Does mass burial horrify you?
Interesting piece in USA Today on mass graves in Haiti and the importance people attach to marking the spot where their dead are laid - a physical point of connection. "We are hard-wired to want to know where our dead are, whether we believe in a superior being or not," asserts Curtis Rostad, an Indiana funeral director. Even Neanderthals, he reminds us, buried their dead with flowers.
Curtis, we remind ourselves, has a commercial interest in burial. And when he uses that seductive metaphor ‘hard-wired’, is that how human brains really work?
We pride ourselves on having evolved somewhat since the days when Neanderthals roamed the earth. We’ve done that by suppressing many of our Neanderthal impulses. We value reason over instinct. It’s what makes us civilised.
Or does it?
Read it here. Don't miss the link to a sprightly piece on orphan-napping.
Labels: memorialisation
posted by Charles Cowling at
12:00
2 Comments:
Mass burial does horrify me. I realize that in Haiti they are dealing with a tragic situation, but there has to be a better way.
Hello Charles,
Curtis certainly has an interest in propogating that idea. But it may be correct nonetheless.
"Less civilized" peoples - and I do not intend civilization in a positive sense here, but in a Huxleyian "Brave New World" one - are more sensitive to archetypal human needs.
As are all people who are exposed to ultimate realities, the most extreme of them being mass death. I'll bet grave markers were longed for as dearly by British families whose loved ones disappeared unmarked into the mud of Flanders and other mass graves.
Thomas Friese
"Mankind will never escape Death. But with Art's help, we can transform it from End to Passage."
http://PerpetuasPassages.com - portrait art urns, green burial urns and other memorial arts.
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