Mass Burials in a Time of Crisis

Mass Burials in Japan

(Image: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLhfIg_6MLeaZQ1YPDnmipJVlF6g?docId=CNG.fde490a180a3b034200615bee30b2f70.451)


Ever since we read the article entitled, "Mortuary Practices in Bam after the Earthquake: An Enthnoarchaeological Study" by Garazhian and Yazdi, I have been thinking about how natural disasters affect people's funerary practices. I never gave any thought to the fact that natural disasters might alter a community's funerary practices but it makes perfect sense.  People must adapt to the situation of an unusually high death toll and act accordingly.  I like the idea that Garazhian and Yazdi presented in the article about studying changes in funerary practices to discover mass disasters that have occurred in the past.  I decided to look into what is happening in Japan since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit earlier this month. 

I stumbled across an article written by John Saeki entitled, "Japan Buries Tsunami Victims in Mass Grave."  The article describes how the large death toll has forced people of Japan to change their traditoinal practices and rituals of death to deal with the results of the disaster. The article describes how dozens of bodies have been placed in simple wooden coffins and then buried in mass graves.  A mass grave in Higashimatsushima is comprised of 50 meter-long trenches dug at the site of a former recycling center outside of town.  Apparently, the mass graves are a temporary solution to the problem of overflowing morgues and long waits for cremation.  According to the article, Japanese funerals usually involve a combination of religion and tradition, which involves lying the body out with the head facing north for a wake followed by a ceremony where incense is burned and a monk chants Buddhist sutras. The Japanese usually cremate the bodies afterwards and after the cremation, the family uses chopsticks to pick bone fragments from the ash and place them in an urn.  After a few weeks of the urn sitting on an altar at home, it will be out in a grave. However, given the high death toll that has reached almost 10,000 people, this funerary practice is not possible right now.  There are too many bodies for the crematorium in Higashimatsushima to handle because it can only cremate six bodies per day. 

As a solution, regions in Japan have created these mass burials in the hopes that the bodies can be exhumed at a later time and then the families can perform the proper funerary rituals.  The problem is this might not be possible for months, or even years.  There are several bodies that have not been identified yet.  The officials are waiting to bury these bodies in the hope that they will be identified before they are buried.  However, eventually the unknown bodies will have to be buried too so DNA samples  and records have been kept so they mgiht be able to be identified in the future.

I think this disaster will be visible in the archaeological record in the future because the Japanese have had to drastically alter their funerary practices.  In the future, archaeologists might notice a sudden increase in the number of burials in Japan, especially considering a lot of these bodies will probably not be identified or cremated at a later date so they will probably remain buried in the mass graves. I can't imagine how upseting it is for a family to lose their loved ones in such a tragic accident and then, to make it worse, they cannot perform the proper funerary rituals.  Very sad.


News story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLhfIg_6MLeaZQ1YPDnmipJVlF6g?docId=CNG.fde490a180a3b034200615bee30b2f70.451  

Museums

Inca sacrificial victim called Llullaillaco Mummy on display in Salta, Argentina

Image: http://www.science20.com/news_account/mummy_studies_show_inca_fattened_up_kids_before_human_sacrifice

I didn't realize all the controversy and conflict surrounding museums and artifacts until recently.  When I used to go to the museum I would "oooh" and "awwww" at all the artifacts and try to imagine their history: who used them; what they used them for, and how old they were.  However, I think next time I go to the museum I will view these items differently. Now I am going to wonder how the community who used these artifacts feels about them being on display and how the items found their way into the museum.

As for the display of human remains, this is a very controversial issue. I know a lot of people who wouldn't mind having their remains on display, especially for educational purposes.  But I imagine no consent was recevied from most of the people who are on display or housed in a museum today so we don't know if they mind or not.  For example, who asked the 15-year-old Inca sacrificial victim, Llullaillaco Maiden, if her mummified body could be put on display in a museum in Salta, Argentina?  Considering she died around 500 years ago, I'm guessing nobody asked her permission.  This is the issue: we don't know how these people feel about their remains being put on display.  Some of them might be happy to be making a contribution to science and education but other people might not like the idea of public display, especially if it goes against their cultural beliefs regarding how a deceased individual should be treated and what happens to the person after death.  For example, I know if I believed I could only move on to an afterlife if I was buried in a grave with specific grave goods, I wouldn't be happy (to say the least) if my body and grave goods were exhumed and then put on display.

Personally, after I die, I want to donate my body to science so I can continue to have an impact on people's lives.  I wouldn't mind my bones or individual body parts being on display I suppose. However, I would never want to be on display in a museum or similar institution in any form that resembled me in life, such as the Bog Bodies or well-preserved Inca mummies.  I want people to remember me as full of life and, well, alive! I wouldn't want people staring at my lifeless mummified body. I think that would be creepy.

Considering we can't ask deceased individuals for their permission to put their bodies and artifacts on display, I think the next best thing is to ask their relatives.  Even though people in the same culture, and even the same family, can have very different beliefs regardings rituals, death, and religion, I think ancestors are the closest we can come to understanding deceased individuals' wishes.  For this reason, I believe it is important to consult with ancestors whenever possible when dealing with issues of display in museums.

In the News...

Image: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110301-himalayas-caves-defleshed-skeletons-science-nepal-mustang/

So I was searching online to find an interesting news article related to death or funerary practices and lo and behold, I found a great National Geographic article! The article is entitled, "New Death Ritual Found in Himalaya- 27 De-fleshed Humans." Obviously the title of this article caught my eye right away so I decided to read on.

In 2010, the remains of 27 individuals - men, women, and children - were found in cliffside caves in Nepal with some of the remains dating to 1,500 years ago! Apparently these caves are man-made and sit 4,200 meters above sea level.  If that wasn't interesting enough, the researchers found cut marks on several of the bones, suggesting that they had been de-fleshed (most likely with a metal knife). The researchers think this could be part of an unknown Himalayan death ritual! The researchers also found the remains of goats, cows, and horses, which might have been sacrifical offerings. So how did these bodies end up in "cliffside caves" anyhow? Researchers believe people used to access the caves using rocky outcrops and ladders but the caves are eroding so they are harder to accesss now.  In the photo above, you can see that the cliffside caves and the human remains that they contain are only accessible by expert rock climbers.   

The researchers do not think the bodies were de-fleshed as a result of cannabilism because this usually entails smashing the base of the skull to get the brain out and breaking other bones to get the marrow; however, the bones discovered in the cliffs do not show these signs. Furthermore, some DNA tests have been performed and they suggest that the deceased individuals are related. This has lead the researchers to hypothesize that these mortuary caves are traditional burial places for extended families!
The team of researchers think this ritual is connected to two other death rituals: Tibetan sky burials and a funerary rite from the Zoroastrian religion. Tibetan sky burials involve dismembering bodies and exposing them to the elements. Similary, Zoroastrians de-fleshed bodies and then fed the flesh to animals. The researchers think the people who created the cliffside burials in Nepal adopted the rituals of Zoroastrians who were were travelling through the territory. Then, this cave ritual in Nepal might have turned into, or inspired, the sky burials of Tibet. In this way, the cliffside cave burials might have acted as a "previously unknown bridge" between the Zoroastrian ritual and the later Tibetan sky burials.

Why a cave on a cliff?
The researchers believe that these isolated cliffs were chosen as burial spots because of local religious beliefs. For example, Buddhism was practiced in the region and this religion puts high value on the idea of religious retreat. Also, the people who practed this funerary ritual might have felt a connection to the landscape and viewed these caves as sacred.

This was my summary of the researchers discoveries and interpretations. For more info on this story go to this link:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110301-himalayas-caves-defleshed-skeletons-science-nepal-mustang/

I think this find is very exciting since it can shed some light on the funerary rituals that were being practiced by this Himalayan group during this time period. I especially like the researchers' interpretation that this funerary practice might represent a "bridge" between older rituals and newer rituals. I think people in our culture are intrigued by stories like this one becase they present practices that are unheard of in our culture so people are fascinated by them. The funerary practice that is descrbied in this article shows two practices that are unique to our culture: burial in a cliffside cave and de-fleshing of the dead. For this reason, people think this story is "newsworthy."  I know it certainly caught my eye!

A Blog Post about Blogs: My Thoughts

When I heard we had to create and maintain a blog for this class, I was worried.  My biggest concern was I didn't really know what a blog was. Well, I had a general idea of what a blog was but I had never read one before and I definitely had never made my own!  However, I soon realized that creating my own blog was not as scary as it seemed.  It was in fact, very easy.  I might even go as far as to say it was fun.  I liked designing my own page and choosing the format. After I had set it up, I was so proud of myself that I emailed my family the link to my blog so they could follow me and read about all the exciting things I have to say (Hi mom and dad! Are you reading this?!) I have enjoyed my blogging experience as I like having the ability to discuss topics that I find particularly interesting.  I also like reading other people's blogs to see what they find interesting.

I never thought I would have a blog, especially one that focused on death and funerary practices!  Discussing death all the time hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be though.  One reason for this is because I tend to distance myself from the deceased individuals that we study.  It makes it easier if I do not think of them as once living, breathing people like myself.  But once in awhile I remember the fact that these are people who had a family, friends and a life history. And this should not be ignored.  This thought always brings me back to reality and reminds me the importance of showing the people that I study respect.

This thought has been on my mind lately as I do research for my case study, which is about Inca child sacrifice.  Looking at images of well-preserved sacrificed children gives me an eerie feeling because the thought of deceased children and the practice of sacrifice both seem 'unnatural' to me. In my culture, a child's death is always an upsetting and shocking event so the thought of purposely killing children does not fit with my worldview at all.  That is why I find studying this topic so interesting because I want to understand the motivations behind it.

Overall, I have enjoyed my blogging experience. I might even start another blog after this class is finished.  It probably won't focus as much on death and funerary practices though but we shall see what comes to mind.  I mean, who doesn't want to read about how to make diamond jewelry out of cremated ashes?! That is good stuff.

My Thoughts on Gender

                          Hijra from India. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)

Gender has been one of my favorite topics since my first introductory anthropology course where I learned that gender and sex did not mean the same thing.  Similar to our Anth 392 class last week, we had to discuss the difference between sex and gender, which seemed like an easy task until I realized...I didn't really know there was a difference between these two terms and I had been using the words interchangeably. Uh oh. Now that I am in my third year of anthropology I am happy to report that I understand the difference between these terms (I think...) and use them carefully.  So what is the difference between sex and gender?

Sex is a biological category and it does not vary between cultures.  People are generally born biologically male or biologically female.  On the other hand, gender is a cultural category that can actually change in an individual over time and it varies between societies.  This means that the number of genders recognized in a culture can vary.  I remember the day I learned this. I thought, "What?!?! No way, you are either masculine or feminine. There are no other available options."  Apparently I was wrong but I do not think I am the only person to make this ethnocentric assumption.  It is easy to do, especially growing up in my culture. From the day that babies are born, we start socializing our children in how they should behave in order to be masculine or feminine.  We dress little girls in pink, buy them barbies, and send them off to ballet class. Then we dress boys in blue or some earth tone, buy them GI Joes and put them on an ice hockey team.  (Yes I am severely generalizing but you get my point!)  What if children stray from the gender norms? Sure it is common and acceptable for girls to play sports like hockey and football and dress in t-shirts and jeans but at the same time they might get called a 'tomboy'.  And how might you react if you saw a young boy wearing a floral dress and make-up? You must admit, this would probably stand out to you as being 'wrong'.  Some people break the gender rules of how they are expected to act and what they are suppose to wear, eat, and do but when this happens it often stands out because it is breaking a social norm.

Since gender is ingrained in our minds from such a young age, it can be hard to separate ourselves from our assumptions of what is masculine and what is feminine.  Furthermore, it can make it near impossible for some people to be able to fully grasp the idea of a culture with more (or less) than two genders (I am guilty of this).  I love reading about cultures that recognize a third gender category because it astonishes me.  Some well-known third gender categories include the Two-spirited people among some First Nations groups and hijras in South Asia.  Two-spirited people are recognized as having both a male and a female spirit and they are often revered: "Being given the gift of two-spirits meant that this individual had the ability to see the world from two perspectives at the same time. This greater vision was a gift to be shared with all, and as such, Two-spirited beings were revered as leaders, mediators, teachers, artists, seers, and spiritual guides. They were treated with the greatest respect, and held important spiritual and ceremonial responsibilities"  (http://www.mcgill.ca/interaction/mission/twospirit/).  This perspective differs from that of the Hijra.  In South Asia, Hijras (see image at top of page) are people who are usually biological males but have feminine roles and identities, wear women's clothing, and tend to have low status in their community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)).  You can argue that we recognize more than two genders in our culture but I feel that these gender categories are not as well-defined as they are in some other cultures.

So how do archeologists interpret gender? Common ways include body positioning, grave goods, bodily adornment, and costume.  These can cause problems though, especially since it is other people who usually plan the funerary rituals.  In a specific culture, a body might be buried with a woven basket so maybe we assume the individual is female because baskets are associated with women. But was the basket a personal item or was it added to the burial by a family member or friend?  Are there other objects and practices associated with this body that are actually associated with men? Who is making these associations, inferences, and (perhaps) assumptions?  Is the deceased individual a member of a third gender that goes beyond masculine or feminine?  Identifying a third gender can be tricky, especially if this concept does not exist in your own culture.

For archeologists, it is important to not only understand the difference between sex and gender but also the cross-cultural differences between gender categories.  It can be hard to remove yourself from your cultural assumptions, especially when it comes to gender, but it is necessary to do so in order to make accurate interpretations (Ex: Maybe a body buried with a sword is a female who was a warrior or who was buried with her brother's sword).   As we talked about in class, you need to understand a person's  life-course before you try to interpret their gender because an individual's gender can change over time,  just to make things even more confusing.  For these reasons, it can be problematic when an archaeologist attempts to identify a skeleton as either male or female based on their interpretation of the deceased individual's gender because if the archaeologist's interpretations of gender are inaccurate in the context, then their conclusions on the skeleton's sex might be wrong too.

So what have I learned about gender over the years? It's complicated.

Tombstones, Crosses, and Mausoleums...Oh My!

Image: http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb.htm

I must say, I really enjoyed doing the fieldwork for the monument analysis assignment. It was my first time going to the Ross Bay Cemetery and I found it to be very beautiful and peaceful.  It is the largest cemetery that I have ever been in and I was so amused by how the graves were divided into sections based on religion, ethnicity, war involvement, and wealth.  The section that surprised me the most was Potter's Field because I have never heard of such a thing.  This is the section where people who were destitute, people of unknown identity, still-born babies and convicts were buried.  According to the Ross Bay Cemetery Website (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_par.htm), "A Potter's Field is a place in a cemetery (or even a separate cemetery) where people are buried who have no one to take care of their funeral or no money to do so themselves. They are usually buried in plain coffins with no markers over their graves." At least they saved them a section in the cemetery I suppose. After seeing how the cemetery was partitioned, I started thinking about status. What if you fit into more than one of these categories? For example, where do we bury the Roman Catholic convicts? What about a poor Chinese man who has no family? Which section will provide space for an Anglican soldier who died in combat?  Since people can have multiple statuses at one time (religious, social, ethnicity etc), I guess people burying a body in Ross Bay Cemetery had to choose the status that they thought was the most appropriate when there were conflicting statuses.  Did they base their choice on which status was the most important? Most prominent? Most honorable? Or perhaps least honorable? 


Once I was in the Ross Bay Cemetery I wanted to look at all of the monuments because there was an enormous variety. I like to look at the dates of when people died, figure out how old they were, and try to imagine their cause of death. I like to read the inscriptions on the monuments to see if I can get a glimpse into their lives and get a sense of what the person meant to their family and friends. Who were they? What were their beliefs, hobbies, and dreams? Then there are all of the graves of the historical figures, such as Billy Barker, James Douglas, and Begbie to name a few.  I have spent a lot of time reading about the people that shaped British Columbia's history but it was truly a unique experience to see their graves and be so close to them. I felt like I was walking through a history book.


I look forward to going back to the cemetery when I have time to wander around and look at more monuments. Plus I still have to find Emily Carr's grave site!  Here is something to consider: you can go on a guided tour through the Ross Bay Cemetery! They have Sunday Cemetery History Tours for $5.00 or you can go on a topic-specific tour, such as the 'Chinese at Ross Bay' or 'Goldrush!'  Here is the tour schedule:  http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/tour.htm


I find cemeteries to be mysterious, exciting, eerie, and fascinating all at once.  I must say, it is amazing how a bunch of dead people can be so interesting!

Memorial Monument Analysis at Ross Bay Cemetery: Mausoleums

Fieldwork Team: Melanie Callas, Thea Lamoureux, Shannon Turner-Riley, and Alex Ashby


For our Memorial Monument Analysis, we studied mausoleums in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C.  This cemetery opened in 1873 and it is located at 1594 Farfield Rd. Our data set consisted of ten mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  The subset of monuments that we chose to study was based on the type of monument: mausoleums.  We chose to examine ten mausoleums because this number seemed like a good size sample to help us answer our research questions and the sample size seemed adequate based on the the number of mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  In this cemetery, there was a total of twelve mausoleums so our data set included 83% of the total mausoleum population.  The possible limitations for our project are that the mausoleums that we did not study may have been unique cases and they could have altered our overall findings. For example, the two mausoleums that we did not study might have been from an earlier or later time period than the mausoleums that we studied or the unstudied mausoleums might have contained people who had different kin relations compared to the mausoleums that we did study.  Also, our data set of ten might be considered small, even if it is large in relation to the total population of mausoleums in the Ross Bay Cemetery, so our findings might not be representative of all cemeteries in Victoria.  We went into the field with these two research questions:


1. What time period were mausoleums common in Ross Bay Cemetery?


2. Are the deceased in each mausoleum in Ross Bay Cemetery related and if so, how are they related in terms of kinship, marriage etc.?


Map of Ten Mausoleums at the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C.

View Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C. in a larger map


Mausoleums are beautiful monuments that are built above ground and can contain multiple bodies.  We gathered data from ten mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery and this data - including photos, transcriptions, and descriptions - is presented in the map above.  We used this data to help us answer our research questions.  First, we examined what time period mausoleums were most common in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  The range of dates at death spanned 106 years.  The oldest date was in the Mackenzie mausoleum where Kenneth Mackenzie died in 1875, while the most recent year of death was in the Clark mausoleum where Edward Paterson Rithet died in 1981.  Overall, the mausoleums were most common in the first half of the twentieth century, with a peak between the 1910's and 1930's.  During these three decades, about 51% of all the people contained in the mausoleums died and were presumably added to the mausoleum at the time of death.  After the 1930's, the number of people placed in mausoleums decreased slightly and after 1981 the use of the mausoleums ceased even though there were empty spaces in a few mausoleums, such as the Hawkins and Rithet mausoleums.  These findings are consistent with the findings of Lee Decker (2009) who states that family mausoleums were common during the late 19th and early 20th century in North America (p.154).  Lee Decker (2009) suggests that by the late 19th century, family mausoleums were being used to show achievement and success in a period where there was a  clear connection between status and mortuary investment; however, by the 1920's and 1930's the construction of elaborate mausoleums peaked as people altered their mortuary behaviour (p.151). The mausoleums that we studied could also be interpreted as representing a group's high status during this time period based on the mausoleums' elaborate designs and sizes, such as the large Rithet mausoleum which was constructed with materials that include marble and an iron gate. 


Our second research question examined the relationship between the people that were buried in each mausoleum with the goal of learning if they were related and if so, how they were related.  We discovered that the most obvious relationship between people in a single mausoleum was husband and wife.  This was evident in some mausoleums because the inscriptions would make reference to this relationship. For example, in the Hawkins mausoleum, there is an inscription that says "In Loving Memory of Jessie/Wife of T.W.C. Hawkins" and inscribed below that is says, "In Loving Memory of Tom/ T.W.C. Hawkins". In these cases it is easy to infer the relationship.  In the majority of the mausoleums, the people buried inside shared the same last name, which suggests that most people found in a mausoleum are related either through blood or marriage, such as siblings, parents, or spouses.  However, some people have different last names and there is no reference to their relationship with the other people in the mausoleum. For example, in the Rithet mausoleum, everyone shares the surname of Rithet, except for a woman named Gertrude Alice Genge.  There is no mention of her relation to the other people in the mausoleum so it is unknown if or how she is related to the other occupants. We can rule out some possibilities based on the age of the occupants but this still leaves several possibilities.  In all of the mausoleums, the name that is inscribed on the outside of the mausoleum matches at least one person's surname inside, except for the Houston mausoleum where all three people share the last name of "Florence".  Based on their common last name, they are probably related through blood or marriage but I do not know how they are related to the "Houston" title.  Finally, it appears some people that share a mausoleum are related beyond the nuclear family.  For example, in the Clark mausoleum the two people inside share the same surname but one of them died in 1866 while the other person was not born until 1921.  It is possible that the person that was born later was a grandchild or other similar relative.  


Upon examining the inscriptions of the mausoleums, it appears that most of the people in each mausoleum are related either through blood or marriage. However, it is often unclear what their precise relationship is because the inscriptions often lack this information so we must make inferences based on the people's ages at birth and death and their surnames.  I believe the mausoleums that we studied at Ross Bay Cemetery were generally built for families and they allowed people to identitfy as a family unit.  In some cemteries during the Victoria era, family graves - including mausoleums - became more symbolically important to people and it appears that mausoleums were a way for people to cement the idea of family as the main social institution within a culture (Warpole 2003, p.158).  It was near this time period that the mausoleums in Ross Bay Cemetery began to appear.  Mytum (2004) suggests that in industrialized countries the upper middle class used family mausoleums to solidify their dynastic success (p.72).  This could be a reason why people in the mausoleums tend to be related and why the family name is on public display above or below the entrances to the mausoleums.  In conclusion, based on our data set, we found that mausoleums in Ross Bay Cemetery were most common in the early twentieth century although they started appearing in the late nineteenth-century and at least some of the people in a single mausoleum tend to be related through marriage and/or blood with the most evident relationship being marriage between husband and wife. This information provides an insight into the use and purpose of mausoleums in Victoria over the years.


References:


LeeDecker, Charles H. 2009, 'Preparing for an afterlife on Earth: The transformation of mortuary behaviour in nineteenth-century North America' in International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, pp.141-157. 


Mytum, H.C. 2004, Mortuary monuments and burial grounds of the historic period, Plenum Publishers, New York.


Warpole, Ken. 2003, Lost Landscapes: the architecture of the cemetery in the west, Reaktion Books Ltd., London.