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By other animals Humans are not the only species to bury their dead. Chimpanzees and elephants are known to throw leaves and branches over fallen members of their family groups.
Exhumation The digging up of a buried body is called exhumation, and is considered sacrilege by most cultures that bury their dead. However, there is often a number of circumstances in which exhumation is tolerated: - If an individual died under suspicious circumstances, a legitimate investigating agency (such as a police agency) may exhume the body to determine the cause of death.
- A body may be exhumed so that it may be reburied elsewhere.
- Once human remains reach a certain age, many cultures consider the remains to have no communal provenance, making exhumation acceptable. This serves several purposes:
- Many cemeteries have a limited number of plots in which to bury the dead. Once all plots are full, older remains are typically moved to an ossuary to accommodate more bodies.
- It enables archaeologists to search for human remains in order to better understand human culture.
- It enables construction agencies to clear the way for new infrastructure.
Frequently, cultures have different sets of exhumation taboos. Occasionally these differences result in conflict, especially in cases where a culture with more lenient exhumation rules wishes to operate on the territory of a stricter culture. For example, United States construction companies have run into conflict with Native American groups that wanted to preserve their ancient burial grounds from any form of modern construction.
In folklore and mythology, exhumation has also been frequently associated with the performance of rites to banish undead manifestations. An example is the Mercy Brown Vampire Incident of Rhode Island, which occurred in 1892.
Alternatives to burial Not all cultures bury their dead, and many of those that do bury their dead do not do so in all cases. Alternatives include: - Burial at sea is the practice of depositing the body an ocean or other large body of water instead of soil.
- Cannibalism is the practice of eating the remains.
- Cremation is the incineration of the remains.
- Cryopreservation is the cold storage of the remains.
- Ecological funeral is a proposed method of increasing the rate of decomposition in order to help fertilize the soil.
- Excarnation is the practice of removing the flesh from the corpse without interment.
- Butchering the corpse by hand to remove the flesh.
- Sky burial involves placing the body on a mountaintop.
- Gibbeting is the practice of publicly displaying remains of criminals to deter others from becoming criminals.
- Space burial is the practice of firing the coffin into space. The coffin may be placed into orbit, sent off into interstellar space, or incinerated in the sun. Space burial is still largely in the realm of science fiction as the cost of getting a body up into space is currently prohibitively large.
In most cases, these alternatives still maintain respect for the dead. In fact, some of the more elaborate alternatives are employed by some cultures to show increased respect for the deceased. Gibbeting is a notable exception, showing a complete lack of respect.
See also
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