I understand that.
But the various rituals were accepted as the way to do it.
Modern humans can’t seem to wrap their heads around it.
I’m the same way. I’m very conflicted about it. Don’t really know what I want, for myself.
No native American thought burning the body of a loved one up on a structure was bad. Some folks get way up in their feels about cremation. Family wars are fought about it.
The old pine box on boot hill was just fine for many many people. My understanding is embalming was not normal for regular people til the Civil War.
The mummification of bodies was deemed how the Egyptian pharaohs would be sent to the afterlife.
The Vikings sent the dead out on a fiery raft.
A couple generations ago, Grampa would’ve been laid out in his home for several days. People just carried on around him. The mortician would come and beat the gas out of him every day. Until the trip to the cemetery.
My own young adult children won’t even discuss it with me. It’s just all so creepy, to them.
Altho’ they will binge watch Freddy Krueger for a whole weekend. Go figure.
And here in Israel they bury you within 24 hours of death, no embalming, no coffin, just a shroud and a hole in the ground or in the wall. And the government pays for everything but the stone.
I’ll just throw in here an interesting factoid: it’s not necessarily for anywhere close to “eternity”. The province of Quebec, where my parents are buried, follows French law and tradition, which states that cemetery plots are not to be disturbed for 100 years. After that, all bets are off – you can do whatever the hell you want with the land. Really pisses me off.
Yeah I hesitated using that word as I felt it was ill-advised, but went ahead anyway. I know it’s not forever, but I still don’t want a grave - I dont need to take-up any more space than I’ve already had. I feel every thing we cherish during our lives eventually ends-up buried underground anyway, so no need to add more stuff down there.
As for what the ancients did with their dead, I thought it has to do more with quickly and respectfully disposing of the loved one before scavengers did their thing. Much less traumatic watching grandma go up in smoke in a pyre or lowering her into a deep hole than seeing her torn to bits by coyotes and vultures.
An acquaintance of mine used this option after his wife passed away. After the process was completed, the compost was bagged and sent to a local botanical garden, where a tree was planted in her memory. A Celebration of Life service was held at the garden, after which all the attendees each threw a handful of the compost around the base of the tree.
Have you ever lost a child or another close family member? Would you have no respect for their body? Would you say - “just throw it out, it’s just a piece of meat”?
Yes, and there were also small scoops that some used. But the compost looked like the rich gardening soil that you would buy at a nursery or other retail outlet.
Until I watched my mother die, I didn’t believe people who said the remains were not the person. I figured people looked like they were sleeping. Wrong, so wrong. The body that lay on the bed was not my mother. It was a thing, not a person.
However, it was a thing I had a lot of respect for. It housed my mother for 89 years. It bore four babies. It had hugged my father and rocked my siblings and me. It was the physical manifestation of my mom.
I’ve arranged for my body to be donated to science after I die. I was a teacher for a long time, and the idea someone could learn something from my body is appealing. Plus cremation is FREE afterward. Such a bargain.
I learned that when my cat died. The difference between life and death is pretty stark.
And I’m very squeamish about things that cause fear and pain. I don’t like photos of pigs being taken to slaughter, and slaughtered, for instance. But I’m really not squeamish about bodies. I actually enjoy watching butchery.
I wish they could do this with me. Failing that, composting me and spreading me on what for a while were my fields would be great. – hey, New York appears to be one of the states where it’s recently become legal! Will have to let my family know about this.
Composting is exactly what you do about that.
I believe some people left the body up high in a tree with the deliberate intention of having it eaten by birds. I don’t think they hung around and watched, though.
Couldn’t you touch her when she was alive?
I sat with my mother for a bit after she died. I touched her. The facility she died in seemed perfectly fine with that.
I’ve held cats for a while after they died. So did my mother.
I can’t bury mine until they go into rigor. They seem so close to alive before then that I worry that I might be wrong.
I took the body of my cat from the loose dog who killed him, and as i held his still-warm, but lifeless body, the fleas all left. That was a pretty obvious sign.
(We had a serious flea problem in that neighborhood. Today, i guess there are systemic drugs to kill them on your animal, but this was before they were developed.)
Yeah, that’s obvious; at least, if there were significant fleas present. And so are the eyes glazing. But there’s a portion of my mind that isn’t convinced until rigor.
Really pisses me off.