death rite

▪ anthropology

Introduction

      any of the ceremonial acts or customs employed at the time of death and burial.

      Throughout history and in every human society, the disposal of the dead has been given special significance. The practice was originally motivated not by hygienic considerations but by ideas entertained by primitive peoples concerning human nature and destiny. This conclusion is clearly evident from the fact that the disposal of the dead from the earliest times was of a ritual kind. Paleolithic (Paleolithic Period) peoples, such as the Neanderthals (Neanderthal) and later groups, not only buried their dead but provided them with food, weapons, and other equipment, thereby implying a belief that the dead still needed such things in the grave. This very significant practice can be traced back to great antiquity, possibly to about 50,000 BC.

      The ritual burial of the dead, which is thus attested from the very dawn of human culture and which has been practiced in most parts of the world, stems from an instinctive inability or refusal on the part of man to accept death as the definitive end of human life. Despite the horrifying evidence of the physical decomposition caused by death, the belief has persisted that something of the individual person survives the experience of dying. In contrast, the idea of personal extinction through death is a sophisticated concept that was unknown until the 6th century BC, when it appeared in the metaphysical thought of Indian Buddhism; it did not find expression in the ancient Mediterranean world before its exposition by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC).

      The belief that human beings survive death in some form has profoundly influenced the thoughts, emotions, and actions of mankind. The belief occurs in all religions, past and present, and decisively conditions their evaluations of man and his place in the universe. Mortuary rituals and funerary customs reflect these evaluations; they represent also the practical measures taken to assist the dead to achieve their destiny and sometimes to save the living from the dreaded molestation of those whom death had transformed into a different state of being.

Relevant concepts and doctrines

Life and death

      The evidence of Paleolithic burials shows that already, in that remote age, various ideas were held about death and the state of the dead. The provision of food, ornaments, and tools in the graves implies a general belief that the dead continued to exist, with the same needs as in this life. Other customs, however, indicate the currency of a variety of notions about postmortem existence, particularly about the potentialities and destiny of the dead. Thus, the presence of red ochre in some burials suggests the practice of contagious magic: the corpse had possibly been stained with the colour of blood in order to revitalize it. The fact that in Paleolithic burials the skeleton has often been found lying on its side in a crouched position has been interpreted by some prehistorians as evidence of belief in rebirth (resurrection), in that the posture of the corpse imitated the position of the child in the womb. In some crouched burials, however, there is reason for suspecting a more sinister motive; for the limbs are sometimes so tightly flexed that the bodies must have been bound in that position before rigor mortis set in. Such treatment of the corpse was doubtless prompted by fear of the dead, for similar customs have been found among later peoples. Preventive action of this kind has a further significance, for it implies a belief that the dead might be malevolent and had power to harm the living.

      That death was sometimes regarded as transforming those who experienced it into a state of being balefully different from that of those living in this world is evident in later mortuary rites and customs. Indeed, the proper performance of funerary rites was deemed essential by many peoples, to enable the dead to depart to the place and condition to which they properly belonged. Failure to expedite their departure could have dangerous consequences. Many ancient Mesopotamian (Mesopotamian religion) divinatory texts reveal a belief that disease and other misfortunes could be caused by dead persons deprived of proper burial. The fate of the unburied dead finds expression in Greek (Greek religion) and Roman (Roman religion) literature. The idea that the dead had to cross some barrier that divided the land of the living from that of the dead also occurs in many religions: the Greeks and Romans believed that the dead were ferried across an infernal river, the Acheron or Styx, by a demonic boatman called Charon, for whose payment a coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased; in Zoroastrianism the dead cross the Bridge of the Requiter (Činvato Paratu); bridges figure also in Muslim and Scandinavian eschatologies (speculations concerning the end of the world and the afterlife)—the Ṣirāṭ bridge and the bridge over the Gjöll River (Gjallarbrú)—and Christian (Christianity) folklore knew of a Brig o' Dread, or Brig o' Death.

      It is significant that in few religions has death been regarded as a natural event. Instead, it has generally been viewed as resulting from the attack of some demonic power or death god: in Etruscan sepulchral art a fearsome being called Charun strikes the deathblow, and medieval Christian art depicted the skeletal figure of Death with a dart. In many mythologies death is represented as resulting from some primordial mischance. According to Christian theology, death entered the world through the original sin committed by Adam and Eve, the progenitors of mankind.

Human substance and nature

      The conception of death in most religions is closely related to the particular view held about the constitution of human nature. Two major traditions of interpretation have provided the basic assumptions of religious eschatologies (eschatology) and have often found expression in mortuary rituals and funerary practice. The more primitive of these interpretations has been based on an integralistic evaluation of human nature. Thus, the individual person has been conceived as a psychophysical organism, of which both the material and the nonmaterial constituents are essential in order to maintain a properly integrated personal existence. From such an evaluation it has followed that death is the fatal shattering of personal existence. Although some constituent element of the living person has been deemed to survive this disintegration, it has not been regarded as conserving the essential self or personality. The consequences of this estimate of human nature can be seen in the eschatologies of many religions. The ancient Mesopotamians, Hebrews, and Greeks, for example, thought that after death only a shadowy wraith descended to the realm of the dead, where it existed miserably in dust and darkness. Such a conception of man, in turn, has meant that, where the possibility of an effective afterlife has been envisaged, as in ancient Egyptian religion, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islām, the idea of a reconstitution or resurrection of the body has also been involved; for it has been deemed essential to restore the psychophysical complex of personality. In Egypt, most notably, provision was made for the eventual reconstitution in an elaborate mortuary ritual which included the mummification of the corpse to preserve it from disintegration.

      The alternative view of human (human body) nature may be termed dualistic. It conceives of the individual person as comprising an inner essential self or soul, which is nonmaterial, and a physical body. In many religions based on this view of human nature, the soul is regarded as being essentially immortal and as existing before the body was formed. Its incarnation in the body is interpreted as a penalty incurred for some primordial sin or error. At death the soul leaves the body, and its subsequent fate is determined by the manner in which it has fulfilled what the particular religion concerned has prescribed for the achievement of salvation. This view of human nature and destiny finds most notable expression in Hinduism and, in a subtly qualified sense, in Buddhism; it was also taught in such mystical cults and philosophies of the Greco-Roman world as Orphism (Orphic religion) (an ancient Greek mystical movement with a significant emphasis on death), Gnosticism (an early system of thought that viewed spirit as good and matter as evil), Hermeticism (a Hellenistic esoteric, occultic movement), and Manichaeism (a system of thought founded by Mani in ancient Iran).

Forms of survival

      The conception of human nature held in any religion has, accordingly, determined the manner or mode in which postmortem survival has been envisaged. Where the body has been regarded as an essential constituent of personal existence, belief in a significant afterlife has inevitably entailed the idea of the reconstitution of the decomposed corpse and its resurrection to life. In turn, a dualistic conception of human nature, which regards the soul as intrinsically nonmaterial and immortal, envisages postmortem life in terms of the disembodied existence of the soul. This dualistic conception, in many religions, has also involved the idea of rebirth or reincarnation. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Orphism this idea has inspired a cyclical view of the time process and produced esoteric explanations of how the soul becomes reborn into a physical body, whether human or animal.

The ultimate destiny of the dead

      Belief in postmortem survival has been productive also of a variety of images concerning the destiny (Last Judgment) of the dead. This imagery is closely related to the conception of man that is held in each religion. Thus, the magical resuscitation of the dead in ancient Egypt was designed to enable them to live forever in their well-furnished tombs; according to Christian and Islāmic belief, God will ultimately raise the dead with their physical bodies and assess their merits for eternal bliss in heaven or everlasting torment in hell; the Buddhist concept of Nirvāṇa (Enlightenment) is achieved only when the individual has eradicated all desire for existence in the empirical world.

Patterns of myth and symbol

Geography of the afterlife

      Inhumation naturally prompted the idea that the dead lived beneath the ground. The mortuary cults of many peoples indicate that the dead were imagined as actually residing in their tombs and able to receive the offerings of food and drink made to them; e.g., some graves in ancient Crete and Ugarit (Ras Shamra) were equipped with pottery conduits, from the surface, for libations. Often, however, the grave has been thought of as an entrance to a vast, subterranean abode of the dead. In some religions this underworld (hell) has been conceived as an immense pit or cavern, dark and grim (e.g., the Mesopotamian kur-nu-gi-a [“land of no return”], the Hebrew Sheol, the Greek Hades, and the Scandinavian Hel). Sometimes it is ruled by an awful monarch, such as the Mesopotamian god Nergal or the Greek god Hades, or Pluto, or the Yama of Hindu and Buddhist eschatology. According to the view of man's nature and destiny held in a particular religion, this underworld may be a gloomy, joyless place where the shades of all the dead merely survive, or it may be pictured as a place of awful torments where the damned suffer for their misdeeds. In those religions in which the underworld has been conceived as a place of postmortem retribution, the idea of a separate abode of the blessed dead became necessary. Such an abode has various locations. In most religions it is imagined as being in the sky (heaven) or in a divine realm beyond the sky (e.g., in Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and Buddhism); sometimes it has been conceived as the “Isles of the Blessed” (e.g., in Greek and Celtic mythology) or as a beautiful garden or paradise, such as the al-firdaws of Islām. Christian eschatology, which came to conceive of both an immediate judgment and a final judgment, developed the idea of a purgatory, where the dead expiated their venial sins in readiness for the final judgment. Although the dead suffered there in a disembodied state, because their bodies would not be resurrected until the last day, the purifying flames of purgatory were usually regarded as burning in a physical sense, as Dante's Purgatorio vividly shows. The idea of a postmortem purgatory had been adumbrated in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC in Jewish apocalyptic literature (I Enoch 22:9–13). The ten hells of Chinese Buddhist (Buddhism) eschatology may be considered as purgatories, for in them the dead expiated their sins before being incarnated once more in this world.

Means of approach to the afterworld

      The idea that the dead had to make a journey to the otherworld, to which they belonged, finds expression in many religions. The oldest evidence occurs in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts (c. 2375–c. 2200 BC). The journey is conceived under various images. The dead pharaoh flies up to heaven to join the sun-god Re, in his solar boat, on his unceasing voyage across the sky, or he joins the circumpolar stars, known as the “Imperishable Ones,” or he ascends a ladder to join the gods in heaven. Later Egyptian funerary texts depict the way to the next world as beset by awful perils: fearsome monsters, lakes of fire, gates that cannot be passed except by the use of magical formulas, and a sinister ferryman whose evil intent must be thwarted by magic. The idea of crossing water en route to the otherworld, which first appears in Egyptian eschatology, occurs in the eschatological topography of other religions, as was noted above. Many mythologies describe journeys to the underworld; they invariably reflect the fear felt for the grim experience that was believed to await the dead. Ancient Mesopotamian literature records the visit of the goddess Ishtar to the realm of the dead, the way to which was barred by gates. At each gate the goddess was deprived of some article of her attire, so that she was naked when she finally came before Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld. It is possible that this successive stripping of the celestial goddess was meant to symbolize the stripping away of the attributes of life that the dead experienced as they descended into the “land of no return.” An 8th-century Japanese text, the Koji-ki (Kojiki), tells of the first contact with death experienced by the primordial pair, Izanagi (Izanagi and Izanami) and Izanami. When his wife died, Izanagi descended to Yomi, the underworld of darkness, to bring her back. His request was granted by the gods of Yomi, on condition that he did not look at her in the underworld. Impatiently he struck a light and was horrified to see her as a decomposed corpse. He fled in terror and disgust. Blocking the entrance to Yomi with a great rock, he then sought desperately to purify himself from the contagion of death.

      Such myths doubtless reflect an instinctive feeling that death works an awful change in those who experience it. The dead cease to belong to the world of the living and become uncanny and dangerous: hence, their departure to the world of the dead must be expedited. To assist that grim journey, various aids have been provided. Thus, on some Egyptian coffins of the 11th dynasty, a plan of the “Two Ways” to the underworld was painted, and from the New Kingdom period (c. 1567–1085 BC), copies of the Book of the Dead, containing spells for dealing with perils encountered en route, were placed in the tombs. Orphic communities in southern Italy and Crete provided their dead with directions about the next world by inscribing them on gold laminae deposited in the graves. Advice about dying was given to medieval Christians in a book entitled Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”) and to Tibetan Buddhists in the Bardo Thödol (“Book of the Dead”). Chinese Buddhists were informed in popular prints of what to expect as they passed after death through the ten hells to their next incarnation. More practical equipment for the journey to the next world was provided for the Greek and Roman dead: in addition to the money to pay Charon for their passage across the Styx, they were provided with honey cakes for Cerberus, the fearsome dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.

Forms of final determination

      Those religions that have taught the possibility of a happy afterlife have also devised forms of postmortem testing of merit for eternal bliss. Ancient Egypt has the distinction of conceiving of a judgment of the dead of an essentially moral kind. This conception finds graphic expression in the vignettes that illustrate the Book of the Dead. The heart of the deceased is represented as being weighed against the symbol of Maat (Truth) in the presence of Osiris, the god of the dead. A monster named Am-mut (Eater of the Dead) awaits an adverse verdict. The judgment of the dead as conceived in other religions (e.g., Christianity, Islām, Zoroastrianism, Orphism) is basically a test of orthodoxy or ritual status, although moral qualities were included to varying degrees. The Last Judgment, as presented in Jewish apocalyptic literature, was essentially a vindication of Israel against its Gentile oppressors. Religions that held no promise of a significant afterlife (e.g., those of ancient Mesopotamia and classical Greece) had no place for a judgment of the dead.

Death and funerary rites and customs

Before and at death

      The process of dying and the moment of death have been regarded as occasions of the gravest crisis in many religions. The dying must be especially prepared for the awful experience. In China, for example, the head of a dying person was shaved, his body was washed and his nails pared, and he was placed in a sitting position to facilitate the exit of the soul. After the death, relatives and friends called the soul to return, possibly to make certain whether its departure from the body was definitive. Muslim (Islām) custom decrees that the dying be placed facing the holy city of Mecca. In Catholic Christianity, great care is devoted to preparing for a “good death.” The dying person makes his last confession to a priest and receives absolution; then he is anointed with consecrated oil: the rite is known as “anointing of the sick” (formerly called extreme unction). According to medieval Christian belief, the last moments of life were the most critical, for demons lurked about the deathbed ready to seize the unprepared soul as it emerged with the last breath.

Modes of preparation of the corpse and attendant rites

      After death, it has been the universal custom to prepare the corpse for final disposal. Generally, this preparation has included its washing and dressing in special garments and sometimes its public exposure. In some religions this preparation is accompanied by rites designed to protect the deceased from demonic attack; sometimes the purpose of the rites has been to guard the living from the contagion of death or the malice of the dead; for it has often been believed that the soul continues to remain about the body until burial or cremation. The most elaborate known preparation of the dead took place in ancient Egypt. Because the Egyptians believed that the body was essential for a proper afterlife, a complex process of ritual embalmment was established. This process was intended not only to preserve the corpse from physical disintegration but also to reanimate it. The rites were based upon the belief that, because the dead body of the god Osiris had been preserved from decomposition and raised to life again by the gods, the magical assimilation of a dead person to Osiris and the ritual enacting of what the gods had done would achieve a similar miracle of resurrection. One of the most significant of these ritual transactions was the “opening of the mouth,” which was designed to restore to the mummified (mummy) body its ability to see, breathe, and take nourishment.

      Mummification in cruder forms has been practiced elsewhere (notably in Peru), but not with the same complex motives as in Egypt. The preparation of the corpse has also frequently included the placing on or in it of magical amulets (amulet); these were variously intended to protect or vitalize the corpse. Evidence found in tombs of the Shang dynasty (c. 1766–c. 1122 BC) suggests that the Chinese placed life-prolonging substances, such as jade, in the orifices of the corpse. Crosses or crucifixes are frequently placed upon the Christian dead, and sometimes in the Middle Ages the consecrated bread of the Eucharist (the Lord's Supper) was buried with the body. It has also been a Christian custom to furnish a dead priest with a chalice and paten, the instruments of his sacerdotal office.

Modes of disposal of the corpse and attendant rites

      The form of the disposal of the dead most generally used throughout the world in both the past and present has been burial in the ground. The practice of inhumation (burial) started in the Paleolithic era, doubtless as the most natural and simplest way of disposal. Whether it was then prompted by any esoteric motive, such as the return to the womb of Mother Earth, as has been suggested, cannot be proved. Among some later peoples, who have believed that primordial man was formed out of earth, it may have been deemed appropriate that the dead should be buried—the idea found classical expression in the divine pronouncement to Adam, recorded in Genesis 3:19: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” There is evidence that in ancient Crete the dead were believed to serve a great goddess, who was the source of fertility and life in the world above and who nourished and protected the dead in the earth beneath.

      The mode of burial has varied greatly. Sometimes the body has been laid directly in the earth, with or without clothes and funerary equipment. It may be placed in either an extended or crouched position: the latter posture seems to have been more usual in prehistoric burials. Sometimes evidence of a traditional orientation of the corpse in the grave can be distinguished, which may relate to the direction in which the land of the dead was thought to lie. The use of coffins (coffin) of various substances dates from the early 3rd millennium BC in Sumer and Egypt. Intended probably at first to protect and add dignity to the corpse, coffins became important adjuncts in the mortuary rituals of many religions. Their ritual use is most notable in ancient Egypt, where the mummies of important persons were often enclosed in several human-shaped coffins and then deposited in large, rectangular wooden coffins or stone sarcophagi (sarcophagus). The interiors and exteriors of these coffins were used for the inscription of magical texts and symbols. Sarcophagi, elaborately carved with mythological scenes of mortuary significance, became fashionable among the wealthier classes of Greco-Roman society. Similar sarcophagi, carved with Christian scenes, came into use among Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries and afford rich iconographic (iconography) evidence of the contemporary Christian attitude to death.

      In the ancient Near East, the construction of stone tombs (tomb) began in the 3rd millennium BC and inaugurated a tradition of funerary architecture that has produced such diverse monuments as the pyramids of Egypt, the Tāj Mahal, and the mausoleum of Lenin in Red Square, Moscow. The tomb was originally intended to house and protect the dead. In Egypt it was furnished to meet the needs of its magically resuscitated (resurrection) inmate, sometimes even to the provision of toilet facilities. Among many peoples, the belief that the dead actually dwelt in their tombs has caused the tombs of certain holy persons to become shrines, which thousands visit to seek for miracles of healing or to earn religious merit; notable examples of such centres of pilgrimage are the tombs of St. Peter in Rome, of Muḥammad at Medinah, and, in ancient times, the tomb of Imhotep at Ṣaqqārah, in Egypt.

      The disposal of the corpse has been, universally, a ritual occasion of varying degrees of complexity and religious concern. Basically, the funeral consists of conveying the deceased from his home to the place of burial or cremation. This act of transportation has generally been made into a procession of mourners who lament the deceased, and it has often afforded an opportunity of advertising his wealth, status, or achievements. Many depictions of ancient Egyptian funerary processions graphically portray the basic pattern: the embalmed body of the deceased is borne on an ornate sledge, on which sit two mourning women. A priest precedes the bier, pouring libations and burning incense. In the cortege are groups of male mourners and lamenting women, and servants carry the funerary furniture, which indicates the wealth of the dead man. Ancient Roman (Roman religion) funerary processions were notable for the parade of ancestors' death masks. In Islāmic countries, friends carry the corpse on an open bier, generally followed by women relatives, lamenting with disheveled hair, and hired mourners. After a service in the mosque, the body is interred with its right side toward Mecca. In Hinduism the funeral procession is made to the place of cremation. It is preceded by a man carrying a firebrand kindled at the domestic hearth; a goat is sometimes sacrificed en route, and the mourners circumambulate the corpse, which is carried on a bier. Cremation is a ritual act, governed by careful prescriptions. The widow crouches by the pyre, on which in ancient times she sometimes died. After cremation, the remains are gathered and often deposited in sacred rivers.

      Christian funerary ritual reached its fullest development in medieval Catholicism (Roman Catholicism) and was closely related to doctrinal belief, especially that concerning purgatory. Hence, the funerary ceremonies were invested with a sombre character that found visible expression in the use of black vestments and candles of unbleached wax and the solemn tolling of the church bell. The rites consisted of five distinctive episodes. The corpse was carried (in a coffin if one could be afforded) to the church in a doleful cortege of clergy and mourners, with the intoning of psalms and the purificatory use of incense. The coffin was deposited in the church and covered with a black pall, and the Office of the Dead was recited or sung, with the constant repetition of the petition: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.” Next, requiem mass was said or sung, with the sacrifice offered for the repose of the soul of the deceased. After the mass followed the “Absolution” of the dead person, in which the coffin was solemnly perfumed with incense and sprinkled with holy water. The corpse was then carried to consecrated ground and buried, while appropriate prayers were recited by the officiating priest. Changes in these rites, including the use of white vestments and the recitation of prayers emphasizing the notions of hope and joy, were introduced into the Catholic liturgy only following the second Vatican Council (1962–65).

      In some societies the burial of the dead has been accompanied by human sacrifice, with the intention either to propitiate the spirit of the deceased or to provide him with companions or servants in the next world. A classic instance of such propitiatory sacrifice occurs in Homer's Iliad (xxiii:175–177): 12 young Trojans were slaughtered and burned on the funeral pyre of the Greek hero Patroclus. The royal graves excavated at the Sumerian city of Ur, dating c. 2700 BC, revealed that retinues of servants and soldiers had been buried with their royal masters. Evidence of a similar Chinese practice has been found in Shang-dynasty graves (12th to 11th centuries BC) at An-yang. In ancient Egypt models of servants, placed in tombs, were designed to be magically animated to serve their masters in the afterlife. A particular type of these models, known as an ushabti (ushabti figure) (“answerer”), was inscribed with chapter VI of the Book of the Dead, commanding it to answer for the deceased owner if he were required to do service in the next world.

      The custom has also existed among some peoples of dismembering the body for burial or subsequently disinterring the bones for storage in some form. There is Paleolithic evidence of a cult of skulls, which suggests that the rest of the body was not ritually buried. The Egyptians removed the viscera, which were preserved separately in four canopic jars. The Romans observed the curious rite of the os resectum: after cremation a severed finger joint was buried, probably as a symbol of an earlier custom of inhumation. In medieval Europe the heart and sometimes the intestines of important persons were buried in separate places: e.g., the body of William the Conqueror (William I) was buried in St. Étienne at Caen, but his heart was left to Rouen Cathedral and his entrails for interment in the church of Chalus. To be noted also is the Zoroastrian (Zoroastrianism) and Parsi custom of exposing corpses on dakhmas (dakhma) (“towers of silence”) to be devoured by birds of prey, thus to avoid polluting earth or air by burial or cremation.

      The alternative use of inhumation or cremation for the disposal of the corpse cannot be interpreted as generally denoting a difference of view about the fate of the dead. In India (Hinduism), cremation was indeed connected with the fire god Agni, but cremation does not necessarily indicate that the soul was thus freed to ascend to the sky. Burial has been the more general practice, whether the abode of the dead be located under the earth or in the heavens.

Post-funerary rites and customs

      Funerary rites do not usually terminate with the disposal of the corpse either by burial or cremation. Post-funerary ceremonies and customs may continue for varying periods; they have generally had two not necessarily mutually exclusive motives: to mourn the dead and to purify the mourners. The mourning of the dead, especially by near relatives, has taken many forms. The wearing of old or colourless dress, either black or white, the shaving of the hair or letting it grow long and unkempt, and abstention from amusements have all been common practice. The meaning of such action seems evident: grief felt for the loss of a dear relative or friend naturally expresses itself in forms of self-denial. But the purpose may sometimes have been intended to divert the ill humour of the dead from those who still enjoyed life in this world.

      The purification (purification rite) of mourners has been the other powerful motive in much post-funerary action. Death being regarded as baleful, all who came in contact with it were contaminated thereby. Consequently, among many peoples, various forms of purification have been prescribed, chiefly bathing and fumigation. Parsis are especially intent also on cleansing the room in which the death occurred and all articles that had contact with the dead body.

      In some post-funerary rituals, dancing and athletic contests have had a place. The dancing seems to have been inspired by various but generally obscure motives. There is some evidence that Egyptian mortuary dances were intended to generate a vitalizing potency that would benefit the dead. Dances among other peoples suggest the purpose of warding off the (evil) spirits of the dead. Funeral games (game) would seem to have been, in essence, prophylactic assertions of vitalizing energy in the presence of death. It has been suggested that the funeral games of the Etruscans, which involved the shedding of blood, had also a sacrificial significance.

      Another widespread funerary custom has been the funeral banquet (feast), which might be held in the presence of the corpse before burial or in the tomb-chapel (in ancient Rome) or on the return of the mourners to the home of the deceased. The purpose behind these meals is not clear, but they seem originally to have been of a ritual character. Two curious instances of mortuary eating may be mentioned in this connection. There was an old Welsh custom of “sin eating”: food and drink were handed across the corpse to a man who undertook thereby to ingest the sins of the deceased. In Bavaria, Leichennudeln, or “corpse cakes,” were placed upon the dead body before baking. By consuming these cakes, the kinsmen were supposed to absorb the virtues and abilities of their deceased relatives.

      A remarkable post-funerary custom has been observed in Islām; it is known as the Chastisement of the Tomb. It is believed that, on the night following the burial, two angels, Munkar (Munkar and Nakīr) and Nakīr, enter the tomb. They question the deceased about his faith. If his answers are correct, the angels open a door in the side of the tomb for him to pass to repose in paradise. If the deceased fails his grisly interrogation, he is terribly beaten by the angels, and his torment continues until the end of the world and the final judgment (Last Judgment). In preparation for this awful examination the roof of the tomb is constructed to enable the deceased to sit up; and, immediately after burial, a man known as a fiqī (or faqih) is employed to instruct the dead in the right answers.

Cults and memorials of the dead

Commemorative rites and services

      The attitude of the living toward the dead has also been conditioned by the particular belief held about the human nature and destiny. Where death is regarded as the virtual extinction of the personality, the dead should logically have no more importance beyond that which their memory might stir in those who knew them. Even in the negative eschatologies of ancient Mesopotamia (Mesopotamian religion) and Greece, however, the dead were thought of as still existent and capable of malevolent action if food offerings were not made to them. In those religions that have envisaged a more positive afterlife, the tendance of the dead has been developed in varying ways. In Egypt, it led to the building and endowment of mortuary temples or chapels, in which portrait images preserved the memory of the dead and offerings of food and drink were regularly made. In China, an elaborate ancestor cult flourished. The ancestral shrine contained tablets, inscribed with the names of ancestors, which were revered and before which offerings were made. The number of tablets displayed in the shrine was determined by the social status of the family. When the tablet of a newly deceased member was added to the collection, the oldest tablet was deposited in a chest containing still older ones: offerings to the remoter ancestors were made collectively at longer intervals. In India (Hinduism), three generations of deceased ancestors are venerated at the monthly śrāddha (sraddha) festival, at which mortuary offerings were made.

      The Christian cult of the dead found early expression in the catacombs (catacomb), where mural paintings and inscriptions record the names of those buried there and the hopes of eternal peace and felicity that inspired them. Special chapels were made where the bodies of martyrs were entombed, and the anniversaries of their martyrdoms were commemorated by the celebration of the Eucharist (the Lord's Supper). The development of cults of martyrs and other saints in the medieval church centred on the veneration of their relics, which were often divided among several churches. The introduction of the doctrine of purgatory profoundly affected the postmortem care devoted to the ordinary dead. It was believed that the offering of the sacrifice of the mass could alleviate the sufferings of departed souls in purgatory. Consequently, the celebration of masses for the dead proliferated, and wealthy Christians endowed monasteries or chantry chapels where masses were said regularly for the repose of their own souls or those of their relatives. Prayers for the well-being of the dead have an important place in Mahāyāna (Mahayana) Buddhism, and so-called “masses for the dead” were celebrated by Chinese Buddhists, influenced originally perhaps by the practice of the Nestorian Christians, who entered China in the 7th century AD.

      In many religions, in addition to private cults of the dead, periodic commemorations of the dead have been kept. The oldest of the Hindu sacred texts, the Rigveda (Ṛgveda), records the practice of the ancient Aryan invaders of India. The sacred beverage called soma was set out on “the sacred grass,” and the ancestors were invited to ascend from their subterranean abode to partake of it and to bless their pious descendants. A similar ceremony, called the Anthesteria, was held in ancient Athens. On the day concerned, the souls of the dead (kēres) were believed to leave their tombs and revisit their former homes, where food was prepared for them. At sundown they were solemnly dismissed to the underworld with the formula: “out, kēres, the Anthesteria is ended.” Buddhist China kept a Feast of Wandering Souls each year, designed to help unfortunate souls suffering in the next world. The Christian All Souls' Day, on November 2, which follows directly after All Saints' Day, commemorates all the ordinary dead: requiem masses are celebrated for their repose, and in many Catholic countries relatives visit the graves and place lighted candles on them. After World War I the public commemoration of the fallen was instituted on November 11, the day of the armistice (Veterans Day) in 1918, in many of the countries concerned: the memory of the dead was solemnly recalled in a two-minute silence during the ceremony. The body of an unknown soldier, killed in the fighting, was also buried in the capital cities of many countries and has become the accepted focus of national reverence and devotion.

Cult of the dead

      Among many peoples it has been the custom to preserve the memory of the dead by images of them placed upon their graves or tombs, usually with some accompanying inscription recording their names and often their achievements. This sepulchral iconography began in Egypt, the portrait statue of King Djoser (second king of the 3rd dynasty [c. 2686–c. 2613 BC]), found in the serdab (worship chamber; from the Arabic word for cellar) of the Step Pyramid being the oldest known example. The Egyptian images, however, had a magical (magic) purpose: they not only recorded the features of the deceased but also provided a locus for his ka, the mysterious entity that constituted an essential element of the personality. The sculptured (sculpture) gravestones of classical Athens deserve special notice, for they are among the noblest products of funerary art. They are expressive of a restrained grief for those who had departed to the virtual extinction of Hades. The deceased are often shown performing some familiar act for the last time. The inscriptions are very brief and usually record only the name and parentage; sometimes the word farewell is added. Etruscan mortuary art is characterized by the effigy of the deceased, sometimes with his wife, represented as reclining on the cover of the funerary casket. These images are obviously careful portraits, but whether they had some magical use as substitute bodies or are only commemorative is unknown. Roman (Roman religion) funerary images seem to have been essentially commemorative, as were those of Palmyra.

       Christianity has provided the richest legacy of funerary monuments. In the catacomb art of the 4th and 5th centuries, the deceased was sometimes depicted on the plaster covering of the niche in which his body was laid. From the early Middle Ages onward, the more affluent dead were represented in sculptured effigy or engraved in outline on stone or brass. In this tomb iconography, they are shown in a variety of postures: lying, kneeling, seated, standing, and sometimes on horseback. They are generally presented in the dress appropriate to their office or social standing: kings wear crowns, knights their armour; bishops are in copes and mitres and ladies in the fashionable attire of the day. This iconography is patently commemorative of the appearance in life, the achievements, and the status of the persons concerned. In the later Middle Ages, however, there was a remarkable innovation in this funerary art, which was designed to emphasize the horror and degradation of death. In what are known as memento mori tombs, below the effigies of the deceased as they were in life, there were placed effigies of their naked decaying corpses or skeletons. Such tomb sculpture reflected a contemporary obsession with the corruption of death.

Psychological and sociological aspects of death

      The Paleolithic (Paleolithic Period) burials reveal that the pattern of man's reaction to the fact and phenomena of death has been set from the dawn of culture. Unlike the other animals, man has been unable to ignore the mysterious cessation of activity and lapse of consciousness that cause his body to decay and befall members of his own kind. Death has, accordingly, constituted a problem for man, and he has felt impelled to take special action to cope with it. The pattern of his reaction has been twofold: confronted with the deaths of his companions, he has recognized an obligation to attend to their needs as he has conceived them, believing that they continued to exist in some form, either in the grave or in an underworld to which the grave gave access. But man's concern with death has not been confined to his tendance of the dead; for in the deaths of his fellows he has seen a presage of his own demise. This anticipation on the part of the living of the experience of dying has been a factor of immense psychological and social import. It is essentially a human characteristic; it stems from a consciousness of time, of which the immense cultural significance is only now beginning to be properly evaluated.

      Awareness of time in its three categories of past, present, and future has decisively contributed to man's success in the struggle for existence. For it has enabled him to draw upon past experience in the present to anticipate future needs. Thus, from the making of the first stone tools to the complex structure of his modern technological civilization, man has sought by planning to render himself economically secure and to improve the standard of his living. But his time consciousness, which has made this immense achievement possible, is an ambivalent endowment. For, although it has enabled man to win economic security, it has also made him acutely aware of his own mortality and the inevitability of his own demise. Hence, his anticipation of death presents him with a profound emotional challenge, unknown to other species. The repercussions of this challenge can be traced in almost every aspect of his social and cultural life; but it is in his religions that man's reaction to death finds its most significant expression. All religion is concerned with postmortem security—with linking mortal man to an eternal realm—whether it be achieved by ritual magic, divine assistance, or mystic enlightenment.

Modern notions of death

Continuation of traditional responses

      Religious rites and customs continue to be practiced, because of conservatism, long after the ideas and beliefs that originally inspired them may be forgotten or abandoned. This is particularly true with regard to rites and customs pertaining to death. It is difficult to assess to what extent in the more sophisticated societies of the modern world the traditional eschatologies are still effectively held. Although a general skepticism obviously manifests itself toward the medieval imagery of death and judgment, of purgatory, heaven, and hell, modern modes of thinking have not lessened the mystery of death and its impact on the emotions. Indeed, in modern society, where expectation of life has been prolonged and standards of living raised, the negation of death is probably felt more keenly and also more hopelessly than in any other age.

Avowed secular inattention and unconcern

      The reaction to death most apparent today among those having no effective religious faith is that of seeking to treat it as a disagreeable happening that must be dealt with as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. Funerals are no longer elaborately organized, mourning attire is rarely worn, and graveyards are landscaped, thus discreetly removing the earlier memorials of death. The increasing use of cremation facilitates this disposition to reduce the social intrusion of death and banish the traditional grave as a reminder of human mortality.

Rites and customs among secular materialists

      It is significant, however, that, even where secularist principles are consciously professed, the dead are rarely disposed of without some semblance of ceremony. A deeply rooted feeling prompts most people to treat a dead human body with a respect that is not felt for a dead animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages to the graves of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great effort is being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those who died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and '40s and, if possible, to bring their ashes there. In America, morticians strive to preserve the features of the dead as did the embalmers of ancient Egypt, though for somewhat different motives. Finally, as further evidence of modern preoccupation with death, it may be noted that, in Western society, Spiritualism witnesses to a widespread desire to have communication with the dead, and recently, in England, there has even been a recrudescence of necromancy.

The Rev. Samuel G.F. Brandon

Additional Reading

E. Bendann, Death Customs: An Analytical Study of Burial Rites (1930, reprinted 1974), is a useful account of relevant ethnological material. P.C. Rosenblatt, Grief and Mourning in Cross-Cultural Perspective (1976); and R. Huntington, Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Rituals (1979), are two more-recent anthropological studies. Four works by S.G.F. Brandon are helpful: Man and His Destiny in the Great Religions (1962), with extensive bibliographies and documentation; The Judgment of the Dead (1967), a comprehensive study of the subject; Man and God in Art and Ritual (1972), a profusely illustrated study that deals with mortuary rituals, conceptions of burial, and funerary iconography; and “The Personification of Death in Some Ancient Religions,” Bull. John Rylands Library, 43:317–385 (1961). J. Maringer, Vorgeschichtliche Religion (1956; Eng. trans., The Gods of Prehistoric Man, 1960), discusses Paleolithic and Neolithic burial practices. E.A.W. Budge, The Mummy, 2nd ed. (1894, reprinted 1974), is a handbook on Egyptian funerary archaeology. J. Zandee, Death As an Enemy, According to Ancient Egyptian Conceptions (1960, reissued 1977), also includes Coptic evidence. M. Lamm, The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning, rev. ed. (1972); and J. Jeremias, Heiligengräber in Jesu Umwelt (Mt. 23, 29; Lk. 11, 47) (1958), an account of Jewish mortuary beliefs, are valuable studies. Sources focusing on Greek and Roman civilizations include E. Rohde, Psyche: Seelenkult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 8th ed. (1921; Eng. trans., Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks, 1925, reprinted 1972); D.C. Kurtz, Greek Burial Customs (1971); F.V.A. Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism (1922); J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (1971); and A.K. Fortescue, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 6th ed. rev. by J.B. O'Connell (1937). The following are also recommended: R. Eklund, Life Between Death and Resurrection According to Islam (1941); J.D.C. Pavry, The Zoroastrian Doctrine of a Future Life: From Death to the Individual Judgment, 2nd ed. (1929, reissued 1975); J.J. Modi, The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees (1922, reprinted 1979; 2nd ed., 1937); J.A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, 3rd ed. (1906, reissued 1968), invaluable for its descriptions; M. Granet, La Civilisation Chinoise (1929; Eng. trans., Chinese Civilization, 1930, reprinted 1974); La Religion des Chinois, 2nd ed. (1951); P. Ariès, Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (1974), as reflected in ceremonies, customs, literature, and art; W.K.L. Clarke (ed.), Liturgy and Worship: A Companion to the Prayer Books of the Anglican Communion (1932); T.S.R. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment, Remembrance (1972); and E. Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture (1964), an illustrated survey of funerary iconography from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance.

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