The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

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Based on the amount of scattered bones further downstream, not at all representative for the vast amount of cremations carried out on the Pashupatinath through the centuries (hundreds of thousands!), most of the bones actually disintegrate or are washed away by the river. At the same time the question arose: Was this ethically right? Not only where these remains of people who died tragically only the year before, they were also kings. Not only that: from a Hindu perspective they were gods, incarnations of Vishnu. And since they now live in the abode of Vishnu as a part of Vishnu, the question was not only to dig up the kings’ bones, but the divinities’ bones at the most holy place in Nepal. In theory it is equal to if we had located the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, and now wanted to excavate his bones (notwithstanding the problem concerning finding such a tomb, if you believe in a bodily resurrection). Here we had a major difference: the religious and cultural context. Although Pashupatinath is a pilgrimage site and the holiest place in Nepal, the place where the ashes of the kings where immersed into the river was not a pilgrimage site regarding the kings’ bones as relics. Bagmati River is holiest at this spot, but not because of the royal cremations, and not because of the human remains which were integrated in the riverbed. After a couple of days’ discussions, we eventually decided to search for the bones. While cremations were conducted only some few metres away further downstream, we began to dig carefully in the riverbed with our hands. Within a few seconds we found cremated remains which only could stem from the kings (figs. 5-6). 54 Fig. 5. The royal cremation platform is to the right and the ghat for high castes downstream. Photo: Terje Oestigaard. Fig. 6. Cremated bones found in front of the royal platform. Photo: Terje Oestigaard.
We documented the finds and our work next to Hindu worshippers who did not take any offence, and did not even react to our presence. After that we put the remains back into the sand in the riverbed, and we left the bones as we found them in the river without taking any pieces with us. The fact that cremations were conducted by cremation priests just some few metres away from us indicated that we did not violate any taboos, and later that day we asked one of the cremation priests who had cremated the kings if it would have been wrong if someone collected the physical remains of the kings from the river. The priest did not understand the question, or more precisely, the question did not make sense to him. He could not see the use or reason in such an action. After the cremation was completed, the bones in themselves had no value – they were more or less equivalent to the sand and the stones in the riverbed. They were of the same element, and not particularly related to the deceased king anymore. The kings were in heaven as Vishnu, while the physical remains of the dead body had returned to its elements. The fact that there is no relic industry of this kind in Nepal, where the bones would have been sold, indicates that the bones are unimportant. This is contrary to the importance of relics of the saints in Christianity, not to mention all the forests which have been cut and where each little piece allegedly represents the original cross on which Jesus was crucified. The cremated bones from the kings’ bodies were now nothing more then the stones in the riverbed, in keeping with the old Vedic beliefs. The homology of the Vedic/Hindu creation myths is, as we have shown above, a basic cosmological idea. Flesh and earth, bone and stone, may be viewed as alternative forms in a continuous process, whereby one form is constantly being transmuted into another (Kaliff 2007). An example of this principle is shown at the Kaligandaki River, where almost all saligram in Nepal is found. From a geological point of view, saligram is an ammonite fossil and the remains of an aquatic animal that is preserved in rock. In the Hindu religion, on the other hand, saligram is an embodiment, a physical manifestation or visible incarnation of Vishnu. A burial at Nire Ghat – the largest cemetery along Kaligandaki River – is praised even though cremation is the most preferable. After some years, according to the local belief, the water will transform the deceased’s bones into saligram. Thus, they have become an incarnation of Vishnu. The saligram stones are collected and sold throughout the country even though the local lore says that they are transformed from human bones (Oestigaard 2000). Returning to Pashupatinath, the kings’ bones were not holy themselves because then they would have been used for some sacred purpose. However, after thinking for some while the cremation priest we interviewed concluded that the bones should preferably stay in the river, if there were any remains left, since this marked that the cremations were completed. The elements of the body should return to their original form – fire to fire, water to water, earth to earth. Nevertheless, remains from the pyres, clothes and flowers given to the deceased are collected regularly from the riverbed at Pashupatinath in order to avoid contamination of the river, not because they should not have been left in the river if possible, but because it will clutter up the stream. It is in this light the statement that the human remains had to be in the river should be understood. Nevertheless, shamans may, for instance, collect bones in the river for various purposes which are accepted within the Nepalese cultural context. Whose Ethics? The terms “emic” and “etic” were introduced by Marvin Harris (1964, 1979) to designate the difference between the native’s and the anthropologist’s point of view, and the question is: whose ethics are we going to use? If we use our ethics in other cultures, this may represent a new form of colonialism, or is it possible to find a kind of universal approach to this problem? In our opinion, the most important basis for achieving an ethical relationship to archaeological investigations of graves and human remains is a matter of self-reflection, combined with a respectful approach towards the local culture. There is no manual for this, since the perspectives and judgements are likely to vary between cultural contexts, and from individual to individual. We think that one point of departure is the individual view of death and the dead people that we ourselves once knew, mourned and respected. We could also reflect on our own views – how would we like to be buried, and how permanent such a burial would be, for instance until some archaeologists turn up some centuries later. Beliefs connected with death rituals and the handlings of bodily remains vary between different cultures. Our own culture, feelings and thoughts, as well as individual variations on this, are unavoidably mixed with our archaeological – or scientific – definitions and interpretations. It is impossible to deal with burial rituals or deposits of human remains, or even use the word grave or burial, without in some way associating to the definition of these terms in our own context. To a varying degree, this is also valid for many other archaeological terms, but the fact becomes especially clear when we use words that retain strong emotional connotations even today. In the archaeological object that we call grave, our whole repertoire of sentiments of death – anxiety, hopes, grief or even indifference – collide with the wish to perform a scientific description and analysis. The difference between two languages, our own sentiments and the will to describe objectively, is always present in scientific work, but with death and burial rituals it perhaps becomes even more apparent (Kaliff 2004, 2007). 55
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The Materiality of Death Bodies, bu
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Contents Chapter 1. The Materiality
Page 6 and 7:
Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
Page 8 and 9: ather one has to emphasise the mate
Page 10 and 11: dead are often regarded as unfriend
Page 12 and 13: Fig 3. The old man Tei Tetuna by hi
Page 14 and 15: The Materiality of Social Change: H
Page 16 and 17: The Materiality of Eternity - The A
Page 18 and 19: FAHLANDER, F. & OESTIGAARD, T. 2004
Page 20 and 21: Susanne Kuechler-Fogden, Webb Keane
Page 23 and 24: Chapter 2 More than Metaphor: Appro
Page 25 and 26: discuss death and the treatment of
Page 27 and 28: had to deal with. This is not to sa
Page 29 and 30: hide that could be removed to expos
Page 31 and 32: pp111-123. Philadelphia: University
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 3 A Piece of the Mesolithic
Page 35 and 36: The main point is that the division
Page 37 and 38: A Piece of the Mesolithic: Skatehol
Page 39 and 40: question we need to construct some
Page 41 and 42: Fig. 4. Skateholm I (above) and Ska
Page 43 and 44: visible many years after the origin
Page 45 and 46: Phase Area Properties Interpretatio
Page 47 and 48: phase of one site with a contempora
Page 49: MILNER, N. & WOODMAN, P. 2005. Meso
Page 52 and 53: with dead people belonging to other
Page 54 and 55: Fig. 2. Due to the extraordinaire c
Page 56 and 57: As with all cremations in Hinduism,
Page 60 and 61: To have an ethical approach involve
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 5 From Corpse to Ancestor:
Page 65 and 66: Figure 2. Isola Sacra, Tomb 100. Ph
Page 67 and 68: Figure 4. Isola Sacra, Tomb 87. Pho
Page 73: 69 Burials
Page 76 and 77: through careful recording of the or
Page 78 and 79: Figure 4: Pencraig Hill: Distributi
Page 80 and 81: focussed on use of partial sets of
Page 83 and 84: Chapter 7 Ritual and Remembrance at
Page 85 and 86: urial (tomba a doppio loculo tipo M
Page 87 and 88: ‘original’ walls of the tomb. L
Page 89 and 90: chambers cut into two earlier trenc
Page 91: Madison: Prehistory Press, Monograp
Page 94 and 95: Well-organized cemeteries or messy
Page 96 and 97: influenced who was buried inside th
Page 98 and 99: it was quite short, which could ind
Page 100 and 101: References ARTELIUS, TORE 2004. Min
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 9 Life and Death in the Bro
Page 105 and 106: Fig. 5.1. Cremation necropolis at P
Page 107 and 108: place. These burials were very simp
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Chapter 10 Norwegian Face-Urns: Loc
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The recurring themes in the debate
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The local context of the Norwegian
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Death is the inevitable conclusion
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OESTIGAARD, T. 1999. Cremations as
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Chapter 11 The Use of Ochre in Ston
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Ochre was used so intensively that
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Fig. 5. Zvejnieki burial ground. Th
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grave has been dated to 5690±45 BP
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Khanty of northern Siberia, the col
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125 Beliefs
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Chapter 12 ”Death Myths”: Perfo
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Variation within the same cist Bø,
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Variation within the same mound Lyd
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Figures 6 and 7. Modvo, Luster muni
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To what extent there have been corr
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when they die, a probable explanati
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fragmented spindles, iron weaving s
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Chapter 13 Reproduction and Relocat
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may be questioned, and analysed mor
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References Andersson, G. 1997: A st
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Chapter 14 A Road for the Viking’
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Figure 2. The Jarlabanke Bridge tha
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Chapter 15 A Road to the Other Side
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Fig. 4. Clearing the bridge on an e
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Chapter 16 Stones and Bones: The My
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Fig. 4. An Iron Age scene at Sylta
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Fig. 7. The resemblance between cru
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