Anthropology and death

Transcription

1 Anthropology and death Exploring Religions and Cultures Dr Àngels Trias i Valls & Roula P 2009

2 Van Gennep and rites of passage Arnold Van Gennep was born in Germany on 23 April 1873 and died in 1957 in France. He was an ethnographer and a folklorist and he is most known for his work regarding the rites of passage. He influenced significantly modern French folklore and he was the first to establish the academic studies of folklore in France. Throughout his book Rites of Passage 1960 (first published in 1909), he argued that rites of passage are transition rituals which indicate the change of personal or collective status.

3 Van Gennep distinguished two types of rite. Rites that are related to the change of the status of the individual (birth, the attainment of adult status, marriage, death and so on). Rites that mark standardized points in the passage of time (new year, new moon, summer solstice and so on).

4 The threefold structure of rites. Rites of separation (initial state) Rites of transition (liminal period) Rites of incorporation (final state)

5 This is clearly a structuralist approach which can be often applied in several situations and ethnographic contexts. BUT. It is not ethnographically productive just to apply Van Gennep s s scheme unproblematically. This model is based on the binary opposition between the rites of separation (the initial state) and the rites of incorporation (the final state). In between, there is the liminal period.

6 The liminal period. We have encountered liminality in our discussion about pilgrimage. Victor Turner built on Van Gennep s s insights. He was the first to write a psychological account of rites of passage. He was a classical structural-functionalist but his analysis revolved around symbolism and psychological anthropology.

7 Rites of passage according to Turner are a movement for structure to anti-structure and back to structure. We have seen while examining pilgrimage that the journey to the sacred place moves pilgrims from their social reality, their structure, to a temporal position which is characterized as anti-structure.

8 Turner emphasized on ritual and symbols. Contrary to Levi-Straus who was trying to discover universal systems of thought partly through symbolism, Turner argued that symbols hold a multipurpose and ambiguous position. Symbols, Turner tells us, are the key factors to understand a culture. Change on symbols, signal change on culture.

9 How do all these relate to death? Van Gennep refers to the assumption that death is a journey and a gradual social process which extends over a long period of time. Similarly to other rites of passage birth, initiation, marriage death involves rites of separation, transition and incorporation Rites of separation mark the movement of the person from a previously occupied state to another (from the world of living to the world of the dead).

10 Rites of transition or liminality hold an ambivalent status since the participants are neither in on the world of the living nor in the world of the dead they are Betwixt and Between (Turner 1964). Mourners are separated by the rest of the society. Their fate is paralleled with that of the deceased. This period is unclear, polluting and dangerous. Mourners need to pass this period before they reenter into the society and assume their normal positions in it.

11 In many societies (in North and South America, Australia, Africa, Central Asia and Indonesia) the funeral and the burial mark the beginning of the long liminal period. The end of this period is signaled by the decomposition of the corpse, the exhumation of the remains, their ritualistic treatment and their transportation to another location. The purpose of the rites of passage is to secure a smooth passage for the corpse, the soul and the mourners. All these rites of passage may vary in context and intensity according to the culture.

12 Bloch and Parry and Death and the regeneration of life They deal with symbols of rebirth and fertility which are frequently found in funerary rituals throughout the world. Similarly to Turner they study death through symbolism. In their view there is a current symbolism of rebirth in death rites. Social existence thus has greater importance than the biological one. Society acquires power over the gaining and control over life.

13 Death in Greece According to Seremetakis, death is not a bounded event. It is rather a context for social contestation, realization and manifestation of the Greek society. Indeed, in the Greek culture death is not viewed as purely a biological phenomenon or a rite of passage. Apart from that, death is a highly multifaceted cultural phenomenon where dipper collective and individual relations are exposed and negotiated.

14 Death and kinship Some examples Funerals are family events entailing a gathering of the consanguineous and affinal relatives. In the Greek context, it is conventional and obligatory in family events to invite the relatives- consanguineous and affinal-,, to participate. Gatherings such as funerals, weddings, engagements and baptismal parties are very important and they often entail commensality. On festive occasions, dance is also an inextricable element of the event.

15 Gatherings emphasize family as a principle for constructing a collective reality where feelings of bitterness, anger and pain can be expressed and released within the collectivity of the kindred. Kinship identity imposes on the individual a moral identity and a specific behavior the obligation to participate in happy and unhappy events.

16 Death and gossip The idea of the kindred as all one family,, where relationships are built on mutual interest and care renders a person s s sorrow to be collective sorrow. This close relationship however, entails excessive gossiping. Especially in funerals of very old people gossip is thriving. Distance relatives, relatives that provoke the kindred with their behavior usually become the suspicious objects for the rests of the kindred. They are the strangers,, they are the others.

17 Gossiping assumes the form of a cultural determined process, a network of informal communication that evaluates and constitutes every day life. Gossip is the attempt to create a story about a person. It is an attempt to void gaps and provide possible interpretations and misjudgments about people in a fairly unproblematic manner. Gossiping is an informal and subversive channel of power in the creation of individual and collective history.

18 Living in exile is a metaphor of death. The people who have left the family for long periods and live abroad, are considered metaphorically dead. This is due to the pain of the separation of the beloved ones. The pain living in exile is similar to the pain provoked by the separation of death.

19 The ritual of visiting the grave, cleaning it, taking care of it. Cemeteries, in the Greek context, are extensions of the living society. People religiously visit their dead, attend the graves and spent a considerable amount of time just being there. The cemeteries look like small villages where the dead live.

20 Good death Bad death. Good death is the socially documented death. The dead person has the relatives to mourn; he/she has lived a long and fulfilling life and has seen children and grandchildren. Good death is also the challenging of death especially in a society organized around ethics and revenge.

21 Bad death is the silent and naked death. The deceased is alone and the death is undocumented. The silent and naked death is also an expression of the non-sociable nature of the deceased. This in the Greek context equals to poverty. Poverty relates not only to materiality but also to abandonment and social isolation. Bad death is the death of a young person.