Death as a Call to Life

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

--Steve Jobs

Green Burials

Before I started this class I had always thought I’d be cremated. Now that it is coming to a close I find myself set on a green burial. I like the idea of giving back to the earth, of being recycled back into nature, and the thought of not having a headstone or monument is even more appealing.

There is such a comfort in knowing that personhood is not restricted to the body; our identities are instead dispersed and constructed in relation to the significant people, places, and experiences encountered over the course of a lifetime. I can almost see a form of immortality in that somehow even after death we will still be inseparable from the complex webs of relationships we encountered throughout or lives.

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.”

― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Material Culture in West Africa

The challenges for the archaeologist are many. It seems almost impossible at times not to impose ones understanding of their own society in order to build a model of the past. What is left behind is just so limited and I find it so frustrating to try and seem so few pieces into a comprehensive reality as we can never know the whole truth.

I’ve recently become fascinated with ethnomusicology (which is rather far from archaeology, I know) but I am going to share some connections and learning that sprung from both. Specifically I read a very interesting article about West African culture that made me look at material objects in an entirely different way. From the perspective of an archaeologist, what would it mean if the culture in question did not have any form of written language? Presumably, the material artifacts discovered would take on an entirely new and much deeper meaning.

Constructing the music history of West Africa is a unique challenge as few written records exist and those that do only cover short spans of time. The history of this region cannot be found or maintained through written records, but is imprinted on every aspect of the material culture; it is woven into every pattern of fabric, etched into clay, and sculpted into art. Primarily though, music and song play the biggest role in maintaining this rich culture. People are reminded of their past by oral traditions and pop singers, which often honour political leaders and praise family names. In West Africa this diverse tapestry of stories is essential in constructing the national identities of Malian and Guinean people.

This is where my interests lie, in these oral histories. Merely peering into a burial would give us little to no sense of this as the life the person had lived and the songs they had sung will have already returned with them to the earth. Still, I try and search for some assemblage of this within archaeology but the coffin seems always empty.

In West Africa, music imbues vital symbols for illuminating the past and developing a deeper understanding of these symbols helps us to better appreciate the importance of these traditions. For Mande people music is inseparable from many other activities. The rich variety of stories and songs passed on through generations not only mark special occasions and rituals but contain the loaded histories that otherwise would remain hidden in the past.

E, Cherry. 2000. The Mande. Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. University of Chicago Press. p. 29-63

The Fear of Death

In my political ecology class this week we discussed death as it relates to environmental issues. We spoke about the language and practice of sustainability and the unbalanced focus on limits and lack. There is a great deal of fear framing surrounding so many ecological problems which, as ironic as it is may be, inherently intensifies consumption. It is interesting to see our hording of material goods as connected to our fascination with immortality, as a way of ensuring some sort of security, a piece of permanence in the face of a fearful and uncertain passage.

I am so intrigued to learn more about concepts of immortality across cultures, and the different ways humans mentally equip themselves to prepare for and experience death in their lives. I never grew up connected to any sort of religion but I think after reflecting so much on death a religious studies class may be in order. I recently came across this video discussing some these topics which i hope to track down:

"Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality"

Limited Space for the Dead

In the second chapter of our textbook I was intrigued by the portion on placing the dead, and how this is a crucial way diverse human societies map out and express their vast number of relationships. With this in mind looking at western societies it is interesting to note the assumed separation our society holds between the dead and the living. It seems there is a huge imbalance; life leaves little room for the dead, not just in the material sense but in the spiritual as well. Pearson mentioned this as an indication of a troubled and alienated society disconnected from our roots and ancestors. I think that he is touching on a really crucial point here, as social beings our relationships to both place and kinship are an essential part of our identity. In a world where our ideas are based so much on concrete science we could benefit from admitting the unknowable nature of life and accepting it’s inseparability from the last rite of passage: death.

Pearson, M.P. (1999). Separation of the Dead from the Living. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Texas A&M University Press, p 25.

Sailing To Byzantium - William Butler Yeats

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

-- William Butler Yeats

Monument Analysis - Pioneer Cemetery in Victoria, BC

For our project we chose St. John the Baptist church and Pioneer cemetery in Colwood. The site had over 150 monuments so we narrowed them down by only recording vertical gravestones that reached over a foot in height. As we circulated the church –mapping the locations of each grave, jotting down names and dates, stretching measuring tape across stones – I quickly became very connected with the space. Sounding out names of the dead I couldn’t help but wonder about the life each one had lived, and longed to know the intimate stories of each. If given more time I would have liked to research the individuals and couples buried there and learn about the lives they had once lived.

Richard and Mary Yerburgh

I recall a few of the stones detailing the birth place of the deceased, always either Scotland or England, and thinking about how disconnected our culture is from our family’s ancestors. Personal heritage is often considered to be such a defining trait but how many of us actually know about the lives of our great grandparents? This project made me crave a stronger sense of connection, both to my ancestors, and to Vancouver Island. European history on the island only goes back so far and I would be interested to learn more about the burials of different indigenous groups, and the politics and ethics surrounding land-use for these practices. I know were all sick of hearing about Emily Carr, but she has a painting of a church which not only resembles the one from our site, but conveys that sense of alienation I felt in thinking about these two conflicting worlds.

Indian Church by Emily Carr, 1929

St. John the Baptist Heritage Church

As we finished collecting our data the weather vane on the church roof told us most of the grave stones, excluding a few by the front fence, faced northeast towards the church. It was late in the afternoon, only hours until the orange sun would set; each grave was a sundial measuring the shadows as they thickened and towered over the yard. In studying burials of the dead, it is inevitable to find more questions than answers and for me the questions that arise continuously point back to life – to its meaning and significance -and the ultimate importance of our relationships with one another and our environment.

Preface

The word "death" must have an array of meanings and definitions across cultures. Within our class alone I bet each one of us has a different understanding of what it means; where exactly we go, what we can take with us, and what best to leave behind. I wonder what my burial will look like. Cremation seems the cleanest way, noble enough for a Buddhist is noble enough for me, and i have to admit - even with my archaeology fetish - the idea of being unearthed and fondled beyond the grave makes me uneasy. When I leave a place behind I don't usually like to look back.

I am in my third year of Environmental studies and Anthropology. Still deciding what I want to do with it. Excited to learn about more thoughts on afterlife and the different rituals surrounding death.