medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Black is not universally the color of death. I grew up in Nigeria, in
the Yoruba area, where white is the color of death. Whites, especially
in rural areas, were regularly greeted with "Oyinbo!" (various regional
variations) meaning "peeled skin" or walking dead. THAT derives from a
much older tradition in which corpses were wrapped in straw mats & stuck
up in trees to, um, ripen. At a certain stage, an old man who kept very
long fingernails for the purpse, would scratch the pigmented layer of
skin off & leave the corpse kinda white.
Do not try this at home.
DW
Cecil T Ault wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Black has been the color in infinity/life/death in the Indo-European
> world for millenia. For the Greeks, it was the darkness of the
> underworld. In India, to this day, black is the color of the goddess
> Kali who is, herself, black. She is all powerful. She is life and
> death. She wears a garland of skulls around her neck. In her begnin
> manifestation, she is Durga, the wife of Shiva. She is still
> worshipped in north east India. yrs, tom ault
>
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:49:22 +0000
> Ursula Troche <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
>> culture
>>
>>
>> Dear Rochelle, Christopher, Meg, Otfried and others,
>> basically then the evidence of recognition is far greater than the
>> funeral director's 'folklore/myth'. Or can it be that different parts
>> of the country had different beliefs - or perhaps there were
>> different beliefs at different times? Or should we discard the
>> undertaker completely? I had also heard about the belief that the
>> spirits of the dead will acquire new bodies - they used to believe
>> that in at least parts of Germany (where i am from) as well. The
>> belief there went beyond funerals, they thought that even vice versa,
>> that in winter at night the spirits of the trees could attack those
>> of the dead (except those who died by sacrifice). Did this belief
>> also exist in Britain? The idea of the sacrifice sounds quite
>> horrible but as to the spirits of the deceased acquiring new bodies
>> that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
>> And also there is a question on whether these beliefs belonged to
>> medieval Christianity or 'only' to pagans.
>> Where can I read more on the issue? Any literature you can recommend?
>> Ursula
>>
>> Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
>> culture
>>
>> From: "Cormack, Margaret Jean"
>>
>>> As I recall from the original posting...it was the claim of a funeral
>>
>> director (not a historian) that the deceased would not be able to
>> recognize
>> family members.
>> that's right.
>>
>>> This strikes me as most unlikely, considering the number of
>>> folkloric ghosts
>>
>> that return from the dead precisely to warn the living to reform
>> their lives.
>> I�ve never heard or read of a recognition problem.
>> of course, the phenomenon (from our Rationalistic point of view) is
>> purely the
>> creation of the *living*, not the dead. that being the case,
>> recognition of
>> the former by the latter is a Given.
>>
>>> I�m guessing that this is just a guess by the funeral director.
>>
>>
>> well, i guess it may have originally been a "guess", but i believe by
>> now what
>> we're dealing with is a pretty solid piece of Undertakerly Folklore.
>>
>> c
>
>
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