Grief often accompanies the loss of someone close and can be a difficult process.
“When an individual passes away, they leave a hole not only in our hearts but also in our social networks, in our family lives, in our village, or town or community,” says Shannon Lee Dawdy, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.
But what can we do with this gaping hole? For many, hosting a funeral or participating in a death ritual to say goodbye to the deceased channels this grief. Funeral rituals allow people to come together and not only acknowledge their loss, but also come to an understanding of how to go on and re-weave the social fabric, explains Dawdy. Death rituals are much more than just for healing individually; they also allow different communities to unite and fix rips or tears in their social fabric in their own ways, she says.
