Anthropology of the Memorial: Auto/Ethnographic Notes on Cultural Rituals Associated with Death

Abstract

This essay is both performance-based and auto/ethnography, and is a meditation on contemporary rituals in the United States associated with death and funerals, in this case, the memorial. There are social expectations at memorials, rituals of talking good about the deceased, rituals of grief, rituals of crying. Friends and family come together, old rivalries or anger are set aside for this social gathering. Strangers connect by their mutual connection to the dead. Anthropologists have always studied, with fascination, death rituals of remote tribes - if a member of these remote tribes observed Western death rituals, they would probably find it just as exotic as we find theirs. Every culture and society has its own set of rituals and rules when it comes to honoring and admiring the dead. In this essay, I reveal my own inner ritual, a personal memory, of a friend and former lover who passed.