Where the Deaths Go: Some Reflections about the Relations between Livings and Deaths in Differents Types of Societies around the World

Abstract

According to Robert Hertz, death means a change in social relations. The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the kind of mediation that different world populations establish with their deaths. We compared examples from different eras and regions, and three main strategies are identified which, even if they admit certain number of variations, can be characterized by the persistence of a common logic. These are: distance, in which identities and relations are modified; recycling, when identities are maintained but relations are transformed; and retention, which accepts the transmutation of identities, but not of relations. Once described the qualities of each one, we show that, far from being able to identify any economic-social conditioning, these strategies can coexist as possibilities in the mind of every society.