Books: How the Other Half Dies

FUNERAL CUSTOMS THE WORLD OVER (973 pp.)—Robert Habenstein and William Lamers—Bulfin Printers ($12).

Man is a funereal animal. For reasons best known to his witch doctors (sometimes also called head shrinkers) he often shows less interest in the living than he does in the dead. In this ponderous but morbidly fascinating volume—a sequel to that unintentionally hilarious masterpiece of exequial scholarship, The History of American Funeral Directing (TIME, Oct.

24, 1955)—Sociologist Robert Habenstein and Historian William Lamers have attempted to describe for U.S. readers how the other half dies.

In most parts of the world, the authors report, death gives warning of its approach. Boards creak, bushes rustle, dogs howl. In Poland, according to one old superstition, when a man discovers a white spot underneath the nail of the little finger, left hand, he knows he's had it. When death is near, most societies require the presence of close relatives and a religious functionary. In Tibet, a lama must be there to pluck a hair of the dying man's head so that the soul can escape through the root-hole. In Turkey, a hoca (holy man) wets the dying man's throat with water—if a soul gets too thirsty as it climbs the hill of eternity, it will surely sell itself to the Devil for a cooling drink, In Yucatan, on the other hand, the Chan Kom tribesmen beat the dying with a rope and urge them to get on with it.

Prayer by the Squirt. When life is gone, mourning begins. Its variations are endless. Until recently, the Dakota Indians slashed themselves with knives, sometimes even killed themselves in transports of bereavement. The Ovimbundu simply wear a leather thong on the left wrist.

When a king dies, the Buganda of Uganda raditionally slaughter all his wives—along with hundreds of ordinary tribesmen—to keep the old boy company. Poles abstain from sewing, for fear of pricking the soul of the departed. Many Jews, after the death of a close relative, abstain from sexual intercourse for seven days.

Mongols abstain from marrying for three years. Moslems may call in a professional prayer artist, who prays into an airtight goatskin until he has blown it squeaky-full of airy prayer, which he sells at so much a squirt.

In the midst of such goings on, the body is prepared for burial. In many societies the big toes of the corpse, or sometimes the ankles, are tied together, usually in order to keep the spirit of the dead from wandering around the house. Mongols anoint the forehead of the corpse with butter and then place a yellow willow leaf upon the same spot 72 times. The Buganda remove the intestines from the body, wash them in a kind of beer and save the beer, which is then imbibed by the dead man's widows. In most societies some sort of death dress is provided, but seldom, except in the most primitive tribes, and in the U.S., is the face of the corpse painted to drive away the "evil spirits"—namely, the fears of the living in the presence of the dead.

Dead Man's Door. The celebration of the funeral usually begins with some sort of dance, drama or procession. The Dahomeans of West Africa dance with the corpse before they throw it in the grave.