DEATH AND ETERNITY

A BITE OF REALITY

I am past my sell-by-date.   I am of the age that the reality is I will die within the next ten years – and I will be dead a long time.  

Two days ago, I hit an ice patch with my car and slid into an ice bank, resulting in a tear in the front plastic cowling and a dent in the back door of my RAV-4.  

My wife wasn’t happy, but I refuse to be upset about some damage to the car that is repairable.  Shit happens.  

The snow scene up here in Maine is beautiful.  I have a nice home and a great wife, books to read and cats to keep me company.   This accident will cost me a deductible that I can ill-afford, but in the scheme of things: no big deal.

As far as eternity, that is the con of religions.   Religions promise a get-out-of-death-free card that doesn’t exist:   I will pay you tomorrow  for a hamburger today.

It would be great to think that when I die a biker club of big breasted Valkyrie women would roar down to earth to transport me to  Valhalla; where I could pick out my ride, where there is an open bar with Irish Whiskey and good English beer and bowels of ganja for the sampling, where all the women are beautiful and horny, where all the great bands eventually preform: the Stones, Dr Hook, Bob Seger, The Band…

But there is the same chance of that happening as sitting in some celestial heaven with the man-god Jesus. 

You walk through the cemeteries here in New England and find old tombstones with epitaphs and names like Constance Toothacher and Endeavor Bean; people who lived in Maine over four hundred years ago.   They are not sitting ‘up there in heaven’ or ‘down there in hell.’ They are forgotten and their bones are rotting in the ground like everyone who ever lived before them and everyone who has lived after.  Their dogs died, their cats died, their horse died, their cow died, their children died, they died.  There is life and there is death – full stop. 

We are here for a short while and then we are gone.  I can deal with that.

 If it were true that your life passes in front of your face when you die – mine would be a double feature.   It has been an interesting run.  And every day I have left I intend to live to the fullest.

the Ol’Buzzard 

THE TIME EATING MONSTER

Thirty days has September, April, June and November…

Another fucking month slips by.   When I was younger time seemed to drag, but the older I get the faster time seems to move.    So here I am speeding toward the end of time.

Yes, I am sorry, but as my time speeds up to the instance that my reality shrinks into a black hole so goes the universe.  When I am no longer here there is no existence.  You’re all gone.  Everything is gone.  If I can’t perceive it, it doesn’t exist.

Time was invented by man and refined by the railroads.   Before the railroads, clocks were set by solar time: a stick in the ground would determine the shortest shadow as noon.     This meant that clocks in a town fifty miles to your east might be ten minutes later than your clock and clocks in a town fifty miles to your west might read ten minutes earlier.   This made scheduling train arrivals and departures impossible, so the railroad led the charge to standardize time.  

The concept of time was designed to regulated human life.   It has placed us on a programed treadmill.  Time regulates our every action.   It makes us productive; but robs us of serenity.   

And now for me time is no longer a linear path of infinity; but an ever shrinking trail to the end of time. 

DID I RUN and

AM I TIRED?

the Ol’Buzzard

TIME MOVES ON

Throughout my life singers and musicians have died from drug overdose, accident, suicide and natural causes.  Each time I would lament them – listen to some of their music – and move on.  I had other places to go and other things to do.

Yesterday Merle Haggard died and today I view it somewhat different. 

When I liberated myself from Mississippi back in 1959 I never looked back.   I never kept in touch with any of my childhood friends.  About 1980 I lost track of any kin – the only people from my past I have kept in touch with are a cousin, a half-sister and the son of my best friend.  

I talked to my mother just before she died in the 1970’s.   She told me she hated to go to sleep, because everyone she dreamed of was dead - she was the last of her siblings and friends.  

Now, death doesn’t scare me and I sleep fine – when I sleep.   I do not miss knowing that most of the people I grew up with are probably already dead, or like me skirting the grim reaper.  

The only markers I have of my teen age years and young adulthood are the singers and musicians of my time; and those left are dropping away rather quickly.   Yesterday we lost Merle Haggard; probably only a foot note for most people, but road mark for me. 

In my teens I listened to rock and roll, in my early adulthood it was country: Hank Williams, Flat and Scruggs, Johnny Cash, Hank Snow, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willy Nelson, Patsy Cline….   These are the markers of my lifetime, and there are not many of us left.

The last of my kind and it's all going to pot.
the Ol'Buzzard

WISDOM FROM THE GRAVE

I didn't wash today.  I wasn't dirty.   If I'm not dirty, I don't wash.   Some weeks I don't have to shower at all.   I just groom my three basic areas: teeth, hair, and asshole.   And to save time, I use the same brush.  
George Carlin

I'm just saying
the Ol'Buzzard

RIDE THAT TRAIN

The age old question of old age occurs when you look in the mirror and an old person is staring back, and you ask yourself: When did I get so fucking old?  Not; how did I live so fucking long – because it doesn't seem long to you.  

You are born and you die: you don’t remember the first and you won’t remember the last.

Along the train ride of life you decided that what you are doing is important – that you are moving toward a goal and that you and the rest of the world will reach nirvana when all your goals are met – but your goals were always ill defined – it is just moving ahead that is important. 

You meet, you fuck, you marry, you fuck, you shoulder responsibilities, you have opinions, you work, you travel…     And time passes.    At some point it becomes a reality that life is finite.  You are riding on this train with no destination but you will have to get off before the last stop.

Humanity has been able to escape Darwinism because of its ability to communicate.   Communication has led to cooperation and innovation; but this same communication has allowed corporate and individual greed and avarice - wars and genocide - rape and disaster and unbelievable mass-inhumanity on a grand scale.   The outcome only reinforces the maxim that we are semi-intelligent animals living in a meaningless world; and our destination is nowhere.

It’s only Rock and Roll

Everyone dies

Go with the flow

And try to have a few laughs.

Cletus Purcell (James Lee Burke’s Robicheaux series.)

Have a good day

the Ol’Buzzard 

                                                                                                                  

BUZZARD BARF

For some reason I don’t seem to be spending a lot of time on the computer (Blog.)

We have all been there: the urge seems to come and go.   Besides it is spring with all its demands of things that need doing - and also there are still a lot of books to read. 

However I am including a couple of jokes from the book HEIDEGGER AND A HIPPO WALK THROUGH THOSE PEARLY GATES by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein:

   It got crowded in heaven, so Saint Peter decided to accept only people who’d had a really bad day on the day they died.   On the first morning of the new policy, Saint Peter said to the first man in line, “Tell me about the day you died.”

   The man said, “Oh, it was awful.  I was sure my wife was having an affair, so I came home early from work to catch her in the act.   I searched all over the apartment and couldn't find her lover anywhere.   So finally I went out on the balcony, where I found this man hanging over the edge by his fingertips.   So I went inside, got a hammer, and started hitting his hands.   He fell, but landed in some bushes and survived.   So I went inside, picked up the refrigerator, and pushed it out over the balcony.   It crushed him, but the strain of hefting the fridge game me a heart attack and I died.”   Saint Peter couldn't deny this was an awful day and that it was a crime of passion, so he let the man enter Heaven.   He then asked the next man in line about the day he died.

   “Well, sir, it was terrible.   I was doing aerobics on the balcony of the apartment when I slipped over the edge.   I managed to grab the balcony of the apartment below me but then some maniac came out and started pounding my fingers with a hammer!   I fell, but I landed in some bushes and lived!   But then this guy came out again and dropped a refrigerator on me!   That did it!”

   Saint peter chuckled a bit, and let him into Heaven.   “Tell me about the day you died,” he said to the third man. 

   “Okay, picture this.   I’m naked, hiding in a refrigerator…

   AND THEN THERE WAS THIS FROG...

   Malcom was taking a walk when he saw a frog in the gutter.   He was startled to hear the frog suddenly say to him, “Old man, if you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.   I’ll be yours forever, and we can make mad passionate love every night.”

   Malcom bent down and put the frog in his pocket and continued walking. 

   The frog said, “Hey, I don’t think you heard me.  I said if you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess and we can make passionate love every night.”

   Malcom said, “I heard you all right, but at my age I’d rather have a talking frog.    


(You don't need a frog when you'be got a hot wife)
the Ol'Buzzard

DEATH AND THE HOKEY POKEY:

Nan at ALL THE GOOD NAMES WERE TAKEN just did a post on mortality.   

When you get my age you find death lurking in the shadows just beyond sight.    You are conscious of your mortality and your limited future – something that never really concerned you when you were young.  

I don’t worry about death, but I know it is the final payment we all owe to nature. 

My grandmother would tell the story that her family always got together at Thanksgiving at the great grandparents house and it was an unspoken joke that my Kentucky great grandfather always started the meal by saying that this would probably be the last Thanksgiving he would share with them.   This went on for of years - until he wasn't. 

I don’t have family to share with: just my wife.  At my stage of life I find it important to do the things I enjoy.   When I am finally gone I have only one request: that my wife put my ashes in a douche bag with bourbon and water and run me through one more time.

The last ride!

the Ol’Buzzard 

GROWING OLD IS NOT FOR SISSIES.

 when I asked The Reaper what it was all about

he did the Hokey Pokey and he turned himself around

and grinned

 

Yorick, I knew him well.

Young people do not deal with the specter of death on a daily basis.  Their lives are filled with the day to day trivia that is the minutiae of existence.   Relationships and bills, and financial and personal security fill their moments of consciousness as they move through each day.   

I, on the other hand, find The Grim Reaper my personal companion.   He stands by my bed at night; sits in the room while I read; and keeps me company while I split and haul wood for the wood stove.  

Young people dreams of adventures they plans to have and the goals they would like to achieve. 

Since I have much more past than future, I dream of the adventures I have had and goals I have accomplished – my plans for the future are bland; and this is the main rub of growing old.  (As I have said before: I don’t buy Craftsman tools because they have a lifetime guarantee – and at this juncture of my life Harbor Freight tools will outlast me.) 

Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the laidback life I had hoped for all the years I pulled in harness.  I enjoy my wife’s company (and sex); reading books; eating home cooked food; drinking good wine; and the lack of stress not having to work a job.   But is can be oh’ so boring.  

Keeping busy is now the job; and many would envy my position.

But, The Reaper just tapped on my shoulder and told me to hurry up with this post – He has plans for me down the line and doesn’t want me to be late. 

the Ol’Buzzard

DEATH AND THE HOKEY POKEY

Warning! The following blog post may not be conducive to a carefree happy morning.

We all try to express our feelings; and I for one always fall short.   As I approach mid-seventies I am reminded of my aunts’ comments about their grandfather (my great-grandfather) at Thanksgiving: Each year he would preface the meal with the statement “We may not all be here next year.”  It was a family joke – to everyone except him.   

It is very easy when you are young to dismiss the understated concerns of the old.   After all, who wants to dwell on dying?   The young note it and move on – it is not real; but for an older person that specter is just around the next corner - waiting to reach out and grab you when you pass by.  It is real.  

I refuse to dwell on it…until four-o-clock in the morning.

I can not write the words of those early morning thoughts; but that is all right for they have already been written.  

If you have not read the poetry of Philip Larkin – you should.   I view him as the present day equivalent of Robert Frost.  And for that four-o-clock hour he states it on the mark – for me. 

Aubade

BY PHILIP LARKIN

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.   

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.   

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.   

Till then I see what’s really always there:   

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   

Making all thought impossible but how   

And where and when I shall myself die.   

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse   

—The good not done, the love not given, time   

Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because   

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;   

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,   

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,   

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,   

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,   

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill   

That slows each impulse down to indecision.   

Most things may never happen: this one will,   

And realisation of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without   

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave   

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.   

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,   

Have always known, know that we can’t escape,   

Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring   

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

The Ol'Buzzard

  

THE MEANING OF LIFE – AGAIN

You live you die: get over it. 

Most of us have, at some point, walked through an old cemetery.   The tombstones from the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen hundreds can’t help but fascinate us with their death heads and epitaphs.

Especially in New England the ground is rich with markers from the past.  

Years ago, while hunting partridge outside of Brunswick, Maine, I discovered five small blocks of granite marking grave sites.    Each stone was roughly chiseled with one word: Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Baby.   I have often wondered about a family that died and no one knew their names.   Was it the plague or an accident that beset a family traveling through the area?   We will never know, for the only memory that is left of these people is five small weathered blocks of stone.   How many people have been buried in the Maine woods with no marker or wooden markers that deteriorated?

The only unique things about the dead in the old cemeteries are the monuments and epitaphs, because we don't know the dead or care about them.    Some of my favorite are:

From a grave in Pennsylvania:   In memory of Ellen Shannon, Aged 26 years, Who was fatally burned March 21^st. 1870 by the explosion of a lamp filled with R.E. Danforth’s Non Explosive Burning Fluid.

From a grave in Massachusetts:   death was caused by bathing.

Another in Massachusetts:   Here lies the body of James Vernon, the only surviving son of Admiral Vernon.

Another Massachusetts: She was very Excellent for Reading and Soberness.

In Vermont:   The Old Nuisance.

And lastly:   She finally shut her mouth.

The point is that someone died and except for the unique stones (and eventually these will wear away) they are forgotten.   Their lives, in fact, had no more point or meaning than some Neanderthal that died in the ice fields of northern Europe; unless it is referenced to present human record.   Unless we say… their descendants…  which is to say that our life and the lives of our descendants is the point. 

After all what would the world be without us, and that is a circumstance that will surely come to pass.

I think that unconsciously we flatter ourselves that the earth exists solely for human habitation.   If we don’t believe the earth is six thousand years old and created for mankind (which means we accept the indisputable proof of science and evolution) we must come to the realization that humans have not always existed on this earth and will not always exist.  It  somewhat takes the wind out of our sails when we realize that nations and governments and leaders and wars and armies are the social concepts of human beings and in the scale of the cosmos are meaningless.    Perhaps we should consider the conundrum that Steve Hagen poses in his book buddhism Plain and Simple  that perhaps “we face the woeful prospect that we’re intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world.” (Though, I have a problem accepting the concept of blanket ‘human intelligence.)

At some point in the future our sun will burn out; at some point our galaxy will collide with Andromeda; at some point our earth will be hit by giant space objects; human climate change is effecting the chemical make up of our air and at some point will be irreversible; at some point a pandemic virus will evolve or be developed and released; or more likely, at some point a fanatical nation or group will bring about nuclear annihilation. 

The short form is that the human race, and the earth as we know it, will not always exist – and the lives of our forefathers and ourselves and our descendants will amount to a meaningless blink in space time.

Back to Steve Hagen and buddhism  Plain and Simple  - this should not be a downer, a reason for despair.   Through what ever accident of evolution, we have our time on this wonderful planet; and because our lives are finite we should not waste a day or an hour or a minute without being consciously aware and meditating on the wonder of the moment. 

Live in the moment, because you don’t matter. 

the Ol'Buzzard

A STUDY ON DEATH

Much has been written about death and dying.   Death is no stranger to me; I have seen enough of it.   However, my death has not resonated with me until the last few years.   It always seemed as something in such a far distant future as not to warrant concern. 

Even now, at my age, realizing my future is finite, I don’t worry about my demise – I don’t fear it; I view it as the final tribute that I owe to nature for a full and exciting life.

Yorick, I knew him well.

Aubade

A poem by Phillip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. 
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. 
In time the curtain-edges will grow light. 
Till then I see what's really always there: 
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, 
Making all thought impossible but how 
And where and when I shall myself die. 
Arid interrogation: yet the dread 
Of dying, and being dead, 
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. 
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse 
- The good not done, the love not given, time 
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because 
An only life can take so long to climb 
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; 
But at the total emptiness for ever, 
The sure extinction that we travel to 
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, 
Not to be anywhere, 
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. 

This is a special way of being afraid 
No trick dispels. Religion used to try, 
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade 
Created to pretend we never die, 
And specious stuff that says No rational being 
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing 
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound, 
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, 
Nothing to love or link with, 
The anasthetic from which none come round. 

And so it stays just on the edge of vision, 
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill 
That slows each impulse down to indecision. 
Most things may never happen: this one will, 
And realisation of it rages out 
In furnace-fear when we are caught without 
People or drink. Courage is no good: 
It means not scaring others. Being brave 
Lets no one off the grave. 
Death is no different whined at than withstood. 

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. 
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, 
Have always known, know that we can't escape, 
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. 
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring 
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring 
Intricate rented world begins to rouse. 
The sky is white as clay, with no sun. 
Work has to be done. 
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

“Faith is simply unjustified belief in matters of ultimate concern – specifically in propositions that promise some mechanism by which human life can be spared the ravages of time and death”

The End of Faith - by Sam Harris

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far from being on a cruise ship.   Most of your time is spent lying on your back.   The brain has shut down.   The flesh begins to soften.   Nothing much new is expected of you.”

Stiff - by Mary Roach

“The question is not ‘Why must I die?’ but ‘Why have I lived?’”

Christopher Hitchens

“…to die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub,

For in this sleep what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.”

Hamlet – Act 3, scene 1

William Shakespear

Quando Omni

Flunkus Moritati

(When all else fails – play dead)

The Possum Pledge from the Red Green show.

 CHEERS

the Ol'Buzzard

DREAMS

I don’t dream much.

Dreams are not some magical occurrence with mystical implications.   Dreams definitely do not portend the future.   There are thousands of synapses in the brain – electrical impulse centers that can fire in combinations (like binary counters in the early computers) to record memories, regulate body functions or produce a reaction to experienced stimuli. 

These synapses are still firing even when the body is at rest and consciousness is turned off. 

In ZEN meditation they call the inability to stay focused ‘your monkey mind.’   It takes a concerted effort to banish this monkey mind and stay focused on a task or on meditation.   Random thoughts pop into our consciousness at all moments during your waking day.   This is the results of random synapses firing and creating momentary combinations that become momentary distractions.

When we are asleep we loose control of the monkey; and when certain combinations occur that resonate with memories or emotions they move into our semiconscious in the form of dreams.   

Most of our dreams we never remember: like most TV advertisements, they flash and don’t resonate, so they vanish as soon as we are conscious of our new day’s distractions. 

However, most of us have recurring dreams.   These are likely parodies of some emotional experience that was traumatic in our past.   

I basically have four recurring dreams at distant intervals – these usually surface when I am overly tired and overly stressed.   The first is a military situation that is all fucked up with incompetents in charge.   The second is usually something to do with complications involving a school in a Native village.  In the third I am trying to get to my wife who needs me and there are people and situations impeding me. 

The fourth dream is strange: There is a massive three story elegant house – I don’t know what it looks like on the outside but the inside is furnished opulently. All the rooms seem to be decorated in a 1920’s era décor.     The house is empty except for me.   As I move upstairs I know that on the third floor there is something evil – abnormal and possibly dangerous.   I must go up on the third floor and the only access is a small trap door in the ceiling of one of the second story rooms.  I shimmy through the access and all the rooms on this third floor are grey tone and empty of furnishings.  There is this feeling that some place on this floor there is impending danger and I must confront it.   That’s it – it never goes any farther.

Is it possible that we could dream for some brief time after we die?   Could some synapses continue to randomly fire as the battery charges in our brain deplete?  Or as Shakespeare wrote: …ay, there’s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil…

Have a good night

the Ol’Buzzard      

  

THEY ARE JUST ABOUT ALL GONE

I remember talking to my mother just before she died.  She had outlived all her friends and relatives.   She said she dreamed a lot, and everybody she dreamed of was dead.

I don’t have those dreams; mainly because I don’t have any friends or family that I have ever kept in touch with.  

But today I have been thinking about the death of Earl Scruggs.   As a young man in the military in the early sixties I was a country fan before it was blue grass.  I would listen to Earnest Tubb, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and the real bluegrass – Flatt and Scruggs.   I had a half dozen Flatt and Scruggs albums; and I’d get drunk and try to pick and sing “You're Not A Drop in the Bucket When It Comes To Loving Me.”

All those albums are long gone, but those songs more than anything else bring back memories that seem like another world – another time and  place in some parallel universe that doesn’t exist - and never existed - in today’s reality.

Well, I couldn’t find “A Drop In The Bucket” but here is some Flatt and Scruggs at their best.

and one more from:The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.

the Ol'Buzzard

DEATH IN A CULTURAL PROSPECTIVE

DEATH AND TAXES ARE UNAVOIDABLE

But Hell, you can refuse to pay your taxes.

When you live next to a cemetery you cannot weep for everyone

Old Russian Proverb

The death industry in our culture is not to service the dead; but, its purpose is to exploitate the grief and to play on the guilt of family members of the deceased in order to bilk them for as much money as possible. This is a billion dollar industry that never has a recession.



There is the transportation to the funeral home, the embalming (now that’s a macabre business,) clothing, setting the hair, makeup, the coffin (that can cost as much as a small car – or a Mercedes if you’ve got the cash,) the viewing, the service, the trip to the cemetery, the plot and perhaps a wake. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Though some of this may seem necessary, it is all done by someone else – for pay. It is impersonal, and as a result it does not lend to closure.

In our culture we don’t want to be involved with the dead anymore than necessary. There is an unhealthy attitude of dread, disgust and fear attached to the dead – regardless to how close we were to the deceased. Especially for kids, in a time of mass media zombies and vampires, being forced to see a dead person is scary as hell.

They're comming to get you Barbara...

Death rituals in different cultures may seem bizarre when viewed from our removed cloistered and cultural mindset, but what is considered normal is a matter of cultural perspective.

In Athabascan Indian villages throughout Alaska, death is viewed as a natural passing. Native people grieve for their lost but they do not have the fear and revulsion of the dead that exist in our society.

Athabascan villages are matriarchal societies: the clan is counted through the mother line. When a death occurs, the women of the extended family bathe and clothe the dead, the men build a coffin which is then decorated by the women. The coffin and body is placed open in the living area of the home, and for the next few days (until the day of the funeral) the whole village comes to visit and to show concern and support for the family.

Beginning the day of the death the family of the deceased is expected to prepare breakfast, lunch and supper for the entire village. The extended family chips in with food and provisions but the preparation and serving is done by the women and children of the immediate family. Visitors come and fill their plates and sit and eat and talk in the room with the body, while the adults and children of the household are busy with the preparation and serving of food and the cleaning up. People, including children, come and go all day and into the night.

There is a constant vigil of the body and the house is always full of people talking and laughing, drinking tea or coffee, and recounting memories of the deceased. The body is never left alone.

By the day of the funeral the family of the deceased is exhausted. There is a Christian funeral of some denomination in a village church or hall before the coffin and body are buried ( In the far arctic the bodies are often kept frozen, either in the village or at Fairbanks, until the ground can thaw enough for the final burial and grave side service.)

Grave yard in an Athabascan village.

After the body is buried there is one more service to be performed: usually a potlatch is held.

A potlatch is a ceremonial get together and feeding of the entire village. Butcher block paper is rolled out on the floor of the village hall or meeting place. People bring their own plates and silverware and sit on the floor or on chairs on each side of the paper. The extended family, or group giving the potlatch, served moose head soup, wild meats, pasta salads, berry deserts and other cultural delicacies. Often at funeral potlatches guns, bandanas, and clothing are given away as gifts to the people attending. Potlatches always end with elders speaking or lecturing the assembled; and, at certain celebrative potlatches there is Indian singing and dancing. (It is worth noting that at one time the government, at the urging of churches, outlawed potlatches.)


You have heard that it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to bury the dead.


The Athabascan death ritual may seem strange or even bizarre when viewed from our cultural perspective. But the village has its own culture. In the village death is a natural occurrence and dead bodies are not feared. The body of the deceased (we seem to prefer that word to dead) is prepared and viewed and honored by the family prior to the funeral; and by the time of the funeral the family is exhausted from its obligation and homage to the passed family member. There has been support from the entire village, exhaustive labor and there is personal, family closure.



In my next and last post on death and culture I will discuss the handling of death in the Yup’ik Eskimo villages of southwest Alaska.

the Ol'Buzzard