Funeral Ceremonies Research Articles

La participación de la moneda en la ceremonia de enterramiento tardopúnica de Gadir

El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar la incidencia y funcionalidad de las deposiciones monetales en las tumbas de la necrópolis tardopúnica de Gadir. Para ello, se ha llevado a cabo una sistemática extracción de la información contenida en las memorias de las intervenciones arqueológicas urbanas depositadas en la Delegación de Cultura de Cádiz. El examen detenido de estos datos, muchos inéditos, nos ha permitido acercarnos a la participación del numerario en los diferentes actos que componían los ceremoniales de enterramiento, tanto en inhumaciones como en cremaciones, como testimonio de un variado elenco de momentos rituales en los que la moneda tuvo un papel peculiar. Si bien son escasos, los testimonios abordados muestran de qué forma el numerario se incorporó de manera multifacética a las creencias y escatologías del tradicional ceremonial funerario fenicio en Gadir.

スリランカ仏教における葬送儀礼と死の問題(第九部会, 第六十五回学術大会紀要)

スリランカ仏教における葬送儀礼と死の問題(第九部会, 第六十五回学術大会紀要)

When to Pay? Adjusting the Timing of Payments in PES Design to the Needs of Poor Land-users

A neglected issue in the design of payments for ecosystem services (PES) is the timing of payments to ecosystem service providers over the course of the year. We hypothesise that timing should matter to poor land-users with limited options to save money in regions dominated by subsistence farming, seasonal fluctuations of food supply, and peaks in expenses during the year due to cultural events such as circumcisions and funeral ceremonies that occur in specific months. If land-users value payments differently at different time points throughout the year, the provision of ecosystem services can be increased for the given financial resources if payments are made at a point in time when land-users need those most. We conducted a choice experiment in the Mahafaly plateau in Southwestern Madagascar, an area which meets the aforementioned criteria, to test the importance of the time of receipt of payments. We found that respondents are willing to accept less money if they receive it in months of food shortage unlike if they receive it at the time of cultural events. We conclude that the cost-effectiveness of PES in regions with the above-mentioned characteristics can be increased by selecting the appropriate timing to pay ecosystem service providers.

Paying respect to human cadavers: We owe this to the first teacher in anatomy

Every human cadaver which undergoes anatomical dissection enriches medical science and deserves to be treated with utmost respect. The aim of the present study is to identify the practices followed by medical schools across the globe to ensure that the human cadaver is treated with respect and dignity while it is utilized within the domain of medical education. The article undertakes a review of the literature and takes note of the practice of students taking an oath prior to dissecting cadavers whereby they reflect on their conduct and habits in the dissection room. It emphasizes the guidelines adopted by medical schools to ensure respectful handling of human cadavers during dissection and highlights traditional ways to honor them followed in some parts of the world. The article attempts to focus on the noble endeavor of funeral ceremonies to pay homage to the departed soul who enlightened the students with the knowledge of human anatomy. Finally it converges on the memorial services incorporated into anatomy programs to instill in students an appreciation of the humanity of those who went under the knife as a service to mankind. Based on the observations made in the present study some recommendations are also proposed regarding good practices in human cadaveric dissection. In order to bind science and humanity it is critical to realize our responsibility to reciprocate the anatomical gift of a human body with respect, compassion, care and dignity.

The First Ethnographic Documentary? Luiz Thomaz Reis, the Rondon Commission and the Making of Rituais e Festas Borôro (1917)

Although rarely mentioned in English-language texts, Rituais de Festas Borôro has long been acknowledged as a masterpiece of early ethnographic film in the French and Brazilian literature. Shot in 1916 by a Brazilian army officer, Luiz Thomaz Reis, and released in 1917, the film is mainly about the funeral ceremony of the Bororo, an indigenous people of Central Brazil. Here we contrast this work with other ethnographic films of the period and suggest that it has a strong claim to be seen as the first ethnographic documentary in the modern sense of the term. We also consider the political circumstances that led to the filming in this particular form, its status as an ethnographic account of the funeral, and its place in the personal filmography of Luiz Thomaz Reis.

Funeral music

This book seems to have three main aims. Firstly, it seeks to chart the development of the ceremonial in British royal and state funerals and the role of music within it, from the establishment of the Church of England to the present. In the course of this, Range presents an engaging narrative of the process that has brought us from Elizabeth I’s elaborate funeral procession in 1603 to the updated rite used in 2002 for the funeral of the Queen Mother. Overall trends are tracked: from public to private funerals, and then back again; from London to Windsor, and then back again; from choral music without orchestral accompaniment, to orchestrally accompanied anthems, and then back again. Secondly, it attempts an extensive re-examination of the source material, one aim of which is to attain new insights into the funeral music itself. Fairly extensive sections are devoted to some of the higher-profile and musically significant funerals that occurred during this 400-year period—from which, by no coincidence, the most information on the musical performances survives—such as those of Mary II, the First Duke of Marlborough and Queen Caroline. The works that gave these funerals their musical significance—Henry Purcell’s Thou knowest, Lord (z58c), William Croft’s Burial Service, Giovanni Bononcini’s anthem When Saul was king and Handel’s The ways of Zion shall mourn (hwv264)—are analysed afresh. Some interesting new sources are presented and discussed, such as William Croft’s letter to John Anstis, Garter King of Arms, on the performance of the music at the Duke of Marlborough’s funeral. Thirdly, the book attempts to discuss the individual funeral ceremonies within their historical context. A useful and informative book has resulted, which is largely successful in the first and last of these aims and partially successful in the second: the interdisciplinary approach of considering the music in relation to the ceremonial is certainly a useful one, which does bring a new perspective to discussion of the music.

中国鬼文化中“鬼上身”等民间俗信心理初探

“鬼”泛指人死后与躯体相脱离而存在的各种“魂灵”，围绕“魂灵”问题而产生的各种现象以及与之有关的古籍、典章、礼仪、风俗统称为“鬼文化”(靳风林，1995)。中国的鬼文化源远流长，从丧葬仪式、祭祀活动到各种以鬼为题材的文学作品，一直延续流传到现代生活中。而民间大众和知识精英作为两个群体，他们的认识层面不一样，因此从古至今，民间文化和官方文化有着不同的话语体系，民间大众和知识精英对于人们精神疾病和心理冲突的认识和解决途径也不相同。知识精英大多崇尚科学，常常愿意以医学的手段去解决心理问题，而对于广大深受中国传统民间文化影响的中下层群众来说，深受神鬼信仰的他们更愿意把难以解释的社会现象看做灵性资源的释放，常常用“鬼上身”、“失魂”去表征人们异常的行为，相应的，会以“招魂”“驱鬼”等民间巫术作为解决这些问题的方法。本文在总结前人研究的基础上，通过搜索的多个案例，分析几种典型的“鬼”现象，比如：鬼上身，招魂，驱鬼等，从而进一步挖掘中国文化中的灵性资源，依托民间文化心理学视角探讨中下层民众的民间信仰以及民间疗法的作用机制，并用“现代性”的眼光对传统鬼文化进行反思。 Ghost refers to the soul that separated from the body after the people died. These some pheno-mena including ancient books, laws, rituals and customs are relevant to soul, which is collectively referred to “ghost culture”. Chinese ghost culture existing a long history, wherever in the funeral ceremonies, ritual activities or the various literary creations in ghost as the theme, it has been extending to modern life. As two different groups, the public and the intellectual elites have disparate understanding. So from ancient times, folk culture and official culture have the distinct discourse system. As for mental illness and psychological conflicts, the understanding and solution methods of the public and the intellectual elites are so different. Most of the intellectual elite advocate science, often willing to adopt medical means to solve the psychological problems. And the majority of lower masses, by the impact of traditional Chinese folk culture, are more willing to explain the difficult social phenomenon in spiritualism, such as “ghost possession”, “losing souls” as the means to express the abnormal behavior of the people. In order to solve these problems, the public use the “evocation” and “exorcism” on behalf of folk witch-crafts. Based on previous studies, we searched several cases which were used to analyse some typical “ghost” events, such as ghost possession, exorcism, phychic and so on. Then the spiritual resources would be excavated in Chinese culture. In the perspective of folk psychology, the folk faith of the lower class people was discussed in this study, and we reflected the traditional ghost culture in the view of modernization.

Manuscripts from the Kingdom of Siam in Japan

In this chapter, the textual contents of the illustrated samut khoi-s in Thailand, are examined. Samut khoi manuscripts are an important resource for the study of Siamese and Buddhist literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Samut khoi-s are divided into two groups. Both groups use a script called "Khom" (อักษรขอม), but one group uses a thin character set, and the other a thick and calligraphic character set. The chief text of eighteenth century samut khoi-s, the Mahābuddhaguṇa, shows what great importance Thai Buddhists attached to the Buddha-anussati, the recollection of the Buddha. In the 19th century, there was a growth of the tale of Phra Malai in the Thai vernacular language—-a story of a monk named Māleyya (in Pāli) who travels to hells to help people, and to Tāvatiṃsa heaven to meet the future Buddha Metteya—was very popular at funeral ceremonies.

Общие и особенные черты топографии, планиграфии и внутренней структуры некрополей раннесредневековых тюрок Монголии

The article considers several elements of the funeral rite of early medieval Turks in Mongolia — the spread of sites, the planigraphy of cemeteries, and the organization of sacred space. The basis for the study are the materials of more than 30 complexes located in different parts of the country. These relatively few data were compared with much more representative information about the funeral ceremony of the Turks of the Altai-Sayan region which allows carrying out the interpretation of recorded data. The author stresses that the most of the early medieval necropolis were excavated in the central and northern regions of Mongolia. In addition, a small series of objects is known in the western part of the country, as well as in the northeast. The analysis of the Turkic sites in Mongolia made possible the allocation of two main options of planigraphy — the position on the necropolis area of the earlier time or very close to them, as well as localization of mounds at a distance from the monuments of previous periods. The analysis of the peculiarities of the organization of the sacral space of necropolises made it possible to characterize the cases of the construction of the “near-mound” objects. The author concludes the high degree of similarity of recorded traditions of the nomads in Mongolia with the ritual practices of the Turks of the second half of the 1st millennium AD in adjacent territories. Identified features of distribution, as well as localization of the mounds composed of multicemeteries will help to optimize the further study of sites of the period under consideration.DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2017)2-42

On the relations between burial types and a level of development of the society

There are main forms of the funeral ceremony of indigenous population of Central and East European Forest-Steppe of the Bronze Age and the Scythian period which have been marked out in the article. The ways of treating the dead were different. The body could be buried in the ground and burial mounds within the territory of settlements (in household buildings and special graves). The bones of dead could be left in the settlement area on exposure. The forest-steppe population followed a tradition of forefathers which was expressed in worship of human remains.

‘DAMNATIO MEMORIAE’ JAKO ŚRODEK WALKI Z OPOZYCJĄ POLITYCZNĄ

‘DAMNATIO MEMORIAE’ AS A KIND OF PENALTY FOR REPRESSING THE MEMORY OF THE PUBLIC ENEMYSummary The paper presents damnatio memoriae – a kind of penalty for repressing the memory of the public enemy in ancient Rome. This penalty might be imposed by decree of the senat (or of the emperor) in case of the posthumous prosecution or conviction of a person on charges of treason (crimen maiestatis). Damnatio memoriae (or – in a technical, juridical expression – memoria damnata) was not intended to destroy recollection of a person who was condemned, but rather to dishonor the record of such a person. Penalties for repressing the memory, enacted separately or together, included for instance the eradication of visual representations of the person, in particular of statues, busts, coins and medallions, or the erasure of his name. The representations of the condemned, which already existed, were to be altered or destroyed, and there were to be no representations in the future. Some statues have meen modified – removed, replaced or reworked to represent someone new. The name of the enemy might be erased from some public documents (especially from the state lists of officials – the fasti) and inscriptions. Historians were sometimes not allowed to use names of those, who have suffered the penalty in question. There were also some decrees of the senat requiring the family to discontinue the use of a particular element of the name of public enemy (praenomen or cognomen). The penalties included a ban of the observance of the funeral and mourning. The family of convicted was forbidden to keep his portraits within the home or to mour for him. The body of the public enemy could be denied to his relatives and not buried. His bust could not be paraded at the funeral ceremonies of members of his family. According to Tacitus, who used to criticize the political repressions of the early emperors, damnatio memoriae is a vain penalty – memory will survive.

Opera y Masonería: El Cántico Fúnebre de José María Velásquez

El Cántico Fúnebre es una obra para tenor y orquesta escrita por el compositor venezolano del siglo XIX José María Velásquez con texto del político y escritor Francisco Conde. El Cántico fue escrito para los funerales de Juan José Conde, prócer de la Independencia y uno de los fundadores de la masonería local. Los rasgos más particulares de esta obra son la marcada influencia operística que posee la música y las referencias simbólicas masónicas del poema. Este artículo ofrece, en primer lugar, una visión de la ópera en Latinoamérica y su utilización como instrumento emulador de la cultura europea. Luego se estudia el proceso mediante el cual la ópera fue penetrando el ritual masónico hasta manifestarse plenamente en la ceremonia fúnebre y, finalmente, como las élites gobernantes, integradas en su mayoría por miembros de la orden y las clases medias, adoptaron a la ópera como uno de sus principales valores culturales.

A budavári koronázó főtemplom mint királyi temetkező hely

After his death Béla III (r. 1172-96) was buried in the venue of coronations and burials of medieval Hungarian kings, the provost church of the Virgin in Székesfehérvár. After the Ottoman rule and the subsequent demise of the church the location of the grave fell into oblivion. The king’s and his wife’s mortal remains were found accidentally in December 1848. Custos of the National Museum János Érdy had the valuable finds and the rest of the grave goods transported to the museum. The significance of the discovery was largely enhanced when scientific research soon verified that it was Béla III’s grave, the only identified royal grave in Székesfehérvár. During the military operations of the ongoing war of liberation of 1848/49, then in the period of retaliations after the crushing of the freedom fighting the idea of reburying the royal remains in the manner they reserved could not even be raised. In 1859 Ágoston Kubinyi, director of the National Museum commissioned Ferenc Reitter to make a plan for the extension of the museum. The arcade in classical or Rundbogenstil to be erected on the rear limit of the plot would have been terminated at either end with a chapel. Kubinyi wanted to deposit the royal remains and the grave goods in a worthy environment in the chapels. Governor of Hungary Móric Pálffy was shocked to find during a visit to the museum that the bones were in the museum and visitors were allowed to view them without, he thought, the right conditions of reverence being available. He immediately ordered the remains to be buried quietly. In vain did Kubinyi argue that the planned chapels would be worthy places of rest for them, the political situation still did not allow that the grave of the only identified king of the Árpád dynasty be buried in the museum of the nation, in such an exposed place. The remains of the royal couple were buried in the baroque crypt of the Matthias Church on 10 July 1862 in a simple funeral ceremony celebrated by archbishop of Esztergom János Scitovszky. The memorial service was held a year later on 26 March 1863 when a (new) verification process at the Academy of Sciences had confirmed that the remains did belong to Béla III and his wife. Owing to the reconstruction of the Matthias Church begun under Frigyes Schulek’s guidance in 1873, the remains were transferred to the Anthropological Institute in 1883 where the director Aurl Török put them to scrutiny. The protraction of the renovation also kept putting off the case of reburial. The consecration of the church took place in 1896 as part of the millenary festivities. However, the theme of the festive series was much more Francis Joseph I and the restored Hungarian constitutionalism than the thousand-year-old Hungarian state, consequently the ceremonious reburial of Béla III was left out of the program, although it had been called for by the press. After 1896 at last Aurél Török launched a press campaign and a parliamentary interpellation on 13 February 1897 cata lyzed the events. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy the minister of religion and public education Gyula Wlassics organized the royal reburial in cooperation with the Monuments Commission and the building committee of the church. After a long debate the funerary monument was built in the Holy Trinity chapel of the upper church after plans by Frigyes Schulek. (At the beginning Schulek designed a more modest tomb for the crypt, but now it was out of the question.) He took the carvings of French portal pediments (Chartres, Arles) as his models. The sculptural work was done by Ferenc Mikula. A genealogical table on the monument announced that Francis Joseph I descended from the Árpád dynasty on female line. This reference is also included in the royal deed of gift by which the king granted 25 000 florins for the monument and the burial. At last on 21 October 1898 the ceremonious burial took place as a national holiday, officiated by archbishop of Esztergom Kolos Vaszary.

A Tribute to Peter H Seeburg (1944-2016): A Founding Father of Molecular Neurobiology.

On 22nd August 2016, the fields of molecular neurobiology and endocrinology lost one of their pioneers and true giants, Peter Seeburg, who died aged 72, a day after his birthday. His funeral ceremony took place in Heidelberg where he had worked since 1988, first as a professor at the University of Heidelberg (ZMBH) and then since 1996 as a director of the Max Plank Institute (Dept. of Molecular Neurobiology). Many of Peter’s former colleagues, students and postdocs came together with his family members to celebrate his life. Touching eulogies were given by no less than two Nobel prize winners: the physiologist Bert Sakmann, who collaborated with Peter for many years, and the developmental biologist Christiane Nusslein-Vollhard, who was a friend and fellow PhD student with Peter. His professional contemporary, Heinrich Betz, gave a warm and endearing assessment of Peter’s contributions to the field of molecular neurobiology. One of Peter’s sons, Daniel P. Seeburg, now a neuroradiologist in the USA, and biotechnologist Karoly Nikolics, one of Peter’s friends from the days of Genentech, both emotionally summed up the warm and intense character of the man that many of his former students and postdocs knew.

Toast na cześć... Reakcje społeczne na śmierć Józefa Stalina i kampania propagandowa wokół uroczystości żałobnych w województwie bydgoskim w marcu 1953 r.

Social Reactions to the Death of Joseph Stalin and the Propaganda Campaign Relating to Funerary Ceremonies in the Voivodeship of Bydgoszcz in March 1953 The author attempted an analysis of the social situation prevailing in the voivodeship of Bydgoszcz in connection with the agony and death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953. A chronological–factual interpretation examines the propaganda undertakings of authorities cultivating the memory of the dictator, both at the time of his agony and after his death, as well in the course of the funerary ceremonies and mourning. The author also described official and actual reactions, commentaries and opinions of the local inhabitants, the press and propaganda campaign (decorations of public space, rallies, mass meetings, campaigns, and commitments). Other examined factors include assorted forms of social resistance, which were a de facto form of protest against the intrusive cult of the deceased and pro–Stalinist propaganda (e.g. the destruction of declarations and portraits of Stalin, as well as dismissive attitudes contesting the official mourning). Attention has been drawn to the fact that an indispensable element of the mourning was a spontaneous tide of candidates to the Polish United Workers’ Party, a process not controlled to the very end by the communists (on 6–31 March a total of 2 333 inhabitants of the voivodeship of Bydgoszcz wished to join the Communist Party, with 130 candidates rejected). Summing up, the author stressed that despite the enormous propaganda efforts of the Party–administrative authorities of the voivodeship of Bydgoszcz and the great number of candidates to the Party it was impossible to make full use of the political mood caused by Stalin’s death in the so–called politically neglected terrains, and in particular in the villages of the Kujawy–Pomerania region.

The Magician of Ridge Ruin: Insights into Ceremony and Status from Arrow Points and Bows

Stone tools and the perishable artifacts of which they are often components can be used to express complex social and ritual messages. A detailed analysis of projectile points, arrow shafts, and painted miniature bows from the burial of the so-called “Magician” of Ridge Ruin demonstrates the power of specific burial analyses to reconstruct the ritual and social context of a funeral ceremony. The Magician, an adult Sinagua male buried with ceremonial paraphernalia and other rare items, perhaps the richest burial ever discovered in the Puebloan Southwest, has been central to social interpretations of the region. Among unique aspects of the burial were a deposit of painted miniature bows and an assemblage of 434 projectile points, which have not been fully described before. These objects were deposited in the terminal phases of a complex mortuary ceremony by a large number of individuals, possibly members of a warrior sodality. In the broader context of the entire burial, the analysis reinforces a model of social heterarchy in which the Magician was especially important because he simultaneously obtained status and authority from several domains.

Niechrześcijańskie źródła liturgii pogrzebu i kultu zmarłych wczesnego chrześcijaństwa

The article presents, in an orderly way, the living people’s attitude to the dead body, to the cult which it was surrounded by. Along with appearing of the new religion and in the reaction on the fact of death, Christianity initiated the process of creating its own funeral liturgy. The process of searching and adjusting local rites and non-Christian elements of the funeral ceremony began. Christianity, taking those elements which could have been a part of the doctrinal context, adapted them and purified of the traces which were against the then Church teaching. The paper can be divided into three parts: explaining the basic terms, connected with taking the extraneous elements out of the religions before Christianity; particular activities that were taking place on the body of deceased and activities progressed over the graves of the dead. Due to those deliberations, it can be presumed that Christian funeral rites are not an absolute novelty, as the arisen religion but it is a series of activities, elaborated by the previous generations and adjust up to the teaching of Jesus Christ and the spirit of the Gospel.

Intervention for Behavioral Change in Funeral Ceremonies in Islamic Republic Of Iran

Background: Large-scale funeral ceremonies are commonplace among Iranians and start from the time of person’s death till the fortieth day and anniversary. These traditional ceremonies cause a lot of psychological, economical and unnecessary problems for the bereaved family. This interventional research aims to change the behavior and the way in which the funeral ceremonies are held to remove the unnecessary problems associated with them. Methods: In this interventional study, the behavioral intervention continued for six months with the cooperation of Friday prayer Imams and other responsible parties. Data were collected using the questionnaires before and after intervention and were analyzed by SPSS. Results: Some behavioral changes after the intervention were reported. A reduction was seen in the mean number of someone else’s house used as a venue for the funeral ceremonies, of fabric writing installations, of meals given in the funeral ceremonies, and of the individuals present at these meals and involved in the process. An increase was observed in the number of flower arrangements. The mean difference in all the studied variables before and after intervention was statistically significant (P < 0.005). Conclusions: Conducting conferences, distributing pamphlets, educational programs for the public will change the quality and type of funeral ceremonies. Similar program is recommended for other parts of Iran with similar cultural backgrounds.

Cruzes e feitiços: Identidades e trocas culturais nas práticas fúnebres em Angola

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é refletir, através da análise de jornais e textos literários, sobre práticas, trocas culturais e conflitos nas cerimônias fúnebres em Luanda e arredores entre o final do século XIX e o início do XX. Trabalhamos com três categorias sociais: colonos (metropolitanos e descendentes), filhos da terra (nascidos em Angola que dominavam códigos culturais europeus) e gentio (africanos que, por não dominarem códigos culturais europeus, não tinham acesso aos direitos da cidadania portuguesa e podiam ser sujeitos ao trabalho forçado). Em um contexto de intensificação da presença portuguesa e de subalternização das elites da terra e do gentio, os funerais eram ocasiões privilegiadas de manifestação de diferenças e compartilhamentos. Através das práticas fúnebres, os diversos grupos sociais afirmavam suas identidades e promoviam trocas culturais que gerariam não apenas conflitos e controle, mas também formas híbridas de tratamento da morte, explicitando uma importante característica da cultura urbana luandense.

Bodies and ceremonies: is the UK funeral industry still fit for purpose?

Funerals may be defined as the ritual or ceremonial disposal of a body; the two essential components are therefore a body and a ceremony/ritual. The UK funeral industry’s structure revolves around those who manage the body rather than the ceremony. This structure, in which the client contracts with a funeral director who subcontracts the funeral ceremony to a priest or celebrant, was fit for purpose in the nineteenth century when most of the family’s choices concerned hardware (coffins, carriages, horses, etc.) for the body’s containment and transport. It may no longer be fit, however, in the twenty-first century when, for many families, the major choices concern how to personalise the ceremony. In theory, it might therefore now be more appropriate for at least some families first to contract with a celebrant, who would then subcontract the body’s care, storage and transport, reversing who is contractor and who is subcontractor. In practice, factors on both the demand and supply side keep the industry’s present structure in place. Though the past 25 years have seen much innovation, conservative innovations such as celebrancy and green burial that accept the industry’s existing structure have proved more successful than radical innovations that challenge it. Implications for funeral costs and funeral poverty are discussed.