William S. Sax
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335866
- eISBN:
- 9780199868919
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335866.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the ...
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A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the death of a loved one. This chapter shows how Garhwali beliefs and practices relating to death, ghosts, and exorcism accomplish this task. Fundamentally, they do so by transforming the ambivalent, dangerous ghost into a beneficent, auspicious ancestor.Less
A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the death of a loved one. This chapter shows how Garhwali beliefs and practices relating to death, ghosts, and exorcism accomplish this task. Fundamentally, they do so by transforming the ambivalent, dangerous ghost into a beneficent, auspicious ancestor.
Ralph Houlbrooke
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208761
- eISBN:
- 9780191678134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208761.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This concluding chapter sets the developments described in this book in a broader spatial and chronological perspective, and assesses the importance of ...
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This concluding chapter sets the developments described in this book in a broader spatial and chronological perspective, and assesses the importance of different causes of long-term change in the ‘culture of death’. This book has focused on the complex effects of religious change. Protestant reformers drastically reduced the role of sacraments in helping the dying and repudiated intercessory prayer as a means of helping the dead. Radical Puritans complained that far too many undesirable ‘relics of popery’ had in fact survived: deathbed Communion and absolution; elements of prayer for the dead, reinforced by the tolling of bells; funeral doles; superstitious and hypocritical mourning-garb; and intramural burial. Funeral sermons had replaced trentals of masses. During the 17th century there was a strong counter-current of opinion, largely but never exclusively High Church, in favour of the viaticum and deathbed confession. Among people of religious outlook there was an interest in the last hours which transcended doctrinal differences and grew if anything more intense during the decades following the Reformation. Some old habits were very slow to change, notably the tendency to postpone until the deathbed the making of the last will.Less
This concluding chapter sets the developments described in this book in a broader spatial and chronological perspective, and assesses the importance of different causes of long-term change in the ‘culture of death’. This book has focused on the complex effects of religious change. Protestant reformers drastically reduced the role of sacraments in helping the dying and repudiated intercessory prayer as a means of helping the dead. Radical Puritans complained that far too many undesirable ‘relics of popery’ had in fact survived: deathbed Communion and absolution; elements of prayer for the dead, reinforced by the tolling of bells; funeral doles; superstitious and hypocritical mourning-garb; and intramural burial. Funeral sermons had replaced trentals of masses. During the 17th century there was a strong counter-current of opinion, largely but never exclusively High Church, in favour of the viaticum and deathbed confession. Among people of religious outlook there was an interest in the last hours which transcended doctrinal differences and grew if anything more intense during the decades following the Reformation. Some old habits were very slow to change, notably the tendency to postpone until the deathbed the making of the last will.
David Cressy
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201687
- eISBN:
- 9780191674983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201687.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This chapter investigates the social and religious understanding of death in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It analyses the issue from theological and liturgical perspective and as a ...
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This chapter investigates the social and religious understanding of death in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It analyses the issue from theological and liturgical perspective and as a secular social activity. It covers several death ritual topics including the separation of body and soul, the conflict between the traditional and reformist modes of burial, the handling of the mortal body, and the evaluation of the disposition of the soul.Less
This chapter investigates the social and religious understanding of death in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It analyses the issue from theological and liturgical perspective and as a secular social activity. It covers several death ritual topics including the separation of body and soul, the conflict between the traditional and reformist modes of burial, the handling of the mortal body, and the evaluation of the disposition of the soul.
David Cressy
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201687
- eISBN:
- 9780191674983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201687.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about courtship, marriage, birth, and death rituals and traditions in Tudor and Stuart England. This book traces the history of ...
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This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about courtship, marriage, birth, and death rituals and traditions in Tudor and Stuart England. This book traces the history of these traditions from the reign of Henry VIII to the reign of Queen Anne, highlighting the controversies surrounding the Act of Uniformity of 1559 to the Toleration Act of 1869. It analyses how these traditions and rituals were influenced by Protestant Reformation, the Revolution, and the Restoration. This book also examines the emergence of individualism and defiance of these rituals.Less
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about courtship, marriage, birth, and death rituals and traditions in Tudor and Stuart England. This book traces the history of these traditions from the reign of Henry VIII to the reign of Queen Anne, highlighting the controversies surrounding the Act of Uniformity of 1559 to the Toleration Act of 1869. It analyses how these traditions and rituals were influenced by Protestant Reformation, the Revolution, and the Restoration. This book also examines the emergence of individualism and defiance of these rituals.
Ulrich Demmer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199466818
- eISBN:
- 9780199087303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466818.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
Chapter four explores the second set of ethical performances and debates among the Jēnu Kuṟumba, the death rituals. These rituals constitute arenas of elaborate ethical argumentation and they are a ...
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Chapter four explores the second set of ethical performances and debates among the Jēnu Kuṟumba, the death rituals. These rituals constitute arenas of elaborate ethical argumentation and they are a vital part of the ritual performances conducted by the Jēnu Kuṟumba people. The death rituals include extensive verbal dialogues between a shaman and the relatives of the dead person. The chapter examines the poiesis and the rhetoric of the ethical imagination performed in these rituals and shows how concepts of a good life are articulated. It also gives a detailed discourse analysis of the indigenous debates and it represents these voices in detail. In addition a set of symbolic actions is performed which also serve as arguments in the moral debate.Less
Chapter four explores the second set of ethical performances and debates among the Jēnu Kuṟumba, the death rituals. These rituals constitute arenas of elaborate ethical argumentation and they are a vital part of the ritual performances conducted by the Jēnu Kuṟumba people. The death rituals include extensive verbal dialogues between a shaman and the relatives of the dead person. The chapter examines the poiesis and the rhetoric of the ethical imagination performed in these rituals and shows how concepts of a good life are articulated. It also gives a detailed discourse analysis of the indigenous debates and it represents these voices in detail. In addition a set of symbolic actions is performed which also serve as arguments in the moral debate.
Cicely Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198570530
- eISBN:
- 9780191730412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198570530.003.0028
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Palliative Medicine Research
More than a third of a short paper from 1984, first published in the Cambridge Review, is given over to a succinct review of changing modes of dying, death, and associated rituals from prehistoric ...
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More than a third of a short paper from 1984, first published in the Cambridge Review, is given over to a succinct review of changing modes of dying, death, and associated rituals from prehistoric times to the late nineteenth century — in the main based upon the work of Philippe Arie's and his concept of the shift from ‘tamed’ to ‘forbidden’ death. The chapter concludes with reference to recent studies by Ford and Pincherle as well as by Cartwright and colleagues — the latter revealing ‘many sad inadequacies’ in the care system.Less
More than a third of a short paper from 1984, first published in the Cambridge Review, is given over to a succinct review of changing modes of dying, death, and associated rituals from prehistoric times to the late nineteenth century — in the main based upon the work of Philippe Arie's and his concept of the shift from ‘tamed’ to ‘forbidden’ death. The chapter concludes with reference to recent studies by Ford and Pincherle as well as by Cartwright and colleagues — the latter revealing ‘many sad inadequacies’ in the care system.
Jacqueline S. Thursby
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813123806
- eISBN:
- 9780813134949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813123806.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the rituals for death or the process of separating from life in the U.S. It explains that in a culture as diverse as the U.S., the rituals for separating from life are also ...
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This chapter examines the rituals for death or the process of separating from life in the U.S. It explains that in a culture as diverse as the U.S., the rituals for separating from life are also diverse and distinct and that a commonality often referred to only lies in the analogy of death and sleep. It suggests that the three categories of funeral rites have metamorphosed into a different schema in the individualistic American culture and the vanity-driven culture has turned people inward making them resistant to generalized traditions. It presents observations on how an American family deal with last illness and the death of a loved one.Less
This chapter examines the rituals for death or the process of separating from life in the U.S. It explains that in a culture as diverse as the U.S., the rituals for separating from life are also diverse and distinct and that a commonality often referred to only lies in the analogy of death and sleep. It suggests that the three categories of funeral rites have metamorphosed into a different schema in the individualistic American culture and the vanity-driven culture has turned people inward making them resistant to generalized traditions. It presents observations on how an American family deal with last illness and the death of a loved one.
Michael J. Pettid
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839680
- eISBN:
- 9780824868567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839680.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The significance of ancestor rites is commonly believed to lie in Confucian ways of thought. This chapter argues that they also feature in shaman traditions. Though the syncretic nature of religious ...
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The significance of ancestor rites is commonly believed to lie in Confucian ways of thought. This chapter argues that they also feature in shaman traditions. Though the syncretic nature of religious thought and practices on the Korean Peninsula makes any clear separation of Confucian, shaman, and Buddhist worldviews tenuous, shamanic death rituals aimed at appeasing the spirits of the dead filled an important emotional gap for Chosŏn people. In examining the specific components of shamanic funerary rites, such as cleansing the living of the influence of the dead, the treatment of the corpse, and sending the spirit of the dead to the next world, the chapter discusses the motivations behind such rituals and explains how they were carried out. Particular attention is given to the Chinogwi Kut, one of the most representative of shamanic death rites. Normally performed only in the case of a “bad” death, it offers the spirit of the dead a chance to air its grievances, and it was believed that doing so restored harmony among the living and the dead.Less
The significance of ancestor rites is commonly believed to lie in Confucian ways of thought. This chapter argues that they also feature in shaman traditions. Though the syncretic nature of religious thought and practices on the Korean Peninsula makes any clear separation of Confucian, shaman, and Buddhist worldviews tenuous, shamanic death rituals aimed at appeasing the spirits of the dead filled an important emotional gap for Chosŏn people. In examining the specific components of shamanic funerary rites, such as cleansing the living of the influence of the dead, the treatment of the corpse, and sending the spirit of the dead to the next world, the chapter discusses the motivations behind such rituals and explains how they were carried out. Particular attention is given to the Chinogwi Kut, one of the most representative of shamanic death rites. Normally performed only in the case of a “bad” death, it offers the spirit of the dead a chance to air its grievances, and it was believed that doing so restored harmony among the living and the dead.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines the politics of death in Illinois coal mining communities during the period 1883–1910, with particular emphasis on how miners and their families experienced death in one of the ...
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This chapter examines the politics of death in Illinois coal mining communities during the period 1883–1910, with particular emphasis on how miners and their families experienced death in one of the country's most dangerous occupations. It explores three causes of death in coal mines and how they shaped miners' experiences with death: mass-fatality mine disasters, the deadly hazards in everyday mining, and the violent confrontations between miners and employers. It also discusses the coal miners' political and cultural responses to the deaths of their coworkers, focusing on the emergence of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which combined previous burial practices established by churches, fraternal societies, and other unions to lay the foundations for a coherent set of ritual practices for union coal miners. Finally, it describes the coal miners' creation of a repertoire of rituals of death that melded religious, fraternal, and immigrant traditions. The Illinois coal miners' experiences with death and dying highlights the human and emotional impact of industrialization.Less
This chapter examines the politics of death in Illinois coal mining communities during the period 1883–1910, with particular emphasis on how miners and their families experienced death in one of the country's most dangerous occupations. It explores three causes of death in coal mines and how they shaped miners' experiences with death: mass-fatality mine disasters, the deadly hazards in everyday mining, and the violent confrontations between miners and employers. It also discusses the coal miners' political and cultural responses to the deaths of their coworkers, focusing on the emergence of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which combined previous burial practices established by churches, fraternal societies, and other unions to lay the foundations for a coherent set of ritual practices for union coal miners. Finally, it describes the coal miners' creation of a repertoire of rituals of death that melded religious, fraternal, and immigrant traditions. The Illinois coal miners' experiences with death and dying highlights the human and emotional impact of industrialization.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines the steelworkers' experiences with death and dying in western Pennsylvania, and more specifically in Monongahela Valley, during the period 1892–1919. It begins by recounting the ...
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This chapter examines the steelworkers' experiences with death and dying in western Pennsylvania, and more specifically in Monongahela Valley, during the period 1892–1919. It begins by recounting the Homestead strike of 1892, which pitted the wealthy owners of the Carnegie Steel Company against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. It then considers other factors that shaped steelworkers' experiences with death after the defeat at Homestead, including work life and life outside of work. It also explores the responses of steelworkers and their families to death, focusing on their creation of networks of mutual aid by turning to religious and secular fraternal societies to help care for the sick and bury the dead. It also discusses the McKees Rocks strike of 1909 and the themes of death and dignity that defined it before concluding with a look at the story of steelman Joe Magarac and its similarities to steelworkers' experiences in turn-of-the-century steel mills. The steelworkers' rituals of death and dying suggests that death provided a key place where they nurtured spirits of resistance.Less
This chapter examines the steelworkers' experiences with death and dying in western Pennsylvania, and more specifically in Monongahela Valley, during the period 1892–1919. It begins by recounting the Homestead strike of 1892, which pitted the wealthy owners of the Carnegie Steel Company against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. It then considers other factors that shaped steelworkers' experiences with death after the defeat at Homestead, including work life and life outside of work. It also explores the responses of steelworkers and their families to death, focusing on their creation of networks of mutual aid by turning to religious and secular fraternal societies to help care for the sick and bury the dead. It also discusses the McKees Rocks strike of 1909 and the themes of death and dignity that defined it before concluding with a look at the story of steelman Joe Magarac and its similarities to steelworkers' experiences in turn-of-the-century steel mills. The steelworkers' rituals of death and dying suggests that death provided a key place where they nurtured spirits of resistance.
Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832049
- eISBN:
- 9780824869250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832049.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. This book, running chronologically from the tenth century to the present, brings to light ...
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For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. This book, running chronologically from the tenth century to the present, brings to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. It also explores the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two chapters. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four chapters. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. The book constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date.Less
For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. This book, running chronologically from the tenth century to the present, brings to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. It also explores the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two chapters. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four chapters. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. The book constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The post-Civil War Industrial Age brought fundamental changes to the economy and its workers, forcing Americans to reassess the meaning of life and death. This illuminating study of working-class ...
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The post-Civil War Industrial Age brought fundamental changes to the economy and its workers, forcing Americans to reassess the meaning of life and death. This illuminating study of working-class rituals of dying and the politics of death explores how Americans struggled to understand the broader forces transforming their worlds. The book investigates working people's beliefs, rituals of death and dying, and the politics of death by honing in on three overarching questions: How did workers, their families, and their communities experience death? Did various identities of class, race, gender, and religion coalesce to form distinct cultures of death for working people? And how did people's attitudes toward death reflect notions of who mattered in U.S. society? Drawing from an eclectic array of sources ranging from Andrew Carnegie to grave markers in Chicago's potter's field, the book portrays the complex political, social, and cultural relationships that fueled the United States' industrial ascent. The result is an undertaking that adds emotional depth to existing history while challenging our understanding of modes of cultural transmission.Less
The post-Civil War Industrial Age brought fundamental changes to the economy and its workers, forcing Americans to reassess the meaning of life and death. This illuminating study of working-class rituals of dying and the politics of death explores how Americans struggled to understand the broader forces transforming their worlds. The book investigates working people's beliefs, rituals of death and dying, and the politics of death by honing in on three overarching questions: How did workers, their families, and their communities experience death? Did various identities of class, race, gender, and religion coalesce to form distinct cultures of death for working people? And how did people's attitudes toward death reflect notions of who mattered in U.S. society? Drawing from an eclectic array of sources ranging from Andrew Carnegie to grave markers in Chicago's potter's field, the book portrays the complex political, social, and cultural relationships that fueled the United States' industrial ascent. The result is an undertaking that adds emotional depth to existing history while challenging our understanding of modes of cultural transmission.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book concludes by summarizing developments that made death a contested terrain of political authority and ideology containing elements of class, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion during the ...
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This book concludes by summarizing developments that made death a contested terrain of political authority and ideology containing elements of class, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion during the period 1865–1920. It begins by focusing on the exhortation by American Federation of Labor's Samuel Gompers at the International Labor Congress in 1893 that “the lives and limbs of the wage-workers shall be regarded as sacred as those of all others of our fellow human beings.” It then discusses the emergence of class-based rituals of death and dying as an undercurrent of industrialization from the end of the Civil War to the close of the Progressive Era as working communities infused their funerals, processions, and memorials with meanings and invented traditions that became customs used by the working class to measure the dignity and respect paid to the deceased. The book also considers how labor conflict such as strikes produced an array of funerary tableaus in the years leading to American participation in World War I.Less
This book concludes by summarizing developments that made death a contested terrain of political authority and ideology containing elements of class, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion during the period 1865–1920. It begins by focusing on the exhortation by American Federation of Labor's Samuel Gompers at the International Labor Congress in 1893 that “the lives and limbs of the wage-workers shall be regarded as sacred as those of all others of our fellow human beings.” It then discusses the emergence of class-based rituals of death and dying as an undercurrent of industrialization from the end of the Civil War to the close of the Progressive Era as working communities infused their funerals, processions, and memorials with meanings and invented traditions that became customs used by the working class to measure the dignity and respect paid to the deceased. The book also considers how labor conflict such as strikes produced an array of funerary tableaus in the years leading to American participation in World War I.
Erik Mueggler
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226483382
- eISBN:
- 9780226483412
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226483412.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Death has become the central salient topic in many parts of rural China. Transformations in economic life, social structure, political ideology, and spiritual aspirations have occurred at dizzying ...
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Death has become the central salient topic in many parts of rural China. Transformations in economic life, social structure, political ideology, and spiritual aspirations have occurred at dizzying speed. The socialist rituals that once gave people narrative structures to comprehend historical change have disappeared. Elderly people have lived through repeated radical social transformations from the socialist revolution forward: their deaths are now the sole site where these events can be reprised and evaluated. These deaths are opportunities to reassess how individual lives articulate with history, what social persons are, and what they might become. Practices of death are at the center of relations with a population that socialism disregarded: immaterial animate beings like ancestors, ghosts, and spirits. Death frames historical time with questions of embodiment and disembodiment: of the materialization of immaterial beings in bodies, effigies, and stones, and their dematerialization through fire, consumption, or corruption. This book investigates death in a mountain community in Yunnan Province, where Lòlop’ò people, officially Yi, speak a Tibeto-Burman language called Lòloŋo and are heir to an extraordinary range of resources for working on the dead: techniques to give the dead material form; exchanges to give substance to relations among the living and with the dead; laments and ritual chants used to communicate with the dead. Ultimately the aim of the book is to understand the questions Lòlop’ò ask and answer about these mysterious others at the center of their social world.Less
Death has become the central salient topic in many parts of rural China. Transformations in economic life, social structure, political ideology, and spiritual aspirations have occurred at dizzying speed. The socialist rituals that once gave people narrative structures to comprehend historical change have disappeared. Elderly people have lived through repeated radical social transformations from the socialist revolution forward: their deaths are now the sole site where these events can be reprised and evaluated. These deaths are opportunities to reassess how individual lives articulate with history, what social persons are, and what they might become. Practices of death are at the center of relations with a population that socialism disregarded: immaterial animate beings like ancestors, ghosts, and spirits. Death frames historical time with questions of embodiment and disembodiment: of the materialization of immaterial beings in bodies, effigies, and stones, and their dematerialization through fire, consumption, or corruption. This book investigates death in a mountain community in Yunnan Province, where Lòlop’ò people, officially Yi, speak a Tibeto-Burman language called Lòloŋo and are heir to an extraordinary range of resources for working on the dead: techniques to give the dead material form; exchanges to give substance to relations among the living and with the dead; laments and ritual chants used to communicate with the dead. Ultimately the aim of the book is to understand the questions Lòlop’ò ask and answer about these mysterious others at the center of their social world.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book examines the rituals of dying and the politics of death among the working class during the period 1865–1920. It considers how wageworkers and their families experienced death in the United ...
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This book examines the rituals of dying and the politics of death among the working class during the period 1865–1920. It considers how wageworkers and their families experienced death in the United States between the Civil War and the end of World War I by focusing on John Henry—one of the hundreds of thousands of workers who died in service to industrialization—and the lack of surviving accounts about what happened to his dead body. The book draws on case studies to investigate how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions; the ways social class shaped Americans' attitudes toward death; and the social and cultural contexts that shaped interpretations of workers' deaths resulting from work accidents. The book shows how rituals of death reflected the ways that working communities articulated beliefs about family, community, and class and negotiated social relationships—how common people interpreted their roles in the industrial republic.Less
This book examines the rituals of dying and the politics of death among the working class during the period 1865–1920. It considers how wageworkers and their families experienced death in the United States between the Civil War and the end of World War I by focusing on John Henry—one of the hundreds of thousands of workers who died in service to industrialization—and the lack of surviving accounts about what happened to his dead body. The book draws on case studies to investigate how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions; the ways social class shaped Americans' attitudes toward death; and the social and cultural contexts that shaped interpretations of workers' deaths resulting from work accidents. The book shows how rituals of death reflected the ways that working communities articulated beliefs about family, community, and class and negotiated social relationships—how common people interpreted their roles in the industrial republic.
Sem Vermeersch
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839680
- eISBN:
- 9780824868567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839680.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter sheds light on a widely misinterpreted aspect of Korea's premodern history by exploring Buddhist impact on early mortuary rituals. As the influence of Buddhism grew on the ruling powers ...
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This chapter sheds light on a widely misinterpreted aspect of Korea's premodern history by exploring Buddhist impact on early mortuary rituals. As the influence of Buddhism grew on the ruling powers of the peninsula, Buddhist beliefs and customs came to affect many aspects of society, including the ways in which death was dealt with. This has led to the common perception that Buddhism significantly impacted death rituals. However, an examination of Greater Silla and Koryŏ cremation practices, presents an altogether different picture. Drawing largely on historical records such as the Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms), the Samguk yusa Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), and the Koryŏsa (History of Koryŏ), the chapter argues that although cremation may have been widespread among common people from the seventh century onward, it did not become customary among the clergy until the mid-eleventh century. Even in the Koryŏ period, when Buddhism dominated, cremation never became commonplace. The reason behind this may be rooted in traditional beliefs that emphasized the importance of preserving bones to ensure passage to the afterlife.Less
This chapter sheds light on a widely misinterpreted aspect of Korea's premodern history by exploring Buddhist impact on early mortuary rituals. As the influence of Buddhism grew on the ruling powers of the peninsula, Buddhist beliefs and customs came to affect many aspects of society, including the ways in which death was dealt with. This has led to the common perception that Buddhism significantly impacted death rituals. However, an examination of Greater Silla and Koryŏ cremation practices, presents an altogether different picture. Drawing largely on historical records such as the Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms), the Samguk yusa Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), and the Koryŏsa (History of Koryŏ), the chapter argues that although cremation may have been widespread among common people from the seventh century onward, it did not become customary among the clergy until the mid-eleventh century. Even in the Koryŏ period, when Buddhism dominated, cremation never became commonplace. The reason behind this may be rooted in traditional beliefs that emphasized the importance of preserving bones to ensure passage to the afterlife.
John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249134
- eISBN:
- 9780520940079
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249134.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Death can be induced—a death to self that makes a man a renouncer, a sannyasi. This chapter chronicles this sort of death ritual, describing the radical reconstruction of personhood that made it ...
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Death can be induced—a death to self that makes a man a renouncer, a sannyasi. This chapter chronicles this sort of death ritual, describing the radical reconstruction of personhood that made it possible to become a sannyasi: ritual death on a full-moon midnight in Banaras's main cremation ground. Brahminical texts position this act of renunciation as the beginning of the fourth and final stage of life, suggesting that one has to have lived through the rest and performed all the duties pertaining thereunto before one has a life truly worth renouncing. For millennia, Hindus have believed that to die in Banaras, city of Shiva and the Ganges, is to secure for oneself the best chance of a favorable rebirth—or, better yet, release from the cycle of birth and death altogether.Less
Death can be induced—a death to self that makes a man a renouncer, a sannyasi. This chapter chronicles this sort of death ritual, describing the radical reconstruction of personhood that made it possible to become a sannyasi: ritual death on a full-moon midnight in Banaras's main cremation ground. Brahminical texts position this act of renunciation as the beginning of the fourth and final stage of life, suggesting that one has to have lived through the rest and performed all the duties pertaining thereunto before one has a life truly worth renouncing. For millennia, Hindus have believed that to die in Banaras, city of Shiva and the Ganges, is to secure for oneself the best chance of a favorable rebirth—or, better yet, release from the cycle of birth and death altogether.
Michael K. Rosenow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039133
- eISBN:
- 9780252097119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039133.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions during the period 1873–1913. It first traces the history of the ...
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This chapter examines how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions during the period 1873–1913. It first traces the history of the American cemetery, and especially its rise as a cultural institution, before turning to Chicago's cemeteries as social and cultural spaces on the city's landscape. It then discusses how broader tensions in industrial society were reflected in the processes of death and burial. It also looks at the ways that Chicago's working classes turned to cemeteries to extend the terrain of contemplating the consequences of industrialization; the importance of religion, ethnicity, and race in the establishment and use of Chicago's cemeteries; and how Waldheim Cemetery became a space that linked anarchism, the labor movement, and radicalism in Chicago to similar movements across the globe. Finally, the chapter cites the case of the Haymarket memorial in Waldheim to show how the meanings of life and death came to be expressed in Chicago's cemeteries as the nation marched into the twentieth century.Less
This chapter examines how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions during the period 1873–1913. It first traces the history of the American cemetery, and especially its rise as a cultural institution, before turning to Chicago's cemeteries as social and cultural spaces on the city's landscape. It then discusses how broader tensions in industrial society were reflected in the processes of death and burial. It also looks at the ways that Chicago's working classes turned to cemeteries to extend the terrain of contemplating the consequences of industrialization; the importance of religion, ethnicity, and race in the establishment and use of Chicago's cemeteries; and how Waldheim Cemetery became a space that linked anarchism, the labor movement, and radicalism in Chicago to similar movements across the globe. Finally, the chapter cites the case of the Haymarket memorial in Waldheim to show how the meanings of life and death came to be expressed in Chicago's cemeteries as the nation marched into the twentieth century.
Kathleen M. Cumiskey and Larissa Hjorth
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190634971
- eISBN:
- 9780190635008
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190634971.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Psychology and Interaction
From natural disasters to private funerals, digital media are playing a central role in the documentation and commemoration of shared significant events and individual loss experiences. Yet few ...
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From natural disasters to private funerals, digital media are playing a central role in the documentation and commemoration of shared significant events and individual loss experiences. Yet few studies have fully engaged with the increasing role mobile media play in making meanings related to traumatic events across different individual and collective contexts. Haunting Hands provides the first in-depth study into understanding the role of mobile media in memorialization and bereavement as a cultural and social practice. Throughout the chapters in this book, we explore how mobile devices are both expanding upon older forms of memory-making and creating new channels for affective cultures whereby the visual, textual, oral, and haptic manifest in new ways. Encompassing everything from phones to tablets, mobile media are not only playing a key role in how we represent and remember life, but also in how we negotiate the increasingly integral role of the digital within rituals in and around death. Haunting Hands posits how, during times of distress, mobile media can assist, accompany, and at times augment the disruptive terrain of loss. The book expands upon debates in the area of online memorialization in that the mobile device itself takes prominence, not only for its communicative or social function, but also for the ways in which it can contain as well as generate an intimate space within it. In this way, the device becomes an important companion for mobile-emotive grief as the bereaved engage with emotionally charged digital content in solitary, sometimes secretive, and sometimes shared ways.Less
From natural disasters to private funerals, digital media are playing a central role in the documentation and commemoration of shared significant events and individual loss experiences. Yet few studies have fully engaged with the increasing role mobile media play in making meanings related to traumatic events across different individual and collective contexts. Haunting Hands provides the first in-depth study into understanding the role of mobile media in memorialization and bereavement as a cultural and social practice. Throughout the chapters in this book, we explore how mobile devices are both expanding upon older forms of memory-making and creating new channels for affective cultures whereby the visual, textual, oral, and haptic manifest in new ways. Encompassing everything from phones to tablets, mobile media are not only playing a key role in how we represent and remember life, but also in how we negotiate the increasingly integral role of the digital within rituals in and around death. Haunting Hands posits how, during times of distress, mobile media can assist, accompany, and at times augment the disruptive terrain of loss. The book expands upon debates in the area of online memorialization in that the mobile device itself takes prominence, not only for its communicative or social function, but also for the ways in which it can contain as well as generate an intimate space within it. In this way, the device becomes an important companion for mobile-emotive grief as the bereaved engage with emotionally charged digital content in solitary, sometimes secretive, and sometimes shared ways.
Kathleen M. Cumiskey and Larissa Hjorth
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190634971
- eISBN:
- 9780190635008
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190634971.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Psychology and Interaction
In this chapter we detail examples of mobile-emotive co-presence practices and some of the multiple ways in which reconstructions of death and afterlife are reframed through the lens of mobile media. ...
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In this chapter we detail examples of mobile-emotive co-presence practices and some of the multiple ways in which reconstructions of death and afterlife are reframed through the lens of mobile media. We define what we mean by mobile-emotive practices, and further define the ways in which mobile media now companion the bereaved in their loss. We also explore how mobile media magnify both continuities and discontinuities around cultural beliefs, traditions, and rituals surrounding death. We mark the mobile phone as part of broader remediated rituals around grief and loss, and acknowledge death’s emotional impact on mobile media use.Less
In this chapter we detail examples of mobile-emotive co-presence practices and some of the multiple ways in which reconstructions of death and afterlife are reframed through the lens of mobile media. We define what we mean by mobile-emotive practices, and further define the ways in which mobile media now companion the bereaved in their loss. We also explore how mobile media magnify both continuities and discontinuities around cultural beliefs, traditions, and rituals surrounding death. We mark the mobile phone as part of broader remediated rituals around grief and loss, and acknowledge death’s emotional impact on mobile media use.
