Ummm
Yeah, I dunno what to say. As a cultural anthropologist*, I’d really like to go into more detail about the whole death / funeral / burial practices here, but anything I say might come out sounding disrespectful to the wonderful people of the Philippines. The things involved are mind-boggling to an American who is used to a nice, clean, sanitary, pre-packaged, McFuneral.
Part of the problem is simply Roman Catholic tradition in these parts, as portrayed by a nine-day novena that involves having the body laying around for nine days in very high temperatures. I suspect this goes back to a time when medical care involved sticks and stones, and having a pronouncement of death from a qualified doctor was basically impossible. So if Grandma wakes up after four days of the novena, you convert your funeral to a party and everyone who came to the island via kayak for the funeral can celebrate.
In the other corner is the temperature danger zone, followed as gospel by professional chefs everywhere. If you calculate almost any reasonable tempurature over this much time, it’s bound to be bad. And as you might know already, the temperature here is far from reasonable.
So what to do? My choice: cremation immediately after I die. If anyone cares enough to hold a novena they can have that with an urn full of my ashes and a big Photoshopped picture of me sleeping peacefully or something. Follow that with sprinkling my ashes at sea, and anyone in the world can visit my grave simply by swimming in the Pacific ocean. I’m on the record, folks!
*(Just kidding about that part.)
September 11th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Hey Steve,
I like the cremation thing too. That’s a good idea. I spread my friend’s ashes on the Boston Common last winter and I was so surprised at how course they were. Even on the chunky side, totally dry though…I wonder if they spread your ashes in the Pacific, if you might get reconsituted and come back to life, and then you’d have to fight off those pesky mosquitoes again