Digging for Answers 11/4/2010

Welcome to the Digging for Answers column on the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal.


This column will depend on your submission of questions about cemeteries, gravestones, burial practices, and other topics that concern a Graveyard Rabbit (other than where his next carrot is coming from!). So please send some questions to the editor, who will pass them along and keep the columnist hopping.

Question:

Scott asks: Why are bodies buried facing certain directions (east-west, north-south, etc.), or in certain attitudes (head up, head down, etc.)?

Answer:

We will discuss this as related to current burial practices in Western countries, and not related to practices before the 20th century. If someone wonders about earlier burial practices, we can discuss this in another column.

The burial orientation seems to be related to the religious beliefs of the deceased person and his/her family. For instance:

Christian burials are made in an extended position, lying flat with arms and legs straight, or with the arms folded on the chest, and with the eyes and mouth closed. The body may be laid lying on the back (supine) or on the front (prone). Traditionally, Christian burials were made with the body, in or out of a wooden, metal or concrete coffin, supine and with the head to the western end of the grave and the feet to the east. The tradition is that, at the coming of Christ, presumably in Israel, the faithful will be resurrected facing east. However, sometimes ordained Christian clergy are buried with the heads to the east and feet to the west, so as to be able to minister to their flock at the Resurrection.

In Jewish burials, the body lies flat, covered by a simple shroud, and is placed in a wooden coffin with no metal parts. I didn't see any traditions concerning coffin orientation in the article Jewish Funeral Customs: Saying Goodbye to a Loved One.

In Islamic burials, the body is placed in a shroud on its right side, without a coffin, and is placed in the ground with the head pointed toward, and the face turned toward, Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. There is more information in Islamic Funeral Rites.

Most modern Buddhists are cremated. However, a notable exception to this is the practice of sky burial by Tibetan Buddhists, in which a human corpse is cut in specific locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements and animals.

It was difficult to find current burial practices for Native-Americans. The Cherokee Blackfeet Cultural Circle website describes burial customs, including washing the body, wrapping it in a white cloth or sheet, putting it into a coffin, and burying it in the ground before the next sundown.

Thank you for the question, Scott.
 
Readers - please submit questions to the Online Graveyard Rabbit Journal editor, and she will pass them along for me to dig into and answer.