Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual

By Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington

Book Overview

This revised edition of a cross-cultural study of rituals surrounding death has become a standard text in anthropology, sociology, and religion. Part of its fascination and success is that in understanding other people's death rituals we are able to gain a better understanding of our own. Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington refer to a wide variety of examples from different continents and epochs. They compare the great tombs of the Berawan of Borneo and the pyramids of Egypt, or the dramas of medieval French royal funerals and the burial alive of the Dinka masters of the spear in the Sudan, and other burials which at first sight seem to have little in common. Many of these cases are anthropological classics, and the authors use these examples partly in order to illustrate the many different ways in which anthropologists have tried to interpret these rites. A new introduction reviews theoretical developments in the anthropological study of death since the book first appeared in 1979.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521423759
• ISBN13: 9780521423755
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Celebration of death

I am so impressed with the information in this book, it has been an asset for my research.

Good Book for a new Anthropologist

This is a good book which deals with funerary rites and traditions. It looks at how death is celebrated in various countries and through different cultures. I gave it four stars instead of five as I had hoped it would have dealt more with persons from an African and Aborigine environments.

Groundbreaking ethnographies

This is by far the most enjoyable and fascinating comparative case-studies I've read concerning treatment of the dead in Southeast Asia. I suggest this book to anyone wishing to crossculturally examine views of the deceased and the rituals associated with death. Superb, absolutely brilliant. Raven Digitalis