Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. These customs vary widely between cultures, and between religious affiliations within cultures. In some cultures the dead are worshipped; this is commonly called ancestor worship. The word comes from the Latin funus, which had a variety of meanings, including the corpse and the funerary rites themselves.

Ancient funeral rites

The most simple and natural kind of funeral monuments, and therefore the most ancient and universal, consist in a mound of earth, or a heap of stones, raised over the ashes of the departed: of such monuments mention is made in the Book of Joshua, and in Homer and Virgil.

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The place of burial amongst the Jews was never particularly determined. We find that they had burial-places upon the highways, in gardens, and upon mountains. We read, that Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife, in the cave of Macphelah, in the field of Ephron, and Uzziah, King of Judah, slept with his fathers in the field of the burial which pertained to the kings.

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The primitive Greeks were buried in places prepared for that purpose in their own houses; but later they established burial grounds in desert islands, and outside the walls of towns, by that means securing them from disturbance, and themselves from the liability of catching infection from those who had died of contagious disorders.

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Funerals in ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, the eldest surviving male of the household, the pater familias, was summoned to the death-bed, where he attempted to catch and inhale the last breath of the decedent.

Related Topics:
Rome - Pater familias

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Funerals of the socially prominent were usually undertaken by professional undertakers called libitinarii. No direct description has been passed down of Roman funeral rites. These rites usually included a public procession to the tomb or pyre where the body was to be cremated. The most noteworthy thing about this procession was that the survivors bore masks bearing the images of the family's deceased ancestors. The right to carry the masks in public was eventually restricted to families prominent enough to have held curule magistracies. Mimes, dancers, and musicians hired by the undertakers, as well as professional female mourners, took part in these processions. Less well to do Romans could join benevolent funerary societies (collegia funeraticia) who undertook these rites on their behalf.

Related Topics:
Mask - Curule - Mime - Dance - Musician - Funerary

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Nine days after the disposal of the body, by burial or cremation, a feast was given (cena novendialis) and a libation poured over the grave or the ashes. Since most Romans were cremated, the ashes were typically collected in an urn and placed in a niche in a collective tomb called a columbarium (literally, "dovecote"). During this nine day period, the house was considered to be tainted, funesta, and was hung with yew or cypress branches to warn bypassers. At the end of the period, the house was swept in an attempt to purge it of the dead person's ghost.

Related Topics:
Urn - Dovecote - Yew - Cypress - Ghost

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Several Roman holidays commemmorated a family's dead ancestors, including the Parentalia, held February 13 through 21, to honour the family's ancestors; and the Lemuria, held on May 9, 11, and 13, in which ghosts (larvæ) were feared to be active, and the pater familias sought to appease them with offerings of beans.

Related Topics:
Parentalia - February 13 - 21 - Lemuria - May 9 - 11 - 13 - Larvæ - Bean

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The Romans prohibited burning or burying in the city, both from a sacred and civil consideration, so that the priests might not be contaminated by touching a dead body, and so that houses would not be endangered by funeral fires.

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The Romans commonly built tombs for themselves during their lifetime. Hence these words frequently occur in ancient inscriptions, V.F. Vivus Facit, V.S.P. Vivus Sibi Posuit. The tombs of the rich were usually constructed of marble, the ground enclosed with walls, and planted round with trees. But common sepulchres were usually built below ground, and called hypogea. There were niches cut out of the walls, in which the urns were placed; these, from their resemblance to the niche of a pigeon-house, were called columbaria.

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Funerals in Scotland

An old funeral rite from the Scottish Highlands is to bury the deceased with a wooden plate resting on his chest. In the plate were placed a small amount of earth and salt, to represent the future of the deceased. The earth hinted that the body would decay and become one with the earth, while the salt represented the soul, which does not decay. This rite was known as "earth laid upon a corpse".

Related Topics:
Scottish Highlands - Salt - Soul

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