Death, Ritual and Vultures

I really enjoyed today's lecture by the guest speaker on Chinese funerary rituals. It is the aspect of mortuary that interests me most (must be the cultural anthropologist in me) and I am quite looking forward to this weeks lectures on it. I do definitely learn more towards the cultural anthropology side of things and what fascinates me most are the intangible aspects of culture; worldview, ideology, religious beliefs, conceptual categories etc, things that are often really difficult to pin down in the archaeological record and obviously are open to a great deal of interpretation. This also reminds me of the first case study Erin mentioned in class about the the Bronze age site where human remains had been preserved for centuries and then placed under the houses, in particular the woman who had her two incisors bound in her hands. That was I assume due to a certain set of beliefs, beliefs that we will I'm sure never understand but its that part that fascinates me most; the desire to understand  how and what people were thinking, how they saw the world and how they understood death.


Something that really stood out for me was the concept of 'sky burials', obviously a cultural trait influenced in part due to the nature of the envirnonment and need to despose of the dead in a sanitary way (when you think about it, its a pretty good culttural adaptation!). However, something about it just kind of sat not quite right with me, the whole idea of it was quite unerving for me obviously due to my cultural bias and ideas about death. I had to kind of block all related imagery out of my head; being devoured by vultures in kind of horror movie style stuff!!! I assume that I was probably not the only one who felt a little...uncomfortable about it.

Death is quite an uncomfortable subject for me in general, its not something i like to think of often, actually, honestly it really freaks me out. This is obviously quite a culturally conditioned response due to the nature of death in our society. Death is just one of those highly charged topics, and the way we treat out dead obviously seems to be nothing more than the 'natural' way. I obviously know this not to be true, and my reactions, ideas and assumptions are so culturally bound. I am really fascinated to learn about ideas of death, and the treatment of death and the dead in other cultures and societies throughout time and place.I think that as with all my anthropological knowledge and learnings, it will make me question once again my innate assumptions and natural reactions and I hope to gain a different insight about the way people think/thought about death differently to me.

I think that my feelings of discomfort and unease will continue to resurface as I continue in the course, simply due to my avoidance and fear of death and all such topics. However, I really want to push myself to see things in a different perspective. I hope that by understanding how other people think/thought and feel/felt about death, no matter how vastly separated we are through time and place, I will gain a new respect and hopefully a slightly healthier attitude towards something so inevitable.

Introductions

Hi all in Anth 392! My name is Shannon and I'm a 3rd year anthropology major at UVIC. This was my first year at UVIC; I completed my first two years at Camosun. I'm originally from Manchester, England and plan to return home to complete my masters, although I'm still undecided about which route to take; archaeology vs cultural anthropology.
 
I am really exited by this course, although like many others I suppose, due to the nature of death in our culture I have often had quite an aversion to the topic. We are definitely distanced from death within our culture and for me the topic conjures slight fear. I hope to push myself past that and gain a new perspective and a different way of responding to the topic. I am really fascinated by what can be learnt about people's beliefs and worldviews by how they treated their dead in various places and times throughout history.