For the Torres Strait Islanders, death is something that is not taken lightly. The people of this indigenous community do not fear death; however, the death of friends and family members brings extreme grief, just as it does with any other society. In some ways the Torres Strait Islander’s death ceremonies are no different than ours, they mainly consist of a burial and a mourning period. Although there are some similarities, there are many more differences.
When a person dies in the Torres Strait Islands, it becomes a community event. After the death of an Islander, it is not just the close family and friends that attend the ceremony, the whole community usually gets involved. It is common for the entire community to feel distress, which seems different than the U.S. because usually if we do not know the person who passed or their family, we don’t really give it much thought. The Islanders believe that if there is not a proper ceremony and burial, the spirit of the deceased can come back and cause harm to the community. This is the last thing that the Islanders want, so they make sure to do everything properly. Following the death of a loved one, there are generally two stages to the burial; the primary burial and the secondary burial. The primary
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When Islander die, their spirits sail to Kibu at sundown with the prevailing winds” (Cordell, John). So, the ultimate goal of the Islanders is to send the spirit of the deceased to Kibu by performing all of these rituals and ceremonies. In order for the spirit to be able to make it to Kibu, the family must perform the tombstone opening ceremony (no tomb is actually opened). The in-laws are usually the ones who get an engraved headstone for the family to uncover during this ceremony. All of these practices are just some of the things required for a deceased spirit to be
The Day of Mourning Protest, held in Sydney’s Australian Hall on the 26th of January, 1938, was an event organised by the Aborigines Progressive Organisation (APO) in a call for Aboriginal civil rights. It was held on the symbolic sesquicentenary of the British landing at Sydney Cove, as the day represented 150 years of Aboriginal suffering under the Whitemen. All “Aborigines and Persons of Aboriginal Blood” were invited to attend (APO, 1938 in BGGS, 2017, pg. 23).
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014).
This chapter focuses on the epidemic of suicides that occurred in the Tiwi Islands between 1997 and through to 2007. During this period there were 36 suicides in total, 33 of which were involved in 12 distinct clusters, against the backdrop of unrelenting multiple suicide attempts (Hanssens 2010, p. 19). In Australia, 2001 to 2010, 4.2% of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths were suicides, significantly higher than 1.6% for all Australians (ABS 2012). For the same year range, the rate of suicides within the Northern Territory for the Indigenous population was 30.8 per 100,000 whereas for the non-Indigenous population it was 16.4 per 100,000 (ABS 2012). At the peak of the epidemic in 2002, the rate of suicides for the Tiwi Islands
The loss of a loved one and the process of grief is one of the most traumatic experiences. It breaks down and pushes past the barriers of society, religion, and culture. It is one of the world’s great mysteries that are unavoidable and misunderstood. As universal as it is, grief often is experienced on a personal/individual level and the impact it takes weighs heavily on the psychological functioning of many. Distress comes not only to the person who lost something or someone, but also families, friends and communities. Everyone is affected by grief. Societies have developed a range of rituals and customs to enable grief support. The customs vary throughout cultures, religions and ethnicities. Some mourn through Funeral services (parlors) while others may bury right away and mourn Shiva in the comfort of their own homes. Some have burials, others prefer cremation. Eulogies, obituaries, biographies, there are multitudes of ways to celebrate and spread the news of the loss of a loved one and the celebration of life. There are also clinical and non-clinical forms of grief management. In recent years studies have shown that there has been a significant and fast growing addition to these historic rituals. The internet has supported new formations for the expression of grief. It provides a new found path to further share bereavement through social and occupational tools.
History continues to impact Aboriginal / Torres Strait islander people today. There has been some improvements over the years but not enough when compared to other Australians. They have the highest growth rate, birth rate, death rate, the worst health and housing and the lowest educational, occupational, economic, social & legal status of any identifiable section of the Australian
It was of the most important ceremonies the Huron’s did, generally referred it to “the Kettle.” If the bodies did not sustain violent death they would remove them from their temporary burials in the village’s cemeteries to a great big ossuary. It appeared to held whenever a large village were to move and thus can “no longer possible to protect and care for the bodies buried in the adjacent cemetery.” It is very important to the Huron’s that the bodies were placed in a common grave “because their dead relatives were united in this way.” They invited other friendly tribes to attend this ceremony. The final burials was away to release the souls of the dead, and allow then to go to the land where Iouskeha and Aataentsic lived.
Sylvia Grider. “Public Grief and the Politics of Memorial.” Anthropology Today (London), June 2007, 3-7. Print.
According to a study, many difficult cultures have the tendency to establish their methods of coping, whether it is through religion, culture, or/and personal ideologies (Chen, 2012). Mourning and burial ceremonies play a pivotal role for Lossography due to individuals having the ability and liberty to express melancholy and sometimes jubilation during the times they once had with their loved one. These types of beliefs and practices used as coping mechanisms can be very meaningful and profound for the comfort of the individual who’s going through a mournful experience (Chen, 2012). These types of coping mechanisms is important for Lossography, due to the fact that individuals are able to convey emotions through traditional practices, archaic arts and crafts, and spiritual rituals to fully find meaning with the death of their loved one. In addition, having established beliefs can definitely change the perception of what death signifies based upon religious and cultural expectations of the afterlife. However, not all cultures and religions put much emphasis into the afterlife. For instance, the monotheistic religion Judaism does not contain any interpretation of what happens after someone dies. Judaists believe that nothing happens after death, death is considered a taboo and not something that is commonly talked about for these religious individuals. Lossography, in religion may take on many forms for how death is perceived and for what actions can people take to ensure that their death will bring them to a place of peace, joy, and everlasting life. Lossography regarding religion, gives individuals hope that death is not the end, it gives them hope that knowing that person may not be here with us in the flesh, but that person is somewhere smiling down. Lossography in religion,
Death is a difficult reality to face, especially when it concerns a loved one, and the way in which individuals approach their grief can critically affect how they move through the healing process. In James Baldwin’s Notes of A Native Son, Baldwin’s father dies and Baldwin approaches this loss through a multitude of complex emotional reactions. Like Baldwin, many individuals deal with the loss of someone close to them through a variety of coping mechanisms, such as ignoring the reality of the situation, clinging to emotional responses like devastation or outrage, and eventually experiencing relief and emotional rest.
Between 2001-2010 the suicide rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were twice that of non-Indigenous people.1 These high rates are attributed to social, economic and historic determinants that impact on the emotional and social wellbeing and mental health of Indigenous people.2 Suicide is a tragic endpoint, not only affecting the individual but also the whole extended family and ongoing repercussions of the Indigenous community.3 Culturally appropriate interventions can be achieved by acknowledging the implications of colonialisation and the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma on Australia’s Indigenous population.4 It is important from a public health perspective to develop
Ronald, M, Catherine, H, 1988, The World of the First Australians Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra
Death is sometimes considered unthinkable. People do not wish to think of loved ones dying. When someone close to us dies we are over come with sadness. We wish we had more time with them. Their death shows us the importance of that person’s role in our lives. We begin to think of how we will live our lives without them. We think of all the moments we shared with them, they live again in our memories. Perhaps death is considered unthinkable because we fe...
Older human cultures, such as the Native Americans, held rituals responding to the death of their people. Today people still hold rituals in honor of the dead, yet people now do not perform these acts. The practices used by Native American groups and tribes were better than the modern American customs used today. Therefore, more people who cannot handle the stress of death should practice these ideas to end the stress and griefing that happens today.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been the first nations, which represented the whole Australian population, for centuries. However, the continuous European colonization has severely affected these peoples and, over the decades, their unique values and cultures, which enriched the life of Australian nation and communities, were not respected and discriminated by numerous restrictive policies. As a result, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have turned into the voiceless minority of the Australian population. Fortunately, in recent years, these issues became the concern of the Australian government, promoting a slight improvement in the well being of native Australians. Nowadays, there are numerous social work
Renato Rosaldo in his article “Grief and a Headhunters Rage” uses ethnographic reflexivity to show how in the beginning of his fieldwork he “was not yet in a position to comprehend the force of anger possible in bereavement” (Rosaldo, 7) and that it wasn’t until fourteen years later when he experienced the loss of his wife that he could comprehend what the Ilongots had told him about grief, rage, and headhunting. Rosaldo then writes “I began to fathom the force of what Ilongots had been telling me about their losses through my own loss, and not through any systematic preparation for field research” (Rosaldo, 8). Renato Rosaldo’s own experiences had helped him to understand and empathize with the Ilongots, who fourteen years earlier, he was not able to understand that the Ilongot’s statement that “Rage, born of grief, impels him to kill his fellow human beings.” (Rosaldo, 1)Rosaldo’s writings point out that having similar experiences allows the anthropologist to understand and empathize with the people they are studying. This comprehension on the anthropologist’s behalf allows for easier accessibility and transcription to the general public. Shared experiences, however, allow for more biases and interpretations to seep into the anthropologist’s writing. It is more likely that the anthropologist will use his or her own experiences and interpretations when writing on the culture. Renato Rosaldo addresses this issue when he writes, “by invoking personal experience as an analytical category one risks easy dismissal” (Rosaldo, 11).