As I was thinking about the burning of the little sacrifices to the
ancestors, it reminded me that I had also seen- but mostly heard- a
funeral procession yesterday. There was a great deal of noise-
firecrackers, hideous wailing brass instruments, and drums
accompanying a long line of mourners dressed in white with a body
shrouded in white at the middle of the line. I passed by in a matter
of seconds, but it was a better snapshot and feeling of the event than
I would have had spending all afternoon amid the event. The chaos of
the noises- for even the "music" was a wild assemblage of sounds with
no connections- and the stark blankness of the mourners garb was a
perfect picture of the lostness one is thrown into with the death of
someone close. All the world stops making sense and amid all the
sounds that once were music and daily life- one hears nothing and
feels nothing and just floats through life until enough time has
passed that the details start to coagulate again and one has to make
decisions and act and live- but thinking back there is always that
little part of oneself that is lost with the loss.
In my travels, it's one of three memorable funerals. I once had a
problem with the steering mechanism on the jeep in which I was
traveling- perhaps a broken tie rod, I'm not sure as I was neither
responsible for- nor capable of- repairs on that beast. My friends
Nick and Laurens and I were on the return leg of a trip onto the
grassland where we held a number of community meetings and filmed some
interviews with the locals. As the drivers laid on their backs under
the jeep on a gravel bed in the middle of a river we were using as our
highway, we sat in the sun against an eroded riverbank wondering if
we'd be heading on by dark. As we sat some specks came into view
high above us, wheeling in wide circles and tightening down slowly
over a peak to the north. As the birds locked onto their intended meal
they dropped lower and lower- growing from dark specks into the
unmistakable form of the Himalayan griffon. The griffon is an ugly
bird. It is huge- standing 4 feet tall and with a wingspan of over 6
feet. And it feeds only on dead flesh- fresh or rotten. I figured that
the birds must be after a dead animal or the birthing waste of some
yak- but as they glided towards the ground and landed they began
acting erratically. Some would jump about and take back to the air
again, others would spread their wings menacingly and the lot of them
never really convened onto a spot to feed. I grabbed a pair of
binoculars to see what was going on and witnessed my first sky burial.
It is the custom of the Tibetans to cut up the bodies of their dead
and feed them to the vultures who in turn will carry their spirits to
the skies.* On the mountainside, a monk was chanting as he cast the
pieces of the deceased over to the vultures. But for this unfortunate
soul there were hungrier and fiercer beasts about than the griffons
and I watched sadly as two tremendous Tibetan mastiffs viciously
fought off the birds for the right to gobble up a man's remains. This
funeral was one that conveyed to me the horror of death- the absolute
offensiveness of the end of life.
The other funeral was in Kathmandu. I first passed the procession in
the streets as the mourners- dressed in white and wailing- bore the
shrouded body to the cacophony of a brass and drum assemblage similar
to the one in China. True to the overpowering tide of life that is
Nepal and India- I scarcely had time to take in what was going on
before hordes of beggar children were pulling at my clothes and
wringing their hands and pleading for aid. "They've gotten worse, you
know" my companion said. "There was a foreigner who came through
handing dollar bills to every one of them". The funeral procession had
passed and we freed ourselves from the throng of children for whom we
felt miserable yet had to set some boundary or be dissolved into their
ocean of poverty without making a ripple. We were on our way to a park
on a terraced hill beside a river. By the time we got there the
funeral procession was arriving at the same place and I saw that all
along the river a stone walkway had been built with wide steps going
down to the water. On the steps were little piles of ashes and near
the entrance to the park was a stack of dry logs. As I climbed the
stone terraces to the wooded crest, temple monkeys ran about looking
for handouts and as I watched them scamper down the trail- filthy
vermin- my gaze fell back on the funeral procession below. They had
gathered round about the stack of logs and spread about on the steps beside
the water. On top of the wood was laid the deceased and as I watched
they put fire to him. More of the river was in view now and farther
down another group was pushing the ashes of another pyre into the
water. Outside of the gate masses of people filled the streets, some
selling accouterments for the ceremonies, others hawking food, others
simply taking up space. I looked for a few moments, then turned and
walked into the park. The mess of life- beggars and monkeys and crowds
and bodies being burned on dead trees and fed to the rivers- became a
hopeless cycling of nutrients.
But I remember a good funeral, one that wasn't a part of my travels.
At grandad's funeral we celebrated a great life. Some of us went
fishing. Some of us made music. Some of us played cards. Some of us
watched UNC basketball. All of us celebrated. We feasted on the best
that our community has to offer. We shared stories and memories with
family and friends and talked about how many lives our grandparents
had touched. And though we missed our friend and father and uncle and
grandad- the tenets of his faith stated that this was more than dust
to dust, more than meaningless nutrient cycling, more than the final
offense of life- it was a passage into something much better. In the
little bit that I've seen in a pitiful few years of life- I think that
the passage of my grandfather was far superior to the misery and
wailing and utter despair of the ones who have nothing to hope for and
indeed much to fear in death.
*Another explanation that I have heard for the sky burial is that gains merit as one is giving one's body as alms to the vultures. Cutting the body into pieces and throwing it into a river is also practiced.
