Fear Of Death In American Culture

The Navajo people believed that if the men handling the deceased’s body were smeared in ashes then they would be protected from the evil spirits lingering around. The Navajo people burial customs are particularly specific. One of their many beliefs pertaining to the burial customs is that if the service is not done correctly then the spirit would return to his or her former home. Their vision of the correct burial process is a total of four men only be present at the burial, two would prepare the corpse while only wearing moccasins and ashes smeared on their nude bodies, while the other two dug the grave for the corpse. One of the four men would even warn anyone he met enroute to the gravesite to stay away to be protected from any evil spirits.

Modern medicine has been fighting death and whether that is good or bad remains unknown. In the essay “On The Fear Of Dying,” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross dissects modern medicines effects on living and examines the mental and emotional toll it has taken on people. In the essay she talks about how regardless of modern medicine’s benefits, has allowed us to become more wary of acknowledging death and accepting it. The author explains that despite the advantages of these new advancements, medical advancements have lead to more emotional and mental problems regarding death. While Kübler-Ross takes a rather grim outlook on modern medicine, I agree with her; modern medicine has increased the average lifespan but has not changed the fearful ways we view death, has destroyed how we cope with death and dying, and has made dying an unpleasant experience.

Mankind’s history of burial practices and funeral customs are as old as civilization itself. There is no specific way to planning a funeral. Every civilization and culture has provided for their dead in different ways. Religion and personal beliefs play an important role in the burial practices and funeral customs of a given culture or civilization. Furthermore, each civilization and cultured ever studied have three things in common: some type of funeral rites, rituals, and ceremonies; A sacred place for the dead; and memorialization of the dead. As far back as the time of Christ, burials have been noted to take place. In time burial and funeral customs have become very distinct, interesting and

Around the world, over 150,000 people die every single day. As this many people die, along with it comes the many actions that follow a death of an individual, such as funerals and relative action. While every culture around the world experiences death on a daily basis, the way that each culture deals with death is actually very different. This is caused by several different factors, including the religion of different cultures, their geographical locations, as well as their belief as to what exactly death means in the context of life. In order to gain an even larger view of just how different the ways that different cultures deal with death, as well as the similarities they show, on top of what I have already learned in previous course lectures,

Perhaps the living saw the dead in part as a reflection of their own existence, and an expression of the repressed anger and distress that might have resulted from their living conditions. This is evident by the burial methods, which were an adaptation, since they could not cremate the bodies per Hindu tradition. More specifically, the bodies of those who died violent deaths indicate a belief that the dead had the power to seek justice, and the body placed upside down allowed the spirit to do so. While this practice may have been borrowed from other cultures, Rocklin suggests that in Trinidad this practice took on new meaning due to the unique circumstances of the

Fear of the unknown, and fear of what is to come in our lives, has generations of people wondering what will our lives be like tomorrow or the next day. Death is always there and we cannot escape it. Death is a scary thing. Our own mortality or the mortality of our loved ones scares us to the point that we sometime cannot control how we are dealing with such a thing as the thought of death. Why do we fear such a thing as death? We don’t know what happens after we don’t how it feels. The fear of death is different for most but it is most certain to come and we cannot hide from it. For death is just around the corner and maybe it’s will come tomorrow or the next day! We fear not death but the unknown that comes from death, that is the scariest thing about death.

At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people.

Death is the cessation of all biological functions of a person or organism. The concept of death is unique for everyone and depends on an individual’s cognitive maturity, but it is most frequented with a negative connotation. For some people, the reason why death has a negative connotation is because dying is losing the most valuable thing that exists: life. In actuality, the resistance to death is hardwired into the brain as part of the self-preservation instinct. In addition, we have the ability to imagine what does not exist and wonder what comes after death.

When an individual dies, their death can greatly impact the loved ones they leave behind. Each mourner may feel and perceive the death differently from one another, but one common factor that can influence the mourner’s beliefs, values, and views about a person’s death is their culture. Their culture can regulate the way the mourner copes with the death of a loved one, what they do with the physical deceased body, and how they may honor the dead afterwards (Cartaret, 2011). For me, my culture is relatively related to the Catholic, Hispanic American culture, which is a broad and subjective category, but it is what I believe that guides my views towards life and death. I have additionally chosen to learn about the cultural practices of Hinduism of Indians on death

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” (Mark Twain). This quote from the famous American writer is the basis for what became one of the hardest ideas to comprehend, death. Death has always been a complex term, causing one to struggle with what the true definition is. It is also hard to wrap your mind around what does it truly mean to die. These are the questions we long for the answer. Whether we acknowledge it or not, death has always been feared by many. Death remains an impossible question, one that has been unexplained since beginning of time. Even though dying is a natural, we as a human race still fear it. What can be done to defeat this never-ending battle? According to Montaigne’s “To Philosophize is to Learn to Die” and Cory Taylor’s “Questions for Me About Dying” we can overcome this by living to the fullest, living with no regrets, living a legacy, and lastly not fearing the inevitable. If you want to conquer the question of life, live in the moment.

One thing that has been common among cultures of ancient civilizations and the cultures of current times is the idea of burial rituals and the impact they had on the cultures. All civilizations have experienced death among their people and they required a way to properly take care of their lost ones respectfully, thus establishing the need for burial rituals. The rituals not only produced respect for those who have fallen but they also pertained to the beliefs of afterlives or preservation of the body. All over western civilization, different examples of burial rituals, how they are performed, and why they were done can be seen and are extremely important to the people. For this reason, this topic is extremely important to study and to understand

Every individual experiences the act of death, and most persons experience the death of someone they know of. Whether family, kin, or someone infamous, the living deal with the process of dying. Anthropology seeks to understand the universal process of death ritual and how different cultures deal with death differently. An anthropologist can extract social values of a given culture, past or present, from how death ceremony is practiced. Such values could be regarding political hierarchy or an individual’s status in a society, and about a culture’s spiritual or religious faith. By exploring death ceremony in ancient Egypt, contemporary Hindu death practice in India, and current North American funerary rites, it can be illustrated that

That future which I embraced to myself has been destroyed. He slipped out of my arms. For twenty-five years I guarded and sustained and encouraged him with these hands of mine, helping him to grow and become a man of his own. Then he slipped out and was smashed” (Bennet, 2009, p.3). 3.

Death comes to all in the end, shrouded in mystery, occasionally bringing with it pain, and while some may welcome its finality, others may fight it with every ounce of their strength. Humans have throughout the centuries created death rituals to bring them peace and healing after the death of a loved one.

African culture demonstrates a strong connection with deceased person, and believes that only a correct burial will bring a dead person peace. People in Africa strongly believe in spiritual life, thus their main goal during burial ceremonies is to address a spirit of a deceased person. An African funeral begins with removal of the body from home, which is done through a previously made hole in the wall of the home. Africans remove a dead body through the hole, instead of a door, to confuse a spirit and make sure that a spirit of a deceased person will not return back home, as a hole in the wall is immediately closed after removal of the body. In effort to confuse a spirit even more, they place thorns and sticks in a zigzag pattern along the way as body being taken to the place of burial.