Concepts of Death in Cultural Models

Concepts of Death in Cultural Models:
The value of pondering issues of death, dying, and the dead at home and abroad

On a sunny Michigan winter day, I wandered through an old cemetery in Kalamazoo. I was calmed by the rolling hills and the icicles hanging from the ancient trees. The grand old oaks cast shadows over the cold gray slabs marking final resting places. It is a peaceful and beautiful respite in the busy city, a sign of respect and honor to the deceased. I used to live next door to this cemetery, and I was always a little puzzled when people asked if it frightened to live next to a burial ground.

I don’t see cemeteries as so macabre; older cemeteries in the Midwest provide a sanctuary from traffic, shopping malls, and miles of concrete. Our relation to death and dying, and the practice of burying the dead, reflects a part of our cultural values and our history. In the Judeo-Christian thought, interment is traditionally seen as a way of retuning what once came from the earth back into the natural cycle. Now at funerals, they don’t even let the family stay to see their loved ones buried. In the way our culture has become more separated from dealing with death, I think we have developed a more dualistic and more fearful interpretation of this common human experience.

On a practically dull Saturday evening, I pondered these concepts of death as I roamed down the horror isle at the local video store. I realized that it is no wonder Americans are so fearful of death. The entertainment industry’s plenitude of gore and horror movies is absolutely astounding. Personally, I have never taken interest in this genre, so I was shocked to see the gruesomeness of even the covers of these films. Our entertainment media portrays death as something brutal, frightening, and well, horrifying. That is not to say that gore only exists in entertainment, one has only to turn on the news to see frightening images of death. However, I still have to ask myself why this genre of films has become so popular in the States. What does our fear of graveyards, our infatuation with ghost stories, and the overwhelming popularity of horror films say about our culture? Does the horror of death represented in entertainment simply reflect our own fears of dying?

I discussed these issues with a professor of mine who teaches a unit on death and dying in her health class. She believes that our culture idealizes the success of the individual and that we fear death as a failure. Obviously, varied religious and cultural backgrounds all contribute to the American identity, yet our relation to death and dying steams from a somewhat unified cultural value. We see death in a very dualistic manner, death is seen not a transition or a change, as it seen in other ideological models, death is the opposite if life and it is associated with all things negative.

Death is a common human experience and the way a society deals with this topic reveals much about the religious and cultural values of the region. This is an intriguing subject for engaged travelers to consider. I interviewed students who studied abroad in various Eastern countries, like Thailand and India, where the relation to death and dying is quite different from the Western perspective. The strong influence of Hinduism and Buddhism in the area creates a less dualistic view of death, in which it is seen as only a stage in life, not necessarily an end to it.

In México, a mix of pre-colonial indigenous beliefs and Catholicism produces a very interesting relation to the dead through el dia de los muertos (day of the day). On November first and second, the barrier between the dead and the living is blurred and the lives of the deceased are celebrated. Altars are created in homes to respect loved ones, flowers and favorite foods are presented. Family grave plots are also decorated with marigolds to attract lost souls. Communication and connections between the living and the dead is celebrated with this tradition. On this holiday, death is represented quite figuratively with artistic interpretations. Little sugar calacas (skulls) are ornately bejeweled with colored frosting and offered as gifts to both the living and the dead. The sometimes satirical nature of the calacas and calveras (skeletons) humanizes the experiences of death, recalling of the presence and inevitability of this common human experience.

In the Amazon region of Perú, the presence of Catholic theology mixed with a very strong indigenous belief system, creates fascinating thoughts related to death and dying. Living in the Amazon region implies certain closeness to nature and therefore closeness to the inevitability of death and also rebirth. However, even with this awareness, there has somehow developed a great fear not of dying, but of the dead. I stayed in a community on the Napo River, San Pedro, where I was fortunate enough to form close relationships and discuss the ideology surrounding death. Most people I spoke with had no reservation talking about the concept of death, or common ways in which people in the community had died, but they rarely spoke of the deceased. They believe in a spirit world, in which the dead can still exist amongst the living, so people are careful to not speak of the deceased negatively. There is a cemetery in San Pedro, but it is located very far from the homes in the community, in an attempt to keep any bad spirits separate from the living. These sprits are not malicious like ghosts in an American tale; rather they represent an acknowledgement and respect for the unexplainable and the undefined.

In the dualistic American thought, it can be easy to judge other practices as impractical or even superstitious. However, often these practices bring whole communities unity through common experiences and beliefs, something I feel as American we are losing in our relation to death and dying. I encourage travelers and students abroad to gather information about how the host culture deals with death, dying, and the dead. With that information the culturally informed traveler can synthesize how concepts of death relate to the culture, religion, and history of the host country. Carefully and respectfully initiating a conversation about this topic can be endlessly engaging and reveling, and may even begin to alter the way in which the traveler views the concept of death within his or her own cultural model.