Funerals and Funeralization in Cross-Cultural Perspective

This entry deals with funerals and funeralization across the multitude of world cultures. Thus, a definition of funeral that is respectful of crosscultural variation includes the death rituals engaged in to deal with a corpse plus all the rituals that deal with the spiritual, property, role changes, and other matters connected to the death. Death rituals are all the rites, ceremonies, celebrations, and other culturally recognized and commonly performed activities that are carried out as the result of a death. Funeralization is defined as the action, process, or result of carrying out a funeral.

One cannot understand what death means in a culture or how the survivors cope with the emotional, relationship, economic, spiritual, and other consequences of a death without understanding funerals in that culture. There are enormous variations in funerals from culture to culture, but there are also similarities. The variations and the similarities together illuminate human plasticity in dealing with death and also what is basically human.

The enormous differences across cultures in rituals surrounding death indicate that one should be careful in applying a conventional English language definition of the term funeral to death rituals across cultures. If one defines a funeral following conventional English language usage as the rituals engaged in shortly after a death to dispose of the dead body through burial, one would miss that in many cultures the rituals may be carried out over months or even years and that body disposal does not necessarily involve burial. Indeed, the death rituals of many cultures will seem foreign to those in the United States who are accustomed to conventional U.S. funerals. For example, in many cultures funerals can include ritualized wailing, self-mutilation, shaving the heads of bereaved individuals, investigating who performed the witchcraft that killed the deceased, animal sacrifice, ritual obscenity, destroying the property of the deceased, or fleeing from the corpse. What might seem bizarre makes sense once one understands the relevant cultural meanings. Within the meaning systems of a culture, how people deal with a death makes sense to them and is valued by them.

All known cultures have funeral rituals, practices that are preferred, that are typically engaged in, that have meaning and give meaning. Bodies are not just abandoned. A death must be dealt with. And this says something about our common humanity. Death is not trivial. Corpses are dealt with in meaningful ways. Funeral rituals give [Page 496]meaning to the life and death of the deceased, to life and death in general, and to the reactions of the survivors. Funeral rituals are social events and so they define social relationships, enact and reinforce social norms, and often strengthen social relationships.

In many cultures, funeral rituals are spread over months or years, with an initial set of rituals and an initial disposal of the remains of the deceased shortly after the death. Eventually there is a final funeral ceremony, months or years after the death, which usually ends formal mourning, and often at the final ceremony there is a final disposal of the remains of the deceased.

...