Well, to be honest, I’m pretty unforgiving when it comes to religious beliefs. If they really advocated for destroying a house if someone died in it, I’m still not seeing much sense there whether you have germ theory or not. Old people are going to eventually die, and they often live in houses.
Of course, I am also pretty disparaging of religious food taboos and such, so I have generally stayed out of the thread. But that particular theoretical practice is just dumb beyond any of those in my opinion. I really hope the author made it up.
I think it’s important to note that a hogan is a temporary structure. It’s not particularly difficult nor burdensome to abandon or destroy a hogan that someone has died in. It’s not like burning down your house.
Ehh, it seems to have been generally semi-permanent and not nomadic, at least. Either way, the idea that you have to destroy and rebuild a home because someone has died in it is very strange to me. I’m glad it didn’t spread into the wider consciousness, if it ever was a concept for the Navajo.
The Navajo must live in a gentler climate than i do. Any cultural norm around here that made sick and elderly people feel guilty about staying indoors, sheltered from the weather, would be grossly inhumane.
It’s very strange to me as well. It’s often difficult to wrap our heads around why other people do the things they do and that’s especially true when we don’t know anything about how they viewed the world. Given that hogans weren’t permanent, I don’t expect the Navajo viewed them the same way we might view a suburban home.
The Four Corners area is a lot of things but a gentle climate it is not. People not from the area seem to think New Mexico and Arizona especially and think Phoenix when the general area is smack on the Colorado Plateau. It’s cold out there today and I think it snowed earlier this week with the fronts that came through.
This is an argument I can actually respect. Yes, there’s no ecology on the moon. Yes, it’s unlikely that putting human remains or anything else up there will ever be noticable on Earth unless we start doing real habitation. But there’s no reason to overly trash the place like some jackass dumping a couch out on BLM land so he doesn’t have to pay the disposal fee.
I agree that this is an argument I am more sympathetic to. However, I note that in this case it sounds like the cremains would have been placed in canisters (?) that were part of a lander that was going to the moon anyways, for scientific research.
If that lander is gonna be left on the moon - and I don’t think it is in humanity’s interest to prevent scientific research landers from making moonfall - then I don’t really see the difference in including some cremains.
Oh, I know. My point was that most Easterners I’ve known seem to have a mental picture of the whole area that looks like Phoenix. The idea of hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with snow even in the cities seems to often baffle them until you point out that Albuquerque is at a mile, Santa Fe at 7k, Flagstaff about as high, and so on. Farmington is about what, 5800?
You are right, of course. But there have been various political discussions about this (and space in general) resulting in a few ‘treaties’, which may or may not be regarded as binding by countries in the furure?