death rite

…designed to be performed during funeral rites, after burial ceremonies, and at anniversaries. Dances may be created for a specific purpose, as in the Igogo dance of the Owo-Yoruba, when young men use stamping movements to pack the earth of the grave into place. In Fulani communities in Cameroon, the…

Akan funeral rites (ayie) are taken quite seriously, because it is the responsibility of the deceased’s family members to perform proper and timely customary rites to ensure that the sunsum can enter Asamando. If the rites are defective, the sunsum might be transformed into an unsettled…

The origin of Buddhist funeral observances can be traced back to Indian customs. The cremation of the body of the Buddha and the subsequent distribution of his ashes are told in the Mahaparinibbana-sutta (“Sutta on the Great Final Deliverance”). Early Chinese travelers such as…

…were perpetually obsessed by their care for the dead, expressed in elaborate, magnificently equipped and decorated tombs and lavish sacrifices. For, in spite of beliefs in an underworld, or Hades, there was also a conviction that the individuality of the dead somehow continued in their mortal remains; and it was…

Funeral rites may last several days, and there is a series of mortuary rituals that takes place some years after a death. A drum is beaten, the reed pipes are played, and a special ritual expert is invited to sing the song “Opening the Way,”…

Death is marked by ritual and burial within 24 hours of death, with repetition of the ritual at periodic intervals after death, sometimes ending on the ninth day, sometimes repeated on the anniversary. An All Saints feast of several days’ duration is prepared annually in…

…the Classic Maya buried the dead under the floors of their houses. High priests or powerful lords were laid to rest in elaborate underground vaults. The dead were believed to descend to the nine underworlds, called Mitnal in Yucatán and Xibalba by the K’iche’. There is no evidence of a…

…other world and life after death showed the same syncretism. The old paradise of the rain god Tlaloc, depicted in the Teotihuacán frescoes, opened its gardens to those who died by drowning, lightning, or as a result of leprosy, anasarca, gout, or lung diseases. He was supposed to have caused…

Funeral or military honours are rendered to a dead officer, soldier, or head of state or government. The usual features of such a burial are as follows: at every stage of transport, the body of the deceased is received with honours by troops standing at…

…life passages: birth, marriage, and death. If a woman has not borne a child, for instance, then, according to the belief of the Nanai (Golds), in the Amur region of northeastern Asia, the shaman ascends to heaven and sends her an embryo soul (omija) from the tree of embryos (omija…

Death was universally observed through rituals, which increased in extravagance in direct proportion to the status of the deceased. Feasts and elaborate gift exchanges were also common. The extravagance of funeral rites was surpassed, in some societies, by ceremonies to deify a departed chief or…

When a death occurs, the family members make charitable contributions in the hope of ensuring a better reincarnation for the deceased. In the case of the death of an important religious figure, his corpse is preserved in a tomb or stupa (Buddhist commemorative monument). Otherwise, tradition calls…

…Dead, ancient Egyptian collection of mortuary texts made up of spells or magic formulas, placed in tombs and believed to protect and aid the deceased in the hereafter. Probably compiled and reedited during the 16th century bce, the collection included Coffin Texts dating from c. 2000 bce, Pyramid Texts dating…

…magical prayers that allowed the dead to forestall all the dangers and meet all the eventualities. In particular, they contain negative confessions in which the dead person justifies himself before the court of Osiris (god of the dead). The funeral liturgies of the ancient Egyptians have preserved lamentations that echo…

…spells intended to protect a dead king or queen and ensure life and sustenance in the hereafter. The texts, inscribed on the walls of the inner chambers of pyramids, are found at Ṣaqqārah in several 5th- and 6th-dynasty pyramids, of which that of Unas, last king of the 5th dynasty,…

…king, a marriage, or a death are ritualized both positively and negatively. The ritual of birth or death involves the child or corpse in a ritual that, in turn, places the child or the corpse in a prohibitive status and thus to be avoided by others. The ritual itself, therefore,…

of fertility and death are at once introduced. The seed must die before it can be reborn and actualize its potentiality. This symbolism is dramatically presented in a wide range of funerary rites: one is buried in the earth in hope of a renewal from the earth, or…

…endurance of their heroes in death as in life, expected the bodies of their dead to last without artificial aid during the days of mourning that preceded the final rites. Other societies, less demanding of their greats, developed a wide variety of preservatives and methods to stave off decay or…

…Egypt to the commercialization of death rites in Western societies. Festivities surrounding rites include the customs of playing mournful (and, sometimes, joyful) music, speaking eulogies, performing sacramental acts (e.g., extreme unction in the Roman Catholic Church), performing elaborate or simple embalming practices (e.g., the lengthy procedural techniques of the ancient…

Death is given social attention in all societies, and the observances are generally religious in intent and import. In societies that fear dead bodies, the deceased may be abandoned, but they are nevertheless the focus of ritual attention. Most commonly, rites at death are elaborate,…

The corpses, accompanied by stone tools and parts of animals, were laid in holes in the ground and sometimes the corpses were especially protected. In some cases, the findings give the impression that the dead were to be “held onto.” Whether or not that meant that…

…be imbibed in mortuary sacramental rites to obtain the attributes of the deceased or to ensure their reincarnation. To give the dead new life beyond the grave, mourners may allow life-giving blood to fall upon the corpse sacramentally. In this cycle of sacramental ideas and practices, the giving, conservation, and…

…dies a heroic or violent death ascends to the heavens, but that the soul of one who dies from disease, which is caused by an evil spirit, must go to the underworld. The part of a psychopomp, or conductor of souls to the netherworld, was, therefore, another role commonly played…

Except for Brahmanic and Buddhist ritual suicides by drowning, which require neither ceremony nor funeral apparatus, there are three methods of disposing of dead human bodies: cremation, stripping of the flesh, and inhumation, performed with or without embalming. These methods have coexisted and still coexist throughout the world. The preparation…

To the shroud may be added the ṭallit used by the deceased, but with the fringes removed or cut, because the prescription governing their use applies only to the living. Both liturgical vesture and everyday clothing must conform to the Mosaic requirement that forbids the combination of…

…the order to which the deceased belonged and are tinctured in the appropriate colors. Particularly interesting are the ceremonial robes of the Mawlawiyyah order (popularly known in the West as the whirling, or dancing, dervishes), in which the symbolism of the robes is central to the mysteries of the order.…

…in ceremonies associated with the dead and departing spirits. Funerary masks were frequently used to cover the face of the deceased. Generally their purpose was to represent the features of the deceased, both to honour them and to establish a relationship through the mask with the spirit world. Sometimes they…