Whitfield, Jerome T;
Pako, Wandagi H;
Alpers, Michael P;
(2024)
Robert Hertz, Anthropophagic Practices and Traditional South Fore Mortuary Rites in Papua New Guinea.
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
10.1177/00302228241239210.
(In press).
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Abstract
In this paper we examine the traditional mortuary rites of the South Fore people of Papua New Guinea using Robert Hertz’s theory of secondary burial and the three mechanisms of mourning identified by Daniel Lagache. The ethnographic data that we obtained on South Fore interpretations of their own mortuary rites showed that all forms of corpse handling achieved the same end results through the process of secondary burial. Furthermore, the three mechanisms of mourning applied equally to all forms of corpse disposal and we found no evidence to support psychosexual interpretations of mortuary anthropophagy which emphasise aggression. South Fore interpretations of mortuary anthropophagy show that the dead were eaten out of love, and to protect the mourners from the painful emotion of witnessing the decomposition of the corpse. These findings affirm the relevance of the concepts of Hertz and Lagache to the universal human experiences of death and mourning.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Robert Hertz, Anthropophagic Practices and Traditional South Fore Mortuary Rites in Papua New Guinea |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/00302228241239210 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228241239210 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s), 2024. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | mortuary rites, south fore, Robert Hertz, Daniel Lagache, cannibalism, transumption |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases > MRC Prion Unit at UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10189309 |
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