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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept

Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept

Wiebe, Donald
McCorkle Jr, William W.

Paperback

Series: Toronto Studies in Religion, Book 30

AnthropologyBuddhismDeath & Dying

Publisher Price: $64.45

ISBN10: 1433110105
ISBN13: 9781433110108
Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
Published: Apr 16 2010
Pages: 182
Language: English
Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased traces mortuary behavior from the early fossil record to modern religious contexts in diverse cultural settings. By using archival and ethnographic evidence from Buddhist traditions, the author highlights the disparity between doctrines that contradict actual practices performed by Buddhists themselves. By appealing to the evolved cognitive architecture of human minds, this book argues that ritualized disposal behavior is the by-product of mental systems designed to handle living people. Due to complex social intelligence, humans are compelled to handle dead people in ritualized behaviors and to represent them in counterintuitive ways. The author also examines the professional religious guilds that have taken advantage of these ritualized compulsions over the last several thousand years, by giving and controlling the meanings behind these actions. Furthermore, experimental evidence is given to support this hypothesis, providing the first mature cognitive and evolutionary theory for mortuary behavior by humans.

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