Disaster Means Burial Without Ritual
Jan. 2, 2005 — -- As authorities across 12 stricken nations grapple with the overwhelming number of dead from last week's earthquake and tsunamis, people from a wide range of religions are being forced to forgo their usual rituals in parting with lost loved ones.
"People are so completely devastated that normal rituals cannot be held," Gonanath Obeyesekere, a Princeton University anthropology professor emeritus, told ABC News Now's Hari Sreenivasan by phone from Sri Lanka. "Bodies are being buried en mass and in many instances you simply don't have a corpse."
In Indonesia, where some 88 percent of the population is Muslim, authorities uneasy about the spread of disease began burying bodies, sometimes in mass graves, as soon as they were recovered.
Across the Indian Ocean, Hindus in India have been resorting to the same measure, while reports from predominantly Buddhist Thailand said bodies were simply being wrapped in cloth and buried quickly.
This makes the tragedy even crueler for those who lost loved ones and who now can't even provide their lost friends and relatives with a proper farewell.
"In virtually every society, mourning rituals are important for the living so they can accept the loss as well as for the dead so they can pass on to some happier existence," said Obeyesekere.
While the different religions have varying views on death and its significance, each has carefully prescribed ceremonies to part with the dead.
Among Hindus, funerals are an important way of marking the passage between this life and the next. After death, the person is wrapped in cloth and funeral processions are held as quickly as possible to hasten the person's passage into his or her next life. The body is usually sprinkled with holy water and a fire is lighted beneath it by the eldest son if the person is a parent, or by the father if a child dies. Ashes are then commonly spread in a holy place, such as a river.
Buddhists in Thailand usually wash and place the corpse of lost loved ones in caskets. With a Buddhist monk presiding, the body is placed on a funeral pyre and cremated. The ceremony is believed to ease the deceased's transition into a new, happy existence.
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