Burial Societies Research Articles

Vom innerjüdischen Appell zur öffentlichen Kampagne. Joel Bril Löwes Sendschreiben an die Brüderschaften und der Beerdigungsfristenstreit in Breslau, 1793–1800

Abstract The danger of burying only apparently dead bodies when following the Jewish custom to bury the deceased within a day was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. Joel Bril Löwe participated in this debate with an open letter to the burial brotherhoods of all Jewish communities. The article reconstructs the dispute between the traditionalists, who argued for the Jewish custom of immediate burial, and the modernizers, who argued for its abandonment. Despite Löwe’s efforts to mediate between the fronts and to convince everyone to allow three days until the funeral were not successful, the dispute escalated, particularly in Breslau. In a number of German and Hebrew journals, Jewish supporters of the three-day limit ran campaigns, some of them rather aggressive, which led to the founding of new burial societies and attracted the attention of the Prussian authorities. The practice of early burial could only be brought to an end by state order.

Virtual Eulogies, Rituals, and Burials: Experiences of and Adaptations to Death and Mourning During the COVID-19 Pandemic among Transnational Families

This paper is based on in-depth qualitative data from key informants (i.e., village heads, and employees of burial societies) and dyads from five families interviewed between March 2020 and December 2022 in Tsholotsho and Johannesburg to explore the experiences of and adaptations to death within transnational families during the COVID-19 pandemic. This follows the extraordinary autocratic governance and weaponisation of COVID-19 and the resulting travel restrictions between Zimbabwe and South Africa. The paper finds that amid mobility constraints, families experienced sociocultural changes in relation to death, causing them to experience death and mourning in unorthodox ways. For example, they participated in online memorial, funeral, and burial services and eulogies, thus embracing transnationalism by virtually participating in funerary processes at home in Zimbabwe while based in South Africa. It concludes that these virtual rituals, while giving members an appreciated sense of togetherness, did not sufficiently satisfy families’ social and psychological needs nor regard their heterogeneous cultural values, beliefs, and norms concerning death. The paper acknowledges the evolving nature and complexity of the post-colonial family and its death practices. However, it stresses how the COVID-19 epidemic transformed relationships and the sense of belonging of transnational families usually displayed in death situations.

The Role of Local Action Groups (LAGs) in Facilitating Rural Economic Development in Two District Municipalities of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Local Action Groups (LAGs) are a promising development approach that has gained prominence across the world. They are underpinned by participation of all local actors (community-led rural development) as the main precondition for generating and sustaining economic development in rural regions. Despite this potential, there has been a dearth of scientific studies that have investigated the potential role of LAGs as a rural transformation approach in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Therefore, the current paper sought to identify existing local action groups and explore their role and potential to promote rural development. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was adopted to attain the study objective. Four hundred households were purposively drawn from two rural local municipalities, Amahlathi and Nyandeni, in the Eastern Cape Province. Survey questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides were used to collect data. Results showed that existing LAGs were mainly burial societies, cooperatives, farmers associations, women's organisations, and financial saving schemes. The main roles of these LAGs were to enhance food security, boost income generation, and foster social cohesion. However, despite their contribution, LAGs have not reached their full potential as a conduit for rural development owing to the limited involvement of relevant rural development stakeholders. Therefore, adequate targeted support is required from both the public and private sectors to unlock the potential of LAGs as a catalyst for rural development.

Why Rara Burns Judas during Lent: Rethinking the Origins of Catholic Elements in Haitian Culture from an Afro-Iberian Perspective

AbstractUntil the 1980s, Catholic elements in Haitian culture tended to be interpreted exclusively in connection to the forced conversion of the enslaved population under French rule. This changed following John Thornton's groundbreaking research into the development of Christianity in early modern Africa—Kongo in particular—and the awareness that a significant number of enslaved Africans already identified as Christian before their arrival in Saint-Domingue. This article's goal is to go beyond Thornton's research by showing that we can acquire a better understanding of Catholic elements in Haitian culture if we start our analysis in late medieval Iberia. To illustrate this, the article focuses on one of Haiti's most enigmatic cultural traditions, known as Chariopié, Lwalwadi, or, most commonly, Rara. Although this performance has received abundant scholarly interest, questions relating to the origin of its Catholic elements have remained largely unanswered. This is regrettable considering that Rara parades follow the liturgical calendar of Lent and intensify in frequency during Holy Week. Moreover, a key element of Rara consists of the destruction of an effigy of Judas Iscariot, in accordance with the Biblical account of the Easter story. Using a comparative analysis, this article presents a number of remarkable parallels between Rara and late medieval Iberian Lent traditions. To explain these parallels, it claims that enslaved Africans who were familiar with Iberian practices prior to their arrival in the Caribbean established, by their own initiative, a network of mutual aid and burial societies modeled on Afro-Iberian Catholic brotherhoods.

Burying the Dead, Saving the Community: Jewish Burial Societies as Informal Centres of Jewish Self-Government

Burying the Dead, Saving the Community: Jewish Burial Societies as Informal Centres of Jewish Self-Government

Social Support Experiences of Spousally Bereaved Individuals in a South African Township Community: The Botho/Ubuntu Perspective.

Bereavement is a deeply personal experience that is also shaped by one’s socio-cultural context. This qualitative study explored the social support experiences and needs of spousally bereaved individuals in a South African township. The botho/ubuntu philosophical framework was used to interpret participants’ experiences in this regard. Six ethnically diverse, bereaved spouses aged 55–67years, residing in a predominantly Setswana-speaking township in the North West Province of South Africa, were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. An indigenous knowledge consultant was interviewed to situate participant experiences pertaining to mourning rites and traditions within the indigenous socio-historical and contemporary cultural context. The following themes were identified: (i) Sources of social support during bereavement; (ii) Inadequate social support after spousal death; (iii) The need for grief counseling; and (iv) Social restrictions and systematic isolation during the traditional mourning period: “It is as if you smell.” Broadly, bereaved spouses drew on their support networks at various stages of their bereavement, which included family members, in-laws, friends, burial societies, their surrounding communities, and religious communities and figures. However, some experienced ostracization and stigmatization during the mourning period, which was invariably longer for the widows in this study, in line with conventions across Black South African cultures. Some participants reported withdrawal of support by their in-laws and harmful attitudes and assumptions rooted in patriarchal ideology by family members and in-laws. As pertaining to botho/ubuntu, the study also showed that communality or relationality entailed both positive and negative aspects, including support, co-operation, care, lack of support, stigmatization, and ostracization. Unlike conventional conceptualizations of botho/ubuntu, the study findings illustrate the human experience as comprising varying dimensions of relationality, ranging from harmony to disharmony. Findings regarding the negative aspects of communality are compatible with those relating to relational interdependence in African and East Asian settings. The findings also expand our understanding of the nature of disharmony alongside harmony in interdependent socio-cultural contexts.

Rethinking the Historical Development of Caribbean Performance Culture from an Afro-Iberian Perspective

Abstract This article advocates for a new perspective on Caribbean performance traditions by adopting an Afro-Iberian perspective. It argues that we are able to acquire a better understanding of the historical development of some of the most enigmatic Caribbean performances, including Jankunu, by taking into consideration that many of those who built the foundations of Afro-Caribbean culture had already adopted cultural and religious elements rooted in Iberian traditions before their arrival in the Americas. A comparative analysis demonstrates a series of parallels between early witness accounts of Jankunu and Iberian calenda traditions. In order to explain this, the article points to Iberian dominance in the early-modern Atlantic and, in particular, Portuguese influences in Africa. It highlights the importance of confraternities and argues that it was in the context of African variants of these mutual-aid and burial societies that elements rooted in Iberian traditions entered Afro-Caribbean culture.

Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York by Allan Amanik

Reviewed by: Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York by Allan Amanik Sue Fawn Chung Allan Amanik. Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York. New York: New York University Press, 2019. Pp. 276. Cloth $40. ISBN: 9781479800803 In the Goldstein-Goran Series in American Jewish History. Death is inevitable and a proper burial is very important to the majority of people in the world. It is not surprising that from the mid-seventeenth century until the present, Jews were concerned about death and burials. Separation in death, which was common among most American immigrants, was vital, so that even when a general cemetery was used, the Jewish section was separated into its own space. Using a tremendous amount of Jewish archival materials, some very difficult to access, including records from different synagogues, temples, fraternal societies, other welfare groups, and private funeral companies, as well as newspapers and a rich variety of other materials, Allan Amanik has written an excellent book on the history and evolution of Jewish concerns about death and burial practices in New York from the mid-seventeenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century. In a chronological presentation, “this book charts the ways in which funerary provisions served as an engine of changing communal life, as family, financial security, and consumerism grew in importance in shaping Jewish approaches to death and burial over time” (8). The history and religious concerns that the Jewish leaders faced resonate not only with the development of Jewish cemeteries in the United States but also with other minority groups that experienced similar struggles in a changing American society. Chapter one focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when small boards of synagogue elites dominated and dictated burial practices in [End Page 247] an atmosphere of clients wanting to move away from communal, chronological (buried by date of death) burials to family plots with an emphasis on kinship ties. Problems, such as how to deal with interfaith marriages, widows, and orphans, what to do about increasing expenses and endowments, limited cemetery space, and the arrival of European-ordained rabbis with different practices, added to the controversies. Chapter two discusses the solution by Jewish burial societies to allow family burials and add welfare services for surviving dependents, thus breaking the synagogue’s monopoly over charity and communal organizations in the nineteenth century. Reform Judaism (originating in nineteenth-century Germany), as seen in the activities of Dr. Max Lilienthal (1815–1882) and temples like Emanu-El, led to greater changes that promoted egalitarianism and eschewed Orthodox strict ritualistic practices, dietary laws, separation of men and women, funerary paraphernalia, and inclusion of hereditary caste or gender preferences. The Reform directors added to their concern women, widows, and orphans, the poor, those who converted to Judaism, and those whose spouses were not Jewish. Due to eminent domain and prohibition of cemeteries in the cities like New York, exhumations that were prohibited in Jewish law had to take place, and new cemeteries along with new synagogues were established in rural areas (Rural Cemetery Movement) as the suburbs grew with the growing industrialization and the growth of the middle class. Chapters three focuses on women and working men. By giving voice to the problems of Jewish women, widows, and non-Jewish spouses, Amanik has shed new light on a topic that is usually touched upon lightly, if at all, in other cemetery studies. The plight of women was especially interesting. Chapter four to the epilogue covers funeral practices from 1890 to the present as private, professional funeral establishments took over the industry at the turn of the century and often had all-inclusive burial packages and state of the art “garden” cemeteries. The price in 1913 for a package that included modern chapels, ritual washing, embalming, shrouds, funeral processions and transportation, and the grave site was a mere $35. Fraudulent practices and other problems persuaded the synagogue elders to fight back and regain their oversight of death rituals. In 1963 and 1965 the United Synagogue codified funeral standards and the bonds of kinship in death was a part of it. A revival of the...

Religion and the Israeli Welfare State: The Case of Burial Services

AbstractIn recent years, the welfare state literature has been witnessing a “religious turn,” (re)reminding us the pivotal role of religion in shaping the modern welfare state. Notwithstanding its theoretical importance, this turn has been largely confined to European, North American, and antipodean settings. By drawing upon the historical case of Israeli burial services, this study seeks to make a modest step in closing this theoretical and empirical gap. Specifically, its findings point to the historical role of the Judaism in establishing universal burial services, funded by the state and operated almost exclusively by religious burial societies. Moreover, this policy legacy, which already had its roots in the British Mandate rule, is still at work, even in an era of “permanent austerity.” These findings problematize mainstream historical observations, which view the Israeli welfare state as a secular project, by suggesting a more nuanced and progressive role for Judaism in its history.

Burial of oscillating rural-urban and oscillating rural-diasporic indigenous Zimbabweans at dilapidated rural homes (matongo): a case study of the genesis of tent huts and kinship funeral expense fund groups in Buhera District, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT I argue that an increase in the number of oscillating rural-urban (ORU) and oscillating rural-diasporic (ORD) indigenous Zimbabweans’ interments at dilapidated homes has resulted in the genesis and upsurge in temporary tent huts in which African Indigenous Religion (AIR) burial and funeral rituals are performed. Research findings conclude that there is an increasing number of ORU and ORD indigenous Zimbabweans who respectively after their deaths in urban centres and in the diaspora have AIR burial rites performed in tent huts at their deceased parents’ ruined homes in the rural areas. Research findings also reveal that traditional burial societies died in Zimbabwe due to economic hardships and that necessitated the formation of Kinship Funeral Expenses Fund Groups (KFEFG) in urban centres by the ORU Zimbabweans and Funeral Insurance Policies (FIP) by Zimbabwean diasporians which replaced burial societies. The conclusion is that despite an increasing number of Zimbabweans living, educated and owning houses in urban centres in Zimbabwe and in foreign countries, they still regard their decrepit rural abodes as their spiritual home and a place for their burials when they die.

Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Burial in New York by Allan Amanik

Reviewed by: Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Burial in New York by Allan Amanik Heather S. Nathans (bio) Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Burial in New York allan amanik New York University Press, 2019 272 pp. "How best to organize the dead," Allan Amanik queries in the first chapter of Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Burial in New York (16). Questions of organization, based on geography, law, money, politics, family, and faith, thread through Amanik's richly researched study and inform his nuanced exploration of the development of Jewish burial practices and traditions in New York from the time of the earliest Jewish settlement to the turn of the twenty-first century. As Amanik argues, studying the abiding quest for control of cemeteries and rituals for the dead or dying can offer significant insights into the challenge so many struggling Jewish communities faced in establishing or maintaining control against the pressures of a predominantly Gentile American culture. Amanik divides the study into five chapters, plus an introduction, a conclusion, and an epilogue. As he notes in chapter 1, "A dedicated Jewish graveyard not only represented the first communal and public space that Jews created in North America but counted among several legal, social, and religious privileges that paved the way for long-term settlement in the colony" (19). Amanik uses the struggle to establish the first Jewish burial ground to wrestle with the dream of permanent settlement in the young Dutch colony. He describes the reluctance of the Christian Dutch rulers to grant the 1655 petition of three Sephardic Jewish merchants to purchase land for a graveyard, even though no Jews had yet died in New Amsterdam. As Amanik astutely observes, the Dutch leaders denied the petition, "likely hoping to discourage permanent settlement" (19). But despite the efforts of the Dutch and then the British authorities, Jewish families began to establish themselves in New York City, and the controversy over burial practices shifted to reflect internal debates within the Jewish community. Those ranged from disputes over family burial versus chronological burial (many early congregations maintained that burials should be organized by date of death, rather than family name), to how or whether to bury the Christian spouses of those who had married outside the Jewish community, but who had not converted to Christianity. Additionally, synagogues faced hard financial realities in trying to maintain their activities among [End Page 895] comparatively small populations, and as Amanik notes, burial practices and the access to sanctioned burial spaces provided leverage for synagogue leaders to shore up their scanty resources by requiring that regular dues be paid (or be paid retroactively at the time of a loved one's death) in order to provide access to these all-important sites. Chapter 2 focuses on the ways in which death rituals and funerals helped to shape a new system of "grassroots Jewish burial societies" that pushed back against the authority of synagogue leaders and the community's wealthiest families (46). If the burial regulations of the colonial and early national era had defined who was "inside" and who was "outside" centers of power in Jewish New York, the rising fraternal organizations demonstrated that Jewish citizens were willing to establish their own structures based on "collectivism and mutual regard" (49). Perhaps not surprisingly, these emerging organizations mirrored the national rhetoric as it shifted toward a more sentimental concept of citizenship. While American Jewish communities might have gotten a later start in creating burial societies than some of their European or colonial counterparts, their post-Revolutionary activity shaped them into "transitional institutions" (55). As Amanik argues, the increasing schisms among late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century synagogues decentralized the synagogue's collective influence just as fraternal organizations began to demonstrate that they could offer more effective (and less restrictive) opportunities for Jewish philanthropy and community. In chapter 3, Amanik focuses on the "Rural Cemetery Movement," as a watershed moment in the history of Jewish American burial practices. The movement marked a trend toward establishing cemeteries outside of crowded city centers and making them resemble lavishly landscaped gardens. Moreover, in a reversal of earlier policy, the new Jewish cemeteries traded on being...

Mediating microinsurance: the techniques of translation

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, microinsurance has taken off in South Africa. The strength of this market is fuelled almost exclusively by funeral insurance, unsurprising considering the immense cultural value South Africans place on funerals. Moreover, insurance companies have achieved scale by working through brokers who are embedded within community-based institutions like burial societies and funeral parlours. The incursion of ‘insurance culture’ into this sphere has thus resulted in an ecosystem in which formal and informal institutions are in fluid states of tension and cooperation. Mediators sustain this ecosystem and enable the extension of microinsurance into low-income communities. I employ Bruno Latour’s notion of ‘translation’ in my analysis of three types of mediators: insurance agents, funeral parlour operators, and burial society administrators. The paper, which is based on fieldwork I conducted in Cape Town, South Africa, focuses on these actors’ specific techniques of translation, i.e. the different strategies/practices used to reconcile the disparate rationalities and institutions of the formal insurance system with those of the informal risk management sphere. An analysis attuned to the various social identities and positions embodied by these brokers reveals the dislocations, ambiguities, conflicts, and opportunities generated by the expansion of microinsurance markets into the low-income terrain.

Reassessing the pauper burial: the disposal of corpses in nineteenth-century Brussels

In this article, I examine the changing disposal of pauper corpses in the nineteenth-century hospitals of Brussels. I argue that the end of the century witnessed a growing focus on the individuality of the pauper corpse. Research into hospital records has revealed the significance of the ideological struggles between Catholics, liberals and socialists from the 1860s onwards, as a result of which the indifferent attitude of hospital administrators regarding dead patients and relatives was increasingly contested. Acts and complaints by the local authorities, mutualist burial societies and relatives brought about improvements in the material conditions of the pauper burial. My analysis of this debate shows that the ideological conflicts regarding Catholic and civil burials, as well as the introduction of new burial standards within hospitals, led to a greater emphasis on the burial desires of the dead. Yet, I argue that this attention towards the individual pauper corpse was only deemed necessary if close family members or burial societies stood up for the fulfilment of the dying wishes of the dead. Poor hospital patients without such social relationships could not prevent an anonymous anatomy burial.

Borum Eshøj Revisited – Bronze Age monumental burial traditions in eastern Jutland, Denmark

ABSTRACTBorum Eshoj is one of the internationally most famous monuments from the Nordic Bronze Age, key to understanding burial customs, social identities and societies. Its uniqueness is reflected in its extraordinarily well-preserved oak log coffin burials, its landscape setting in a distinct barrow group and its complex monumental architecture. Since 1988, new investigations have been conducted at the barrow group, and in 2011, the remains of the classic Borum Eshoj were investigated. The new investigation reveals a monument with an extraordinarily long and complex use-life. It demonstrates a consecutive construction procedure with basic building principles which provide a basis for reinterpreting the barrow and suggesting an initial burial ground compounded beneath one large barrow construction phase. The kerbstones were constructed before the barrow was finished, and the barrow partly covers the kerbstone construction. In a larger perspective, the new investigations indicate that Borum Eshoj, with it...

Challenging the Societal Death System: The Development of a Secularist Funerary Culture in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

This paper reconstructs the history of civil funerals in Belgium during the long 19th century within a broader European context. Human agency was very important in challenging the Catholic hegemony over the cult of the dead in the funeral system of 19th-century Belgium. From the middle of the century onwards, anticlericals, driven by a new spirit of independence, set up their own processions and graveside ceremonies outside the sacramental system of the Catholic Church. Freethinkers and Freemasons looked for ways to protect themselves from clerical efforts or efforts from their close family members to convert them in the final moments of their lives. The history of secularist funerary culture in Belgium was also determined by more impersonal variables such as class, region, urban geography and gender. The first civil burial associations in Europe were founded in Brussels in a context of skilled labourers and French exiles in the 1850s. In Antwerp and Ghent, durable socialist freethinkers’ organisations which functioned as burial societies only started appeareing around 1880. In the urban areas of Liège and Charleroi, freethinkers in industrialised suburbs played a considerable role in the rise of civil burial movements in the 1870s-1880s.

Passive Suicidal Ideation and Community Mental Health Resources in South Africa.

South African communities continue to experience elevated incidence and prevalence of HIV infection. Passive suicidal ideation (PSI) may be one expression of distress in high prevalence communities. We report the prevalence of PSI and examine the relationship between PSI and participation in community organizations in a semi-rural sample of South African adults (N=594). The prevalence of PSI in the 2weeks prior to the interview was 9.1%. Members of burial societies (Χ (2)=7.34; p=0.01) and stokvels (Χ (2)=4.1; p=0.04) (community-based savings groups) reported significantly less PSI compared to other respondents. Using a multivariate model adjusted for demographic characteristics, psychological distress, and socioeconomic status, we found lower odds of reporting PSI for members of burial societies (OR 0.48, CI 0.25 -0.91). Participation in community organizations that provide contextually salient resources in settings with high levels of distress may be a resource for mental health.

(Non)state and (in)formal social protection in Africa: Focusing on burial societies

Social protection has reached development policy agenda in Africa, and extending coverage to informal workers is now a key concern. First, this article develops a conceptual framework of social protection intersperse in Africa to identify the missing link in the evolving debates on extending social protection to informal workers. Second, the article reviews and assesses literature on African burial societies to make an argument that they are well positioned to be engaged as pathways for providing social protection to those working informally. The article concludes by identifying three models of possible pathways for extending social protection in Africa: the state-informal single model, the state-informal collective model and the state-formal model.

Can burial societies be used to overcome flooding? Insurance and resilience in poor, urban South Africa

Collective actions enable poor African communities to achieve common goals and respond to key life hazards. This paper draws on in-depth interviews among poor entrepreneurs in two informal settlement areas in Cape Town, South Africa and how they manage climate-induced hazards, particularly flooding. The study assesses how one form of collective action, burial societies, can be used by members to overcome flood hazards. The findings suggest that the reciprocity principle in burial societies makes them a useful mechanism for flood management. However, there remains a gap in our knowledge on the ability of burial societies to respond to climate-induced shocks, and the issues that need to be addressed to make burial societies more appropriate to deal with flooding. These issues are outlined in the conclusion.

Grassroots community organizations' contribution to the scale-up of HIV testing and counselling services in Zimbabwe.

Objective:To investigate whether community engagement (participation in grassroots organizations) contributed to increases in HIV testing in Zimbabwe.Methods:Prospective data on membership of local community organizations (e.g. women's groups and burial societies) and uptake of HIV testing and counselling (HTC) and prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services were collected from 5260 adults interviewed in two consecutive rounds of a general-population cohort survey in eastern Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2008. The effects of community engagement on uptake of services during the follow-up period were measured using logistic regression to adjust for observed confounding factors.Results:Sixteen percent of men and 47% of women were consistent members of community organizations; 58 and 35% of these people discussed HIV in their meetings and were members of externally sponsored organizations, respectively. Fewer men (10.1%) than women (32.4%) took up HTC during follow-up [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 4.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.43–4.86, P < 0.001]. HTC uptake was higher for members of community organizations than for nonmembers: men, 15.0 versus 9.2% (1.67, 1.15–2.43, P = 0.007); women, 35.6 versus 29.6% (1.26, 1.06–1.49, P = 0.008). Membership of community organizations showed a nonsignificant association with PMTCT uptake amongst recently pregnant women (42.3 versus 34.2%; 1.30, 0.94–1.78, P = 0.1). The most consistent positive associations between community participation and HTC and PMTCT uptake were found in organizations that discussed HIV and when external sponsorship was absent.Conclusion:Grassroots organizations contributed to increased uptake of HTC services in eastern Zimbabwe in the mid-2000s. Partnerships with these organizations could harness community support for the further increases in HIV testing needed in sub-Saharan Africa.

Burial society versus the Church in the Black society of South Africa: A pastoral response

This article attempts to provide insight to the church councils of mainly Black churches, regarding members� absenteeism during Sunday church services and also the lack of financial contributions to the church. A number of church-going members are often absent on the last Sunday of the month or the first Sunday of the month because of their commitments to burial societies − burial societies prefer to meet on Sundays. Because the meetings take place at the end of the month and funding is one of the main issues at these meetings, the members� tithing to the church is negatively impacted. Our research found that members considered their contribution to the societies to be more important than their tithing to the church. In some cases members belonged to more than one burial society, and these members spent more money so as to receive greater support in the event of a death. Unfortunately this left them with nothing to give to the church. Another reason given for belonging to burial societies was that their membership helped them to prepare for death, would enable them to have a decent funeral service and would ensure that those who attended the funeral service did not go home hungry.