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Houses for the dead...what about the living?
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Sanctuary
Sanctuary
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 07, 2010, 14:58
BuckyE wrote:
As Devil's Advocate, I'd say the resemblances could be, maybe not coincidental, exactly, but possibly the result of what might be called "habit of mind"?

As in, "This is the way 'houses' are built." For the living people, the dead ancestors, the animals, the tools, whatever.


Well I read somewhere that the dead 'Should be able to walk freely amongst us and live in homes that were no different from those they knew'. Hmmm.
It is a popular belief that the dead were 'consulted' in matters of great importance and of course this belief still exists in places such as New Guinea today. I don't know if anyone watched it, but about 18 months ago I watched a programme I think on the Discovery channel where an expert on human orthopedic reconstruction from the States was called in to make some running repairs on a Chieftain that had died about 20 years previously and was propped up in a makeshift chair on this shelf of stone outside. Alongside him were his own father and grandfather who were just a pile of bones on the ground (I couldn't help but laugh when I saw them) but they took it all so seriously. The son of the dead chieftain could no longer speak to his father every day and ask for advice on all matters because he had fallen apart so much. It was extremely moving when the 'repair man' and his team had put him all back together again to see the joy and delight on the face of the son who considered his father alive once again and upright in his chair back on the ledge. What a hell of a belief that is eh!
It then showed how the current chief was demonstrating to his tribe how he was to be mummified and his organs removed on his own death by having something like a goat or sheep stretched out on this frame while he removed all the bits. Being a chippy I would have been tempted to make him his own chair if I'd have been part of that team. No mortise and tenons in that one mind you just vine and goodwill holding it all together!!
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