Definition
Funerals and memorial practices refer to the various religious, cultural, and kinship rituals that mark the death of an individual and provide social support to the bereaved individuals.
Overview
From time immemorial, humans have gathered in the face of death to ritualize the passage from life to death. First credited with coining the term, “rites of passage,” in the early twentieth century, van Gennep (1960) studied tribal ceremonies to better understand how people groups utilize rituals to express emotion following a community or family member’s death. Anecdotally, traditional funeral practices are more widely embraced by older members of a society while younger members of a group seem open to experimentation and new styles of memorialization.
Funerals and memorial practices exist for two reasons and individuals and groups may hold one or some combination of these beliefs. Among many people groups,...
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Hoy, W.G. (2020). Funerals and Memorial Practices. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_1009-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_1009-1
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