Moving Corpses

   In this work I would like to explore ways in which are various cultures
   dealing with death and dead bodies. Inspiration for this topic was chapter
   Moving Corpses published in book The Emotions: A Cultural Reader. I would
   like to focus on contrast between Euro-American tradition of seeing corpse
   as something that is needed to be treated with care, respect and strictly
   by certain institutes and on certain places, and traditions of some native
   tribes across the world, which funeral practices are different in many
   ways.

   Before I start to describe differences between western rites of burial and
   death customs in the rest of the world I would like to focus on things
   that all cultures have in common. Dealing with death carries some
   universal features, that are nicely decried in Les rites de passage by
   Arnold Van Gennep. Gennep writes about different stages of mourning and
   different approaches to death and dead bodies. Regardless of culture,
   death is a great change which shows us our own mortality. It is passage
   from subject to object, as Svašek said, it is crucial shift in community
   life. It always influence certain group, whether it is family, friends,
   people from the same community, village or city, or even whole nation.
   That's why every death demands a ritual, some sort of closure.

   First of all, there is a question of dead body. Whether it is something
   precious that connect us with the death person and needs to be handle with
   care and respect or it is something dangerous, unclean that could infest
   surrounding environment and send vengeful spirit of dead person to follow
   dead's relatives harm them. Svašek gives us five interesting examples of
   different situations in which this problem was dealt with. Every culture
   has its own death taboo, institutions that are allowed to “process” the
   dead body, rituals of burial and mourning. However these features change
   greatly from culture to culture, which shows us their relativity. What is
   taboo in one society is normal or even demanded in other. There can be
   great difference between clinical death and social death. There are some
   culture (e.g. Inuits) that simply proclaim somebody dead, even trough the
   person is still breathing and, for example, in case of Merina people of
   Madagascar, the person, who was proclaimed dead can under certain
   circumstances come back from “being dead.” Let's start with exploring our
   own culture.

   Western death rituals, taboos and customs

   In two examples given by Svašek we learned that using dead bodies or part
   of dead bodies in ways of art caused public outrage. The arguments against
   this “processing”of dead humans were that it is amoral, …. When we look at
   this matter trough eyes or historian, we could be surprised by this
   attitude, considering that using body remains, especially bones for
   aesthetic creations and decorations has a long history, at least in
   European society. For example, we could find an equivalent in history for
   “human earnings” namely relic business which bloomed in medieval. Kings,
   high church officials and rich nobles used to carry pieces of bones (or
   small bones like phalanx bone etc.) One could thing that only thong that
   can be done with a dead body is to bury it or burn it and storage it on
   proper place. However it is not so strict.. Since cremations started to be
   popular (or easily accessible ) after World War I., the question “What to
   do wit the ashes of the dead person?” arised. Many western countries have
   laws about where it is permitted to scatter the ashes. As Davies is cited
   in The Eclipse of The Eternity: “Cremation has opened a possibility that
   never existed before in allowing the physical symbol of identity, the
   ashes, to be in private hands... This is the final expression of a culture
   of privacy and individualism”^[1]^1 So, law or not, you are the one who
   holds a jar with your dead grandma and it is up to you what you do with
   it- metaphorically speaking. Apart tradicional scaterring it is possible
   to “process” ashes in modern, sometimes even humor, way. My favourite was
   “hourglass” urn – a sandglass that used ashes of deceased instead of sand.
   It came in single version and double version for spouses. If hourglass are
   too modest for you you might consider firing the ashes into outer space,
   making a firework of it or transform it into a diamond.^[2]^2 I listed
   this examples as a comparison to controversies described in Savšek's text.

   I will stick to controversy that was arised by exhibition Body Worlds for
   a little while. The main argument against this show was that it
   “dehumanized the human body as scientific object”^[3]^3 Many critics
   argued that it fails to deliver both aesthetic and anatomic benefits to
   the onlookers. In my opinion the author – Gunther von Hagen – received so
   much criticism, because he was lacking certain authority or institution
   that would support him. The anatomist didn't accept his work, because von
   Hagen was an artist and artists didn't accept it because he was using
   organic human material in a way it was clear that the material used on
   this exhibition was once a part of living, breathing human body. Tony
   Writer describes how this authority to handle human remains moved from
   institucion of the family, to the church and finally to the state.^[4]^4
   This bring me to idea, what would public say if would von Hagen used human
   ashes, or human ashes of his family members? As described above, today on
   can do almost anything with the human ashes, so why not art? The reason
   why I think it could be acepted by public eye is that a rights to handle
   the human ashes belong to the individual person, a family member
   usualy.Howeverr, the situacion with a corpse is different. In this case
   certain official authority is here to deal with a dead body. This is
   govern not only by custom but also by law.

   Other societies

   When the church in western world lost it's right to process dead bodies,
   it also led to weakening of medieval idea of dead rising on day of the
   last judgement. It started with cremation, which destroyed the body and
   continued with possibility of organ donation. People stopped see body as
   something that could maybe walk again and be useful for immortal soul and
   started to see body as something that can be disposable.^[5]^5 This along
   side other phenomenons as rationalisation led to weakening of connection
   between body and soul in western minds. However in rest of the world
   especially in native nations this idea is still strong (although sometimes
   in quite different form) and it forms funeral rites and mourning customs.

   Let's start with an example of ethnicity that doesn't believe in soul at
   all. I'm talking about British Travellers – an gypsy ethnicity living in
   Britain that has a curious way how to see death. Altrought they have rich
   burial rite with many supernatural features their opinion on posthumous
   life is simple: there isn't any. People just die. Period. However they
   don't take burial lightly. It is important to keep every tradition,
   because otherwise an vengeful spirit – mulo- could appear and start to
   haunt family of the deceased person. For us the key point in this is that
   the body in no longer see as a representation of the dead person, nor it
   should be preserved in case a soul would like to come back. The body is
   something unclean, that infest it's surrounding environment. It needs to
   be handle with care and respect, but just because otherwise something bad
   could happen to the relatives and whole community.^[6]^6

   Another example of seeing dead human body as something that is purely
   object are burial customs of Dayak people of Borneo. However it applies
   only on small children that haven't hit sixth year before their death.
   Dayak people believe that one become a human after he or she turns six.
   Therefore, small children are not conciser human and they are buried in
   special way. Their bodies are hang in tree top so the soul could leave
   immature body and could be recycled in another baby.^[7]^7

   In foreword I also mentioned social death. This phenomena is also strange
   for us westerns at least in this certain meaning. Inuit, for example, have
   to deal with cruel and unforgiving nature. They must put all their energy
   to survival so their society developed very practical approach to death.
   If it is necessary and it's clear that family isn't able to keep alive a
   baby without endangering other they simply leave it behind. Although it is
   taboo to do the same thing with old and weak people, the elder members of
   the family sometimes decide to die in social way and they wander off in
   the wilds. Their family conciser them dead, they arrange a burial, even
   trough the gone person can live even a months before he or she pass away.

   Similar situation is happening on the other side of the world. Merina
   people living on Madagascar believe that everybody can decide when is his
   or her time to die. When the person feels sick or too old, they simply
   announce that they will be soon gone. His or her family, relatives and
   friend come to say good bye, the funeral is held and after that, the
   person is seen as dead. Interesting thing here is that if the dead person
   gets better they could be capable get back to the community and back to
   the realm of living.

   Conclusion: The way how to look at human corpse is mostly conditioned by
   culture. Although (as Murphi says) “Death is subject of rituals across
   whole world and there is no society that would simply throw away human
   body like some piece of decomposing cell mass,”^[8]^8 The point from which
   is an object “body” seen as a subject “person” varies across cultures. In
   some societies is human a human since he or she is born (or even
   conceived) till it is buried. Sometimes the person must get trough rituals
   of adulthood or some other kind or test. Individuals are finding help in
   institutions that deal with burial related business. In some countries it
   is family, in some church and in some official authorities. Every society
   adopted certain taboos, customs and rituals to deal with the most
   difficult idea of humans life: it's own finiteness.

   Sources

   WULFF, Helena. The emotions: a cultural reader. English ed. New York:
   Berg, 2007, xi, 416 p. ISBN 18-452-0368-2.

   KURR VAN GENNEP, Charles-Arnold. Přechodové rituály: systematické studium
   rituálů. Překlad Helena Beguivinová. Praha: Lidové noviny, 1997, 201 s.
   Mythologie, sv. 1. ISBN 80-710-6178-6.

   ERIKSEN, Thomas Hylland. Sociální a kulturní antropologie: příbuzenství,
   národnostní příslušnost, rituál. Vyd. 1. Praha: Portál, 2008, 407 s. ISBN
   978-807-3674-656.

   MURPHY, Robert Francis. Úvod do kulturní a sociální antropologie:
   příbuzenství, národnostní příslušnost, rituál. 2. vyd. Překlad Hana
   Červinková. Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství, 2004, 268 s. Studijní
   texty (Sociologické nakladatelství), sv. 15. ISBN 978-808-6429-250.

   WALTER, Tony. The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife. New
   York: St. Martin's Press, 1996, ix, 222 s. ISBN 03-336-1614-6.

   Mental Floss. GREEN, Amanda. [online]. [cit. 2014-12-16]. Dostupné z:
   [9]http://mentalfloss.com/article/51905/10-amazing-things-your-ashes-can-do-after-you-die

   OKELY, Judith. The traveller-gypsies. New York: Cambridge University
   Press, 1983, xii, 254 p. ISBN 05-212-8870-3.

   [10]1 WALTER, Tony. The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife.
   p.112

   [11]2Mental Floss. GREEN, Amanda. [online]. [cit. 2014-12-16]. Dostupné z:
   [12]http://mentalfloss.com/article/51905/10-amazing-things-your-ashes-can-do-after-you-die

   [13]3 WULFF, Helena. The emotions: a cultural reader

   [14]4 WALTER, Tony. The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife.
   P 95 - 115

   [15]5 WALTER, Tony. The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife.
   P 110 - 115

   [16]6OKELY, Judith. The traveller-gypsies. P114 - 130

   [17]7http://www.bagus-discovery.com/map/map_dayak_kalimantan02.html

   [18]8 MURPHY, Robert Francis. Úvod do kulturní a sociální antropologie:
   příbuzenství, národnostní příslušnost, rituál. p. 190