lecture 4: some key modern concepts 2

When we think of the material culture of death our minds may turn to mortuary archaeology

It is important to this area – in many cases the objects and structures accompanying the dead are almost the only clues we have about what was going on

It took a while for in depth studies of material culture to develop in other areas of the anthropology of death

• The material culture of death was not ignored in early 20th studies of living communities but it did tend to be simple

• Main focus tended to be description of the tomb, clothing of the corpse etc. in individual societies

Ariès discussed the elaborate European material culture of mourning (clothing, jewelry etc.) in Victorian times (c. 1840 – 1900)

He argued that it mirrored the stress on family sentiment and the deep pain of ‘saying farewell’ seen in deathways of that time

In the 21st c, work on the material culture of death tends to put a lot of emphasis on how these objects actively

communicate values, claims to status, etc. and help to maintain relationships between the living and the dead

• In this theoretical approach, the body of the deceased also becomes a kind of cultural artifact as it’s prepared by washing, dressing, encoffining etc

Engelke (2019) argues that the anthropology of death pays a lot of attention to two key topics/interests:

• How people respond to and treat the corpse

• The ways in which people symbolically ‘conquer’ death by asserting that the deceased continue to exist “in one way or the other”

The ways in which people symbolically ‘conquer’ death by asserting that the deceased continue to exist “in one way or the other” INCLUDING

• Many different visions of an afterlife or reincarnation

• More abstract ideas of ‘living on’ in the memories of the living or the legacy of their acts – here memorialization becomes very important

• Seeking not to die at all – cryonics and other forms of transhumanism (basically, the idea of transcending human mortality) are modern examples

Engelke covers many facets of our relationship with the dead:

• commemoration

• ‘Trade’

• Authority

Commemoration

• what forms does this take and how do these change over time?

• Does it stress connection to the dead or separation from them?

• How can it be used to particular political ends?

Trade

In two senses: mortuary practices as industry, but also what the dead want and how people give this to them – offerings, sacrifices or just the basic duties of care (‘proper’ treatment and rites)

Authority

• who determines what may be done with the dead?

• What powers do the dead have over the living?

• How does the state exert authority over how, where and when we die?

Chukchi cosmology the living and dead have a mirror existence

people who die in this plane of existence are born into that one, and vice versa

• For them, the dead and living are different in many ways but all inhabit the same wider world, and can interact regularly

• People can still fear death, spirits and the dead (who are very powerful) but also consider death a natural transition from one part of the world to another, rather than an ‘ending’

Traditional Suku beliefs show yet another way of seeing the relationship of the living and the dead

• based on lineages, with older lineage members (bambuta) having more authority and respect

• The term bambuta is used for anyone older than you, living or

  dead

• People ask their bambuta for help/advice. The oldest living people have consult their dead elders (using different methods), but in both cases it’s the spiritual power of an elder that’s important

• In this case the living and dead differ, but share a social and spiritual world and can interweave quite readily

It was recognized early on that societies don’t see all deaths as equal and this is reflected in mortuary rites

For example, van Gennep was interested in altered rites for people who die in some conditions or by some ways (e.g. lightning strike)

Ideas of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ death vary between cultures

• Abramovich (2005, 2015) argues we can generalize: ‘bad’ deaths are often those seen as meaningless (unpredictable) or evil (premature, involving violence or intentional harm), or where body not recovered

• These are deaths that upend or subvert the way the world ‘should’ be, or that make it impossible to carry out full normative rites

Notion of good/bad death is important in studies of the dangerous dead (revenants, harmful spirits)

People dying a bad death are often seen as more at risk of becoming malicious spirits or revenants