Death and the Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia
Richard P. Taylor
Language: English
Pages: 449
ISBN: B01K3HG7YM
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Filenote: PDF retail from ebsco. PDF is ebsco's reflow pdf, so not the nice PDF imprint. Paginated. Title is was in ABC-CLIO catalog, so maybe the chapter rips are still available and maybe a better imprint. Will keep looking.
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Readers of Death and the Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia will find that spending time with death is life-giving in most cultures today and throughout history. The Underworld, whether the Greek Hades or the Chinese Yellow Springs, is not just a repository of the dead, but the source of fertility, wealth, and hidden wisdom bestowed only upon the adventurous who cross the border between this world and the next.
This comprehensive reference work contains hundreds of entries on the sometimes obscure, complicated, and mysterious (but always fascinating) funeral customs of dozens of cultures. More than a gathering of information, this reference draws out the underlying meaning of funeral and afterlife traditions. Each entry is extensively documented and includes the insights of thoughtful native authors and commentaries directly related to the cultural topic at hand. A topic finder by culture, a bibliography, an index, and primary source references are included.
Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends
cultural heroes who played key roles in their society’s political, moral, intellectual, or religious development. Most cultures also honor “mythical” ancestors who may or may not have been historical individuals but who became repositories of cultural origins, lore, and values. Whether they were once living and now form the community
the khan, along with masses of horses and thousands of gold objects. According to Marco Polo, who recounted the burial of the Mongol leader Mangou Khan, more than 20,000 witnesses to the body as it went on pilgrimage to burial were also killed. Among commoners the funeral customs were slightly more modest. The deceased was placed on a wagon and for forty days brought around to the nearest kin and
and Buddhism, cremation is the norm, for it disposes of the body quickly and respectably; among early and medieval Christians and Jews, however, cremation was regarded as a great insult and the treatment of last resort against a vampire. Bodily resurrection was expected in these traditions, and so every bone and drop of blood was preserved, if possible, and safely inhumed with the dead. In early Christianity, the veneration of martyrs was so great and the attempts to recover Christian dead so
Hertling, Ludwig, and Engelbert Kirschbaum. The Roman Catacombs and Their Martyrs. Trans. M. Joseph Costelloe. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1960. Stevenson, James. The Catacombs: Life and Death in Early Christianity. London: Thames and Hudson: 1978. Tronzo, W. The Via Latina Catacomb. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986. CELLA
development. We may certainly assume that the extreme experience of Europe in the course of the plagues of the fourteenth century, beginning in earnest in 1347– 1348, made death such an everyday occurrence that grim humor was used as a means to cope with the overwhelming. Representing dying and death in a drama may also have made it more intimate and acceptable. In the archives of the church of Caudebec, a document has been found Page 82
