (12th to 11th centuries BC) at An-yang. In ancient Egypt
models of servants, placed in tombs, were designed to be magically animated to
serve their masters in the afterlife. A particular type of these models, known
as an ushabti ("answerer"),
was inscribed with chapter VI of the Book
of the Dead, commanding it to answer for the deceased owner if he were
required to do service in the next world. (see also
ushabti figure) |
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The custom has also existed among some
peoples of dismembering the body for burial or subsequently disinterring the
bones for storage in some form. There is Paleolithic evidence of a cult of
skulls, which suggests that the rest of the body was not ritually buried. The
Egyptians removed the viscera, which were preserved separately in four canopic
jars. The Romans observed the curious rite of the os resectum: after cremation a severed finger joint was buried,
probably as a symbol of an earlier custom of inhumation. In medieval Europe the
heart and sometimes the intestines of important persons were buried in separate
places: e.g., the body of William
the Conqueror was buried in St. Étienne at Caen, but his heart was
left to Rouen Cathedral and his entrails for interment in the church of Chalus.
To be noted also is the Zoroastrian and Parsi
custom of exposing corpses on dakhmas
("towers of silence") to be devoured by birds of prey, thus to avoid
polluting earth or air by burial or cremation. (see also Zoroastrianism) |
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The alternative use of inhumation or
cremation for the disposal of the corpse cannot be interpreted as generally
denoting a difference of view about the fate of the dead. In India, cremation
was indeed connected with the fire god Agni, but cremation does not necessarily
indicate that the soul was thus freed to ascend to the sky. Burial has been the
more general practice, whether the abode of the dead be located under the earth
or in the heavens. (see also Hinduism) |
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Funerary rites do not usually terminate
with the disposal of the corpse either by burial or cremation. Post-funerary
ceremonies and customs may continue for varying periods; they have generally had
two not necessarily mutually exclusive motives: to mourn the dead and to purify
the mourners. The mourning of the dead, especially by near relatives, has taken
many forms. The wearing of old or colourless dress, either black or white, the
shaving of the hair or letting it grow long and unkempt, and abstention from
amusements have all been common practice. The meaning of such action seems
evident: grief felt for the loss of a dear relative or friend naturally
expresses itself in forms of self-denial. But the purpose may sometimes have
been intended to divert the ill humour of the dead from those who still enjoyed
life in this world. |
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The purification of mourners has been
the other powerful motive in much post-funerary action. Death being regarded as
baleful, all who came in contact with it were contaminated thereby.
Consequently, among many peoples, various forms of purification have been
prescribed, chiefly bathing and fumigation. Parsis are especially intent also on
cleansing the room in which the death occurred and all articles that had contact
with the dead body. (see also purification
rite) |
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In some post-funerary rituals, dancing
and athletic contests have had a place. The dancing seems to have been inspired
by various but generally obscure motives. There is some evidence that Egyptian
mortuary dances were intended to generate a vitalizing potency that would
benefit the dead. Dances among other peoples suggest the purpose of warding off
the (evil) spirits of the dead. Funeral games
would seem to have been, in essence, prophylactic assertions of vitalizing
energy in the presence of death. It has been suggested that the funeral games of
the Etruscans, which involved the shedding of blood, had also a sacrificial
significance. (see also sacred
dance) |
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Another widespread funerary custom has
been the funeral banquet, which might be held in the presence of the corpse
before burial or in the tomb-chapel (in ancient Rome) or on the return of the
mourners to the home of the deceased. The purpose behind these meals is not
clear, but they seem originally to have been of a ritual character. Two curious
instances of mortuary eating may be mentioned in this connection. There was an
old Welsh custom of "sin eating": food and drink were handed across
the corpse to a man who undertook thereby to ingest the sins of the deceased. In
Bavaria, Leichennudeln, or
"corpse cakes," were placed upon the dead body before baking. By
consuming these cakes, the kinsmen were supposed to absorb the virtues and
abilities of their deceased relatives. (see also
feast) |
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A remarkable post-funerary custom has
been observed in Islam; it is
known as the Chastisement of the Tomb. It is believed that, on the night
following the burial, two angels, Munkar and Nakir, enter the tomb. They
question the deceased about his faith. If his answers are correct, the angels
open a door in the side of the tomb for him to pass to repose in paradise. If
the deceased fails his grisly interrogation, he is terribly beaten by the
angels, and his torment continues until the end of the world and the final
judgment. In preparation for this awful examination the roof of the tomb is
constructed to enable the deceased to sit up; and, immediately after burial, a
man known as a fiqi(or faqih)
is employed to instruct the dead in the right answers. (see also
Last Judgment, death
rite) |
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The attitude of the living toward the
dead has also been conditioned by the particular belief held about the human
nature and destiny. Where death is regarded as the virtual extinction of the personality,
the dead should logically have no more importance beyond that which their memory
might stir in those who knew them. Even in the negative eschatologies of ancient
Mesopotamia and Greece, however, the dead were thought of as still existent and
capable of malevolent action if food offerings were not made to them. In those
religions that have envisaged a more positive afterlife, the tendance of the
dead has been developed in varying ways. In Egypt, it led to the building and
endowment of mortuary temples or chapels, in which portrait images preserved the
memory of the dead and offerings of food and drink were regularly made. In
China, an elaborate ancestor cult flourished. The ancestral shrine contained
tablets, inscribed with the names of ancestors, which were revered and before
which offerings were made. The number of tablets displayed in the shrine was
determined by the social status of the family. When the tablet of a newly
deceased member was added to the collection, the oldest tablet was deposited in
a chest containing still older ones: offerings to the remoter ancestors were
made collectively at longer intervals. In India, three generations of deceased
ancestors are venerated at the monthly shraddhafestival, at which mortuary offerings were made. (see also
Mesopotamian religion, ancestor
worship, Hinduism) |
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The Christian cult of the dead found
early expression in the catacombs,
where mural paintings and inscriptions record the names of those buried there
and the hopes of eternal peace and felicity that inspired them. Special chapels
were made where the bodies of martyrs were entombed, and the anniversaries of
their martyrdoms were commemorated by the celebration of the Eucharist
(the Lord's Supper). The development of cults of martyrs and other saints in the
medieval church centred on the veneration of their relics, which were often
divided among several churches. The introduction of the doctrine of purgatory
profoundly affected the postmortem care devoted to the ordinary dead. It was
believed that the offering of the sacrifice of the mass
could alleviate the sufferings of departed souls in purgatory. Consequently, the
celebration of masses for the dead proliferated, and wealthy Christians endowed
monasteries or chantry chapels where masses were said regularly for the repose
of their own souls or those of their relatives. Prayers for the well-being of
the dead have an important place in Mahayana
Buddhism, and so-called "masses for the dead" were celebrated by
Chinese Buddhists, influenced originally perhaps by the practice of the Nestorian
Christians, who entered China in the 7th century AD. (see also Buddhism) |
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In many religions, in addition to
private cults of the dead, periodic commemorations of the dead have been kept.
The oldest of the Hindu sacred texts, the Rigveda (Rgveda),
records the practice of the ancient Aryan invaders of India. The sacred beverage
called somawas set out on "the sacred grass," and the ancestors were invited
to ascend from their subterranean abode to partake of it and to bless their
pious descendants. A similar ceremony, called the Anthesteria,
was held in ancient Athens. On the day concerned, the souls of the dead (keres)
were believed to leave their tombs and revisit their former homes, where food
was prepared for them. At sundown they were solemnly dismissed to the underworld
with the formula: "out, keres, the
Anthesteria is ended." Buddhist China kept a Feast of Wandering Souls each
year, designed to help unfortunate souls suffering in the next world. The
Christian All Souls' Day, on
November 2, which follows directly after All Saints' Day, commemorates all the
ordinary dead: requiem masses are celebrated for their repose, and in many
Catholic countries relatives visit the graves and place lighted candles on them.
After World War I the public commemoration of the fallen was instituted on
November 11, the day of the armistice in 1918, in many of the countries
concerned: the memory of the dead was solemnly recalled in a two-minute silence
during the ceremony. The body of an unknown
soldier, killed in the fighting, was also buried in the capital cities of
many countries and has become the accepted focus of national reverence and
devotion. (see also Veterans Day) |
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Among many peoples it has been the
custom to preserve the memory of the dead by images of them placed upon their
graves or tombs, usually with some accompanying inscription recording their
names and often their achievements. This sepulchral iconography
began in Egypt, the portrait statue of King Djoser (second king of the 3rd
dynasty [c. 2686-c. 2613 BC]),
found in the serdab (worship chamber;
from the Arabic word for cellar) of the Step Pyramid being the oldest known
example. The Egyptian images, however, had a magical
purpose: they not only recorded the features of the deceased but also provided a
locus for his kathe mysterious entity that constituted an essential element of the
personality. The sculptured
gravestones of classical Athens deserve special notice, for they are among the
noblest products of funerary art. They are expressive of a restrained grief for
those who had departed to the virtual extinction of Hades. The deceased are
often shown performing some familiar act for the last time. The inscriptions are
very brief and usually record only the name and parentage; sometimes the word
farewell is added. Etruscan
mortuary art is characterized by the effigy
of the deceased, sometimes with his wife, represented as reclining on the cover
of the funerary casket. These images are obviously careful portraits, but
whether they had some magical use as substitute bodies or are only commemorative
is unknown. Roman funerary images seem to have been essentially commemorative,
as were those of Palmyra. (see also Roman religion) |
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Christianity
has provided the richest legacy of funerary monuments. In the catacomb art of
the 4th and 5th centuries, the deceased was sometimes depicted on the plaster
covering of the niche in which his body was laid. From the early Middle Ages
onward, the more affluent dead were represented in sculptured effigy or engraved
in outline on stone or brass. In this tomb iconography,
they are shown in a variety of postures: lying, kneeling, seated, standing, and
sometimes on horseback. They are generally presented in the dress appropriate to
their office or social standing: kings wear crowns, knights their armour;
bishops are in copes and mitres and ladies in the fashionable attire of the day.
This iconography is patently commemorative of the appearance in life, the
achievements, and the status of the persons concerned. In the later Middle Ages,
however, there was a remarkable innovation in this funerary art, which was
designed to emphasize the horror and degradation of death. In what are known as
memento mori tombs, below the effigies of the deceased as they were in life,
there were placed effigies of their naked decaying corpses or skeletons. Such
tomb sculpture reflected a contemporary obsession with the corruption of death. |
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The Paleolithic burials reveal that the
pattern of man's reaction to the fact and phenomena of death has been set from
the dawn of culture. Unlike the other animals, man has been unable to ignore the
mysterious cessation of activity and lapse of consciousness that cause his body
to decay and befall members of his own kind. Death has, accordingly, constituted
a problem for man, and he has felt impelled to take special action to cope with
it. The pattern of his reaction has been twofold: confronted with the deaths of
his companions, he has recognized an obligation to attend to their needs as he
has conceived them, believing that they continued to exist in some form, either
in the grave or in an underworld to which the grave gave access. But man's
concern with death has not been confined to his tendance of the dead; for in the
deaths of his fellows he has seen a presage of his own demise. This anticipation
on the part of the living of the experience of dying has been a factor of
immense psychological and social import. It is essentially a human
characteristic; it stems from a consciousness of time,
of which the immense cultural significance is only now beginning to be properly
evaluated. (see also Paleolithic
Period) |
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Awareness of time in its three
categories of past, present, and future has decisively contributed to man's
success in the struggle for existence. For it has enabled him to draw upon past
experience in the present to anticipate future needs. Thus, from the making of
the first stone tools to the complex structure of his modern technological
civilization, man has sought by planning to render himself economically secure
and to improve the standard of his living. But his time consciousness, which has
made this immense achievement possible, is an ambivalent endowment. For,
although it has enabled man to win economic security, it has also made him
acutely aware of his own mortality and the inevitability of his own demise.
Hence, his anticipation of death presents him with a profound emotional
challenge, unknown to other species. The repercussions of this challenge can be
traced in almost every aspect of his social and cultural life; but it is in his
religions that man's reaction to death finds its most significant expression.
All religion is concerned with postmortem security--with linking mortal man to
an eternal realm--whether it be achieved by ritual magic, divine assistance, or
mystic enlightenment. |
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Religious rites and customs continue to
be practiced, because of conservatism, long after the ideas and beliefs that
originally inspired them may be forgotten or abandoned. This is particularly
true with regard to rites and customs pertaining to death. It is difficult to
assess to what extent in the more sophisticated societies of the modern world
the traditional eschatologies are still effectively held. Although a general
skepticism obviously manifests itself toward the medieval imagery of death and
judgment, of purgatory, heaven, and hell, modern modes of thinking have not
lessened the mystery of death and its impact on the emotions. Indeed, in modern
society, where expectation of life has been prolonged and standards of living
raised, the negation of death is probably felt more keenly and also more
hopelessly than in any other age. |
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The reaction to death most apparent
today among those having no effective religious faith is that of seeking to
treat it as a disagreeable happening that must be dealt with as quickly and
unobtrusively as possible. Funerals are no longer elaborately organized,
mourning attire is rarely worn, and graveyards are landscaped, thus discreetly
removing the earlier memorials of death. The increasing use of cremation
facilitates this disposition to reduce the social intrusion of death and banish
the traditional grave as a reminder of human mortality. |
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It is significant, however, that, even
where secularist principles are consciously professed, the dead are rarely
disposed of without some semblance of ceremony. A deeply rooted feeling prompts
most people to treat a dead human body with a respect that is not felt for a
dead animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages
to the graves of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great
effort is being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those
who died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of
Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and '40s and, if possible, to bring their ashes there.
In America, morticians strive to preserve the features of the dead as did the
embalmers of ancient Egypt, though for somewhat different motives. Finally, as
further evidence of modern preoccupation with death, it may be noted that, in
Western society, Spiritualism witnesses to a widespread desire to have
communication with the dead, and recently, in England, there has even been a
recrudescence of necromancy. (S.G.F.B.) |
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