Funeral Research Articles

Batu Qulhu—The stone of death: Harmonizing traditional funerals in the Mandailing community of North Sumatra

Death and funeral rituals hold significant cultural and spiritual importance in traditional communities worldwide, including within the Islamic faith. This study focuses on exploring the unique funeral ritual known as Batu Qulhu in the Muslim Mandailing community. Employing a qualitative approach, the research utilizes field observations and interviews with ulama and imams who have practical knowledge and understanding of this traditional ritual. The study reveals two origin stories of Batu Qulhu: one attributed to the first Imam in the Mandailing community and the other associated with parents, ulama, and village malims (religious teachers) without specifying an individual source. Batu Qulhu refers to the white river stones utilized by the congregation during the ritual to count the number of prayers offered. The procession of this tradition follows a strict protocol, encompassing prayers, recitation of the Quran, and seeking forgiveness for the deceased and their family. The efficacy of Batu Qulhu serves as a testament to the cultural values of spirituality, tradition, and the preservation of cultural identity. While Batu Qulhu remembrance is specific to the Mandailing community, similar cultural practices can be observed in other regions, highlighting the universal human need to honor and remember the deceased, find solace in collective rituals, and uphold cultural traditions as an integral part of identity and social cohesion.

Why is modern man afraid of death?

In this research I will address the question of fear of death for modern man. No doubt this question was flickering in the silence of the Covid quarantines, seeing the reaction of others to the sudden deaths. To this end, I will analyze Western attitudes towards religion, legacy, the value of life, and the change in death rituals. The conclusion is based on the current context, the worldview of modern man.

Christian Elements and Their Folk Adaptations in the Funeral and Memorial Rites of the Ludian Karelians

Abstract The article* focuses on an analysis of the funeral and memorial rituals of the Ludian Karelians in the context of folk religion. For many years, rites of Orthodox origin were either viewed unilaterally or ignored altogether in ethnographic literature, with the reconstruction of ‘pagan’ elements being highlighted, which in turn gave rise to the theory of dual faith. According to the results of my research, the funeral and memorial traditions of the Ludians (from the late 19th to the late 20th century) are based on an Orthodox funeral system in which many aspects derived from a Christian basis found new interpretation. For example, the requirement to light candles was explained as lighting the way to the afterlife, the importance of making confession was so that the dying person’s sins would not attach to the living, and funeral services were to help the soul of the deceased ‘settle’, etc. The principal exponents of the funeral rituals, who ensured the successful transition of the soul to the next world, were representatives of the people: women who washed the body of the deceased, and lamenters, but the church priesthood nonetheless played a significant role in conducting the rituals. The priest’s participation is apparent at all stages of the funeral ritual, from confession to commemoration. Following the abolition of the institution of the church during the Soviet period, the functions of the priest were assumed by elderly women who knew the prayers and church burial traditions.

New Technologies in Pentecostal Funeral Rituals During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

ABSTRACT: During the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, death rites were abbreviated. Hospital visits to the sick, collective farewell ceremonies, and coexistence with corpses were made impossible. In this article, by analyzing a Pentecostal funeral live stream that occurred in May 2020, I try to discuss the possibilities of ritual change in a context of exception. I conclude that the mediatization of funeral rites does not depend solely on the existence and access of the mourners to new technologies. The elements at play in these funerals occur in dialogue with symbolic contents—hierarchical, cosmological, doctrinal—and intersect with the properties of the new technologies, producing affectations in the form and content of the rites.

On Disrupted Death Rites and COVID-19

On Disrupted Death Rites and COVID-19

Concealment and Care in Deathcare During COVID

ABSTRACT: During the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, photojournalistic depictions of the havoc wreaked by the virus became ubiquitous. Images of physically distanced funerals and large-scale body disposal populated newsfeeds, but the labor and experiences of those working within these images—people handling bodies and guiding bereaved families—remained largely hidden from public view. Even before the pandemic, visibility and public recognition were complicated matters for the “deathcare” sector, as professionals cautiously constructed and defended the line separating the family-facing frontstage and industry-insider backstage. Our engagement with this sector through photography was motivated by a desire to illuminate the experiences of those working in deathcare during COVID outbreaks and lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia. Reflecting on photography as method in the study of death, we think through the complexities of seeing and unseeing, exposure and concealment in contemporary death rituals. The pandemic exposed certain realities of death and dying to the public but obfuscated others. Further, our ethnographic practice of portraiture revealed concealment to be a key element of the caring labors that deathcare workers perform.

Funeral directors’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed method study

ABSTRACT To investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on death rituals among funeral directors (FDs) (N = 134), we administered a questionnaire and conducted three focus group interviews (N = 21). The merged results showed that the FDs perceived significant disruptions to all rituals but mostly to memorials. Infection control, social distancing, the constraints on attendee numbers and difficult prioritisation of who to be allowed into the rituals, highly impacted the grief of the bereaved and their own ability to convey care. Despite low burnout scores, the FDs found their work life stressful, changed and challenging amid the pandemic but still filled with meaning and job satisfaction. Our recommendations include for spacious venues, prioritising efforts for feasible memorials, maintaining stable numbers and distance restrictions, ensuring participation for children and easily left out groups, creating a prioritising guide for quantity restrictions, and offering digital support for funeral staff.

Gender and Division of Labor Associated with Dying, Burial, and Mourning in Early America

During the colonial period, and the years of the new republic, death most frequently occurred in the home. Members of communities engaged in a system of mutual aid by helping families at a time of loss. Women cared for the sick and dying and prepared the body for burial.4 Men built coffins, as an extension of the cabinet making trade. The local sexton dug the grave. On the day of the funeral, men transported the coffin to the burial site. Women participated in the funeral service by providing hospitality to mourners and taking part in the procession. Women and men participated in mourning rituals by donning attire and following mourning etiquette based on religion and social status. These gendered divisions of labor and social expectations represented the specified gender roles within colonial society. Although the rituals associated with death and dying particularly in functions outside the home were dominated by men, women still carved out their own place in these rituals based on gender roles of the time.

From Cradle to Grave: Death Rituals across Cultures and Ages

From Cradle to Grave: Death Rituals across Cultures and Ages

Makna Ritual Kematian Bagi Warga Nahdlatul Ulama di Pragaan Laok Sumenep

This research aims to discover the various forms, meanings and religious values contained in the death rituals of NU residents who have long existed in Pragaan Laok Village, Pragaan District, Sumenep. This ethnographic study uses natural seccing methods to understand the point of view of NU resident from a religious and traditional perspective. To find data, interviews, observation and documentation were used. Religious leaders, traditional leaders, village heads and NU residents were used as primary sources for gathering data. Once collected the data is analyzed through data reduction, categorization, synthesis and developing a working hypothesis. Next, check the validity of the data by extending participation, persistence of observation and triangulation. The research results concluded that are 21 death rituals. It’s just that some rituals have been abandoned by people who are literate in religious knowledge. The role of religious figures is being able to change some of these rituals by including Islamic, such as hanging the diamond above the door of funeral home, giving alms to the dead, praying, planting flowers for broken bones, sowing flowers and pouring water over graves. Thus, death rituals are local cultural products that were acculturated by the Wali Songo which are preserved, believed and sacred by the current generation. Because in this rituals there is meaning, philosophy and religious values from which NU resident should learn lessons. Even though millennials don’t know its meaning in depth, they still carry it out.

Impact of COVID-19 on celebration of death, mortuary, and funerary customs in Bangladesh: A qualitative study

IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions significantly impacted religious activities related to death celebrations, mortuary practices, and funerary rituals in Bangladesh. Bereaved families faced a harsh reality, unable to perform the full rituals for their loved ones due to the pandemic outbreak. This study explores the adjustments and modifications made in cultural rituals and how they affected bereaved families and close relatives. ObjectiveThis study aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the observance of death rituals in Bangladesh and the effects on bereaved families and close relatives. MethodsThis study employed a qualitative approach and gathered data through 3 key informant interviews (KIIs) and 58 in-depth interviews (IDIs) conducted between December 2020 and January 2021. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit participants from three distinct groups: (1) individuals who had experienced the death of a relative during the pandemic, (2) caregivers who provided support to those experiencing loss, and (3) volunteers actively involved with funeral and burial services. This selection strategy ensured a diverse range of perspectives on the impact of the pandemic on death rituals. ResultsThe pandemic forced people to observe funerals or make significant sacrifices to traditional practices reluctantly. Disruptions to long-standing traditions and widespread emotional toll were as various segments of society struggled to find closure in saying goodbye to loved ones. Due to the severity of the pandemic, people became heavily reliant on priests, crematorium workers, and funeral volunteers for mortuary services. Both Hindu and Muslim religions discouraged family gatherings during post-burial rituals. The fear of contracting the virus further limited bereaved families’ ability to bid farewell to their deceased loved ones properly. ConclusionThis research highlights the profound impact of the pandemic on death rituals and the resulting emotional distress for bereaved families in Bangladesh. The findings are pivotal in guiding the development of concrete policies for future pandemic preparedness and response. Such policies might encompass guidelines for safe and culturally sensitive mortuary practices, psychosocial support and grief counseling initiatives for affected communities, and strategies to mitigate religious anxieties during public health emergencies.

Beyond Death: Funeral Rituals and Megalithic Traditions Among the Bhil Tribes of India.

The earliest traces of funeral rituals in the Indian Subcontinent date back to the Mesolithic period. Data from various parts of the country clearly indicate that this tradition gained popularity during the Neolithic and Iron Age periods in India. Besides, during the Iron-age period we found evidence of megalithic tradition, and the megalithic sites found in the Indian subcontinent reveal an elaborate process of death rituals. This present study focuses on first-hand data obtained from the south-eastern part of Rajasthan, India. The data unveils many hidden aspects of funeral rituals and megalithic traditions related to the Bhils community. To gain a better understanding of death rituals, beliefs about afterlife, and the erection of memorial pillars on behalf of the deceased, the author compares the death rituals of the Bhils with those of the Munda communities in central eastern parts of India.

Bereavement during lockdown: the potential impact of COVID-19 restrictions on grief and post-traumatic stress disorder in a Turkish-Muslim population

ABSTRACT The current study examined whether disruption to performing Islamic death rituals could be linked to core bereavement and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in Turkish-Muslim individuals who lost their close relatives to COVID-19. Participants (n = 52) completed a Demographic Information and Bereavement Experience (DIBEF) form with items probing demographics, attendance to rituals, receiving social support, and perceived disruption to bereavement via COVID-19 restrictions. The Core Bereavement Items (CBI) and the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) were used to measure symptomatology. The results showed that 92.3% of the participants did not receive condolence visitors, 98.1% failed to say goodbye, and 78.8% could not practice their religious duties. Importantly, perceived disruption score was significantly linked to the CBI (but not PCL-C) scores. The potential role of perceived disruption to bereavement in aggravating the grief response is discussed in relation to the dual process model of coping with bereavement.

Gender and the Performance of Death Rituals in Classical Athens 480–332 BCE

Abstract Death rituals play a significant role in maintaining the cultural system of different societies by providing a specific form of behaviour in response to death. To that end, the significant role of women as patrons of culture can be identified by studying their role in the performance of death rituals. Classical Athens provides a good case study as women performed most phases of the mortuary treatment, and their role is recognised in both the textual and material evidence. This gives us the opportunity to diverge from the ‘typical male perspective’-approach to the mortuary evidence, which focuses on the socio-political and economic dimensions, and shed light on the agency of women. The female agency was responsible for the continuity of some ancient rituals despite the laws made to restrict them. Moreover, relatively wealthier women were indirect agents influencing the Athenian public life by using excessive death rituals to reallocate power in society after the loss of powerful individuals.

Kabelid vepsa Šimjärve piirkonnas (19. sajandi lõpp, 20. sajandi algus)

In recent decades, a significant number of works have been published in Russian ethnology, devoted to the study of various forms of religiosity of the population in direct connection with certain territories in different historical periods, which has become established in science as a special concept and approach called “religious landscape”. This approach turned out to be productive in identifying the peculiarities of the spread of Orthodox traditions in a certain territory, as well as in solving modern all-Russian problems of preserving the cultural heritage of rapidly disappearing villages. The article, based on a significant set of sources, reveals the features of the topography of chapels in the cultural landscape of the Veps of Shimozerye, Lodeynopolsky district, Olonets province, at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries, the motives for their construction, the dedication of chapels and their functions in the parish life of Vepsian villages. Nowadays, this deserted territory with destroyed Orthodox shrines is constantly visited by tourists. During the study, the motives for the construction of chapels were identified, which provide an explanation for their placement in the cultural landscape of Shimozerye: distance from the church, vow, appearance of an icon, reconstruction on the site of a lost shrine, consecration of ancient burials of the ancestors of a given settlement. The chapels were used exclusively for church services during local holidays, and played an important role in strengthening social and kinship communications and, ultimately, uniting Vepsian villages. Their use in funeral services, in comparison with other territories, has not been identified. An analysis of the chapel dedications revealed the dominance of the names of Nicholas the Wonderworker, Elijah the Prophet, the Savior, and the Mother of God, who were considered the patrons of agriculture among the Veps. Hence, chapels as places of communication with these patrons, played an important role in ensuring the peasants’ future harvest. Single dedications to the patrons of livestock (Saints Florus and Laurus), driving livestock to the chapels, reveal another function of the chapels and the holidays associated with them – the protection of livestock. In the past, the abandoned Shimozersky region had exeptional holidays that captured the intermingling of unique folk and Christian events, for example: the baptism of the Veps of this area and the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, lost in Russia; holiday of the harvest and the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

Exploring the Healing Power of Death Rituals: A Study from Social Work Perspective in Birendranagar Municipality of Surkhet, Nepal

Exploring the Healing Power of Death Rituals: A Study from Social Work Perspective in Birendranagar Municipality of Surkhet, Nepal

ВЕЩЬ В ТРАДИЦИОННОЙ ОБРЯДОВОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ КЫРГЫЗОВ

The article is devoted to the study of things in the traditional ceremonial culture of Kyrgyz as an integral component of their profane and sacred existence, expressed through ritual and ceremonial practices. The relevance of studying the material world is determined by the role it plays as a link between the historical experience of the past and the new realities of modern life, which allows us to reconstruct the worldview of traditional society through the prism of modern research. The object of the study is a thing as an integral component of the traditional ceremonial culture of Kyrgyz. The subject of the study is the functional (utilitarian), symbolic and ritual meanings of a thing in the traditional ceremonial culture of Kyrgyz. In this regard, the purpose of this article is to reveal the unity of the functional (utilitarian), symbolic and ritual meaning of a thing based on examples from the ritual and ceremonial practice of traditional Kyrgyz culture, such as maternity, wedding and funeral services, through which a person joins collective values, goes through the process of socialization, thereby establishing a connection between the profane and sacred worlds. The semiotic status, essence and meaning of each thing in ritual culture is determined by the way it functions in ritual as a symbol, a keeper of meanings and a carrier of cultural memory.

Improving the model of digital marketing communication on the example of a funeral service agency

The article discusses marketing tools for promotion of funeral services wi thin the framework of the digital marketing communications model. The key characteristics of consumers’ perception of these services, the features and methods of effectiveness improvement of marketing promotion in the digital environment are highlighted. Practical implementation of marketing tools on the example of a funeral agency is considered with special attention. It is proved that effectiveness improvement of the enterprise website as a model of digital marketing communication in the context of the specifics of the services perception by target audience largely depends on the formation of trust through various communication tools. Within the framework of the mo del developed by the author it is substantiated that the maximum effect from the marketing tools implementation can be achieved only in the unity of all its functions (informational, communicative, marketing, interactional, reputational). Moreover, as a result of the analysis, it was discovered that the most important function for consumers, due to the market specifics, is the reputa tional function. On the basis of this conclusion, the company was rebranded and the website was transformed. The made changes, as shown by statistics, have had a positive impact on the website effectiveness.

Pelatihan Penyelenggaraan Jenazah Menurut Hukum Islam: Suatu Kegiatan PKM Yang Bermakna

Training on handling corpses according to Islamic law is an in-depth activity in a religious and humanitarian context. This article discusses the importance of this training in understanding, respecting and carrying out funeral arrangements in accordance with Islamic teachings. This training provides the basic knowledge, practical skills, and cultural and ethical understanding needed to carry out the task of handling corpses properly. In addition, this article highlights the important benefits of Student Creativity Program (PKM) activities in expanding religious understanding, increasing respect for religious values, and empowering communities to play an active role in funeral services in accordance with Islamic guidelines. Through these efforts, we can create a society that is more aware of their religious practices, respects traditions, and applies Islamic teachings with full respect in the care of corpses.

Estimating Tax Evasion in the Medical Sector in Comparison with Other Human-to-human (Η2Η) Life Services

This paper attempts to measure and report the extent and magnitude of tax evasion in the medical sector and to be compared with other selected human-to-human (Η2Η) life services in the Greek economy. Specific household expenditures for human (Η2Η) services for the period 2011–2017 were analysed, using data from the annual ‘Household Budget Survey (HBS)’ of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) and were compared with the financial administrative data from the ‘Statistical Business Register (SBR)’, which is updated on an annual basis with data provided by the tax authority, depending on the case-specific characteristics of each sector under study that have been taken into account in the calculations. The research showed that the participation of doctors in the phenomenon of tax evasion as a whole has been declining in recent years while other human economic activities are responsible many times over for the perpetuation and exacerbation of the phenomenon. The annual tax evasion on average for the period 2011–2017, for the medical sector, is estimated to amount to €565.6 million (0.31% of the Greek GDP – mean value of the same period), while for the ‘accommodation services (hotels)’ sector, it is estimated to €3.3 billion (1.84% of GDP), to €6.8 billion for the catering sector (3.76% of GDP), to €2.1 billion for the education sector (1.18% of GDP), to €87.3 million for the hairdressing/other beauty treatment services of the personal service sector and finally to €50.3 million for the funeral and related services sector.