Funeral Customs the World Over

xii, 973 pp. "FUNERAL CUSTOMS THE WORLD OVER presents for the first time in a single richly-illustrated volume, profiles of primitive, folk, rural and urban funeral and burial customs of peoples and cultures on every continent. Sociologist Habenstein and historian-educator Lamers have selected distinctive cultural and national groupings to show the diversities and continuities of the manner in which the problems of death and the care of the dead are defined and met. They carry the reader through the total process in each culture beginning with the meaning of death and including the immediate care of the body, funeralization, mourning, burial, memorialization and post-funeral ceremonies and practices. While the viewpoint of this work is not historical, it is clearly evident that funeral beliefs, practices and customs endure and are strongly resistant to change. Funerals lie at the very. innermost core of life's experiences. They represent grand, and not trifling moments. Funeralization tends to, reflect the basic philosophy of the culture in which it is found. In a concluding chapter the authors draw from the complexities and variations in customs, procedures and, religious beliefs, some universal propositions as to the social and psychological functions of the ceremonial disposition of the dead. Nowhere is there a lack of concern in the matter of death, care of the dead and readjustment of individuals and groups involved. The conceptions of body, soul, spirit, afterlife and afterworld may and do vary greatly in different societies, and on different continents. Yet, the crisis of death is universally recognized. For all people everywhere funerals and funeral ceremonies satisfy basic needs, allay suffering and help to rescue death from the horror of meaninglessness. Thus, to the various definitions of man might be added another: He is a being that, buries his dead with ceremony."