lecture 13: body 2 in an english garden

Walter and Gittings 2010

• Study of garden burials in Britain

• Collaborative research by scholars from two different areas of death studies:

  • Tony Walter – sociologist, University of Bath Centre for Death and Society (emeritus)

  • Clare Gittings – historian & museologist, National Portrait Gallery (died 2025)

Walter and Gittings 2010: As in Tsuji 2018, both traditional and other mortuary rites are discussed

• In the traditional pattern, dedicated cemeteries and crematoria are clearly separate from living spaces

• As with the traditional ie funeral in Japan this ‘old’ pattern is surprisingly recent – before the 19th century burial was usually in churchyards with little separation from the community’s daily living spaces

Walter and Gittings 2010

Their discussion focuses on mortuary space

• Where is it proper/improper, expected/unexpected to dispose of the dead?

• How is this connected to attitudes toward death?

Theoretical perspective: This study is a good example of the study of mortuary space

• Common research interest in AoD and mortuary archaeology

• Can be studied from many theoretical perspectives including the lens of boundaries, separation and pollution used here

• Important influences on the paper include classic ideas of van Gennep & Hertz and Douglas’ ideas about pollution

van Gennep on dangerous corpses

van Gennep describes mortuary rituals as a way to ensure the passage of the deceased from the land of the living into their new roles as dead/spirits

• However he also points the protective function of these rituals for the living – this becomes obvious in cases where mortuary rituals have not been performed for some reason

Hertz on dangerous corpses

In some of the ‘double burial’ rites Hertz wrote about, the deceased could be dangerous to the living for the period between death and the second funeral

• No longer one of the living

• Not yet properly/completely one of the dead

van Gennep & Hertz on endangered corpses

Both van Gennep and Hertz pointed out that the deceased can also be seen as in danger during the liminal period

• In the process of passing from one world to the next

• More open than a living person to the world of the spirits, but not yet having the defenses of someone fully part of that world

• Corpse must be protected from spiritual attack/possession by measures such as placing coins on the eyes, sealing the mouth

Mortuary space and pollution: Walter and Gittings also draw on some later 20th century thinkers, especially Mary Douglas for her ideas about pollution

The common thread in all of these ideas is that people may be especially unnerved by corpses encountered outside their ‘proper’ (protected) space

Mortuary space and pollution: We already saw in Tsuji 2018 that the corpse may be seen as either pure/revered or polluting in different settings

She mostly focuses on reverence and lack of distress at being in contact with corpse or its parts:

• Relatives picking up cremated bones to place in urn

• Jodo Shinshu Buddhism – keeping the nodobotoke on family altar, then burying it with nodobotoke of coreligionists

Mortuary space and pollution: Tsuji’s emphasis reflects focus on traditional Buddhist funerals and ‘new funerals’ based on these or on no particular faith

However, the other traditional Japanese faith (Shinto) takes a very different attitude to the corpse

• In this tradition the corpse (and death) are highly polluting

• Shinto funerals are held in the home, but the home and all participants must be ritually purified afterward

• Shinto cemeteries must be outside the boundaries of shrine compounds to avoid the presence of death in the purified space of the shrine

Mortuary space – where to put a corpse: Cultures’ opinions about mortuary spaces vary widely

• Graves may be placed in the general living space of the community – no designated cemeteries

• Space may differ by individual – e.g. burial of infants in different space than adults

• Ideas may change over time – e.g. movement of Greek & Roman cemeteries from outside city walls to in/near churches after adoption of Christianity

Mortuary space – where to put a corpse: Variation like this shows that where people feel the dead ‘belong’ can be determined by many factors

This includes their feelings about death and whether they see corpses as polluting

• We could argue that if a culture see death / the dead as very polluting or disquieting, a firm division between ‘living’ and ‘dead’ space is more likely. In such a culture, there might be a lot of clear/strict rules about mortuary spaces and people might feel quite disturbed when dead bodies are seen outside these spaces.

Mortuary space in modern Britain: Norm in 19th → 21st c Britain has been for the dead to be placed/commemorated in clearly defined mortuary spaces

Cemeteries/crematoria as dedicated spaces for the dead

Mortuary space in modern Britain: One alternative to this is the ‘garden burial’

• Dead are interred in private spaces that are not formal cemeteries

• These are often natural areas or gardens

• Long history as an alternative mortuary practice in Britain

• In the past this practice could be used to express individualism and a romantic emotional connection to nature

• However, garden burials also reduce formal distancing between the living and the dead (no cemetery), so might be seen as violating unspoken norms of separation

Mortuary space in modern Britain: The authors argue that we can also see reduced separation in other practices that commemorate the dead in ‘living’ spaces

• Examples include informal memorials at roadsides and in public places

• These memorials are growing in popularity as people seek less conventional ways of commemoration and traditional boundaries between public and private emotion shift

Boundaries and British mortuary spaces

Walter and Gittings decided to examine some of these practices in terms of how people see mortuary spaces – how separate should they be from the spaces of the living?

• Some of the objections people make to memorials ‘everywhere’ suggest that boundary violation is at the heart of this discomfort

Boundaries and British mortuary spaces: They used a combination of sources to do this: interviews conducted 2008

• Five people who had arranged a burial for someone outside a formal cemetery (private uncultivated land, not literally gardens)

• Two people who had purchased a house whose garden had been used for burials, one ‘green’ funeral director

• Published information including other ethnographic

  studies and interviews in news articles

Death & boundaries in ‘garden’ burials: These seem to support the idea that differing points of view are tied in part to boundaries and boundary violation:

• People pursuing these burials talk approvingly about the lack of boundaries between the dead and nature

• However other people involved may express discontent with the ‘improper’ presence of the dead, attempt to mark off the burials in a conventional way, or even try to remove them

Death & boundaries – other observations: The authors make some other interesting observations on boundaries on mortuary space in Britain

• Boundaries appear to be less strict for cremated remains and for bodies buried longer ago

  • Perhaps because cremains and dry bone seen as ‘clean’ or ‘pure’

• Boundaries are also less strict for the burial of pets – pet cemeteries exist but garden burial is common

  • Perhaps because a garden is seen as a natural place for an animal?

Death & boundaries – their conclusions: Authors conclude that disagreements over ‘garden’ burials do partly reflect perceived boundary violations

This can be seen in the context of the uneasy feelings many cultures have about the dead

However, the boundary violations seen here are also specific to the culture of modern Britain:

• Seen as more serious for burials in domestic space

• Seen as more serious when norms about the privacy of mourning and commemoration are also broken

Mortuary space and ‘natural’ burial: Article concludes by mentioning ‘natural’ burial sites

Similar to ‘garden’ burials in some ways, but clearly marked off as ‘death spaces’ – may make people more comfortable with them

Mortuary space and ‘natural’ burial: ‘Natural’ burial is part of a widespread international trend toward sustainable mortuary practices

• We already saw an example in Tsuji 2018 (Japan’s tree burials)

• Walter and Gittings’ work suggests that such novel practices may be better accepted if they don’t violate unspoken norms like those we’ve discussed today