Funerary Rituals Among the Snaidanac:


Wow doing some digging around (get it?!) online for information on this week's blog prompt was an...interesting... experience!

(Thanks landthink.com!)

I have learned two main things thanks to my research into non-standard funerary practices this week:


1) Modern Canadian culture is particularly unimaginative in their (oops, I mean our...) dealings with the dead
2) Some authors of funeral advice websites actually have an awesome sense of humour!


I shall address these two revelations separately so as not to confuse my followers (hi Mom!! hi Dad!!)...


Point #1: After perusing a number of funeral home websites, it became clear to me that there are really only three options for disposing (legally) of our dead in Canada. The most common practice is inhumation, or what is commonly called burial. There are all kinds of different containers one can be buried in, but ultimately the body is placed in a box and then put into a plot of land which is certified for use as a grave. I set out on my research hoping to find links to strange and unusual options on funeral home websites, but the only "exciting" option appears to be green burials.


The second main option is cremation! Again, how exciting eh? 

(Thanks jezebel.com) Furnace for incinerating
a corpse in a crematorium. 

Basically this option reduces the body to a small amount of "cremains" which can then be disposed of in pretty much any way the family chooses. Most websites advise families to obtain permission before dispersing cremains onto property which doesn't belong to them, such as provincial parks for example, but really the world is your oyster if you want to scatter a handful of ashes here and there.

The last possibility is donation of the body to science/medicine. I feel like this is the most interesting of the three options, yet it is advertised the least- possibly because it means that funeral homes don't make much $$$ when you go with this route. Interestingly, a lot of people seem to have certain body parts which they would not wish to donate. After asking around a little bit, I found that most people are happier to donate organs for medical purposes, but think of their skeleton as an important part of "them" and thus would like it to be buried. Personally, I would rather my bones be put to use educating future generations than slowly rotting away beneath the ground. 

(Thanks http://fuckyeahanthropologymajorfox.tumblr.com)
At UVic most of the skeletal collection is composed of remains
from India, and we have no medical records or details of their lives.
By donating your body along with a history, you provide a valuable
teaching tool for students. 

Point #2: I found this aspect of the investigating I did to be far more interesting than any of the funerary practices I read about online. Most of the websites I encountered were decorated in soft, calming pastel colours, with the horrific word "death" barely making an appearance. Instead, phrases like "suffered a loss", "passed on", and "the deceased" (when mentioning the person who has died is completely unavoidable) are used throughout to soften or perhaps dull the fact that a person is no longer alive. Despite the fact that death will always be a difficult thing for people to deal with, something about not being straight forward about it always seems to irk me. What do you guys all think? As I said in my last post, my family has a fairly open attitude towards our mortality, but am I being too blasé about death? 

I feel like this might be the face of someone who
has a blasé attitude! (My face, not my little brother's)

Anyway, I thought I'd share one website I stumbled across with you! It is http://www.funeral-help.com/options.html and their motto is: "Going in style...without going in debt"
This website is from the USA and is much more lively (pun intended!) than most of the Canadian ones I found; leading me to believe that American's have some much more exciting funerary options available to them than we do!

"ladder truck flag display" which can
be hired to attend funerals!
(Thanks Florida Memory Project!)

For example, you can have your remains mummified by a company in Utah, or freeze-dried in another state. Or if you always wanted to be an astronaut, you can have a lunar burial after your body has been cremated. Amy Polkey pointed out a few other amazing options our neighbours to the South have available to them! Hopefully Canadians will become more adventurous with their funeral procedures and ways of dispersing their body, because as it stands now I think we are limiting ourselves!