Now THIS is a neat idea:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/dead-people-are-cool-crematorium-heat-powers-air-conditioning.php
Apparently the Taipei Second Funeral Parlor in Taiwan plan is now harnessing waste heat from their crematorium furnaces and running it through a heat exchanger to generate electricity to run the air-conditioning system.
The best part? It caught on. A crematorium in East Sussex started doing the same thing in December 2009:
http://flickeringpictures.com/2009/12/11/uk-crematorium-plans-to-convert-corpses-into-electricity/
Okay, granted, the specific heat of the cremations themselves isn't the ONLY heat energy being converted into electricity (there's apparently a LOT of waste heat generated by the furnace required to render Uncle Fester into a pile of ashes), but it's still an efficient concept - moreso than not doing it at all, at any rate... so why stop there? I mean... humans are living bio-electrical batteries that general quite a lot of extraneous heat and energy... but then my next question is... how far are we away from THIS?
http://yoavdembak.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/free-yourself-from-the-matrix.jpg
'Status' - if one was to crack open an Anthropology textbook or look it up online, is defined as:
"the position one has in a social network. The name of a position given to a node."
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html
In terms of death and burial, I think that status might be a bit more (and a bit less) nebulous.
In most cases, we - as modern Homo sapiens sapiens - come across a dead person in a grave and arbitrarily decide that they were either rich or poor and attribute similar 'rankings' and 'status' upon the remains by observation of the grave itself and the surrounding terrain, the size/shape of the grave and the non-human contents within. Are we using scientific evidence to support our claims, correct, or (at best) are we using empirical data to make 'educated guesses' based upon the fact that patterns of similar activity exist elsewhere in the world... and coincidences aren't all that common?
For the most part, I think archaeologists use the blanket-term 'status' to mean a rank within the community in which the deceased lived... and rely upon the grave markers, positions, trinkets and adornments interred with the remains and comparisons to other (possibly more mundane or 'average') graves as a litmus test against this one person's ranking within their society. larger grave, larger burial mound, more grave goods, separate location or location of significance, all of these have been used to measure the status of one individual versus another in the same location of the burial, and elsewhere and even across different cultures.
Is it accurate? Somewhat. In the absence of any better way to do things, it's the best way we have to make these assertions. It's much like painting a picture in the dark, not knowing either the colour of the paints we must use nor the size of the canvas.
The term status, I think, is therefore a little general in scope... Status can mean a rank within a community, a rank within a specific subset of the community (like age sets) or a religious, spiritual or socio-political ranking to separate the deceased from the 'common citizen' of his or her society. Status can mean a lot of things - depending upon the society, and a person can technically have been of more than one statuses, or have held different statuses - much like I an an 'uncle', a 'student', a 'medical professional', a 'cat-owner', a 'husband' and a 'son'.
The largest issue, I think that would interfere with the specific identification of a deceased's status is the open-ended definition of the term 'status' itself, and also our assumptions of what, exactly the deceased's culture was like.
According to Anthropological canon, 'husband' and 'wife' are deemed positions of status, in that, they are a defined position within a social network'. The problem comes when we find a pair of bodies in a grave... assuming one male and one female, most would immediately assume that the pair was a married couple, and append the statuses of 'husband and wife' onto them. Mostly for convenience, as it sews up everything into a nice little package... but what if the society was of a kind that encouraged the possession of slaves - perhaps it was a mark of status for a male tribe leader (or any male) to be buried with his favorite slave girl. Without context, we really have no true way of knowing for absolute certain.
Without actually having 'been' there, all we can do is make somewhat-educated guesses and assumptions.
All that being said and done, the picture looks alright so far...
From the 'News of the Weird' Department:
I give you two modern practices and one semi-modern one that has been outlawed.
First, the Space Burial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial
http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/images/UP_Aerospace_rocket-tractory.gifWhere apparently you are cremated, part of your remains are stuffed into a canister the size of a tube of lipstick and then fired into space to orbit around the earth. One immediate question comes to my mind... what happens when the orbit of the capsule you are in (and whoever else's remains are up there with yours) degrades to the point where it falls out of orbit and back to the earth?
You're going to freak the heck out of some UFO conspirist in Arizona, is what's going to happen...
Moving on to something with a little less 'pomp', but just as much circumstance... the 'Fireworks' ash scattering method.
I kind of like this idea... pack your loved one's ashes into a firework or set of them and light a match! Hilarity ensues!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1438/723251706_7e02c1f448.jpgIn all seriousness, though... it's rather interesting... either you can arrange for a service such as http://www.heavenlystarsfireworks.com/ to do your fireworks show FOR you, OR you can send an amount of your loved one's remains to the company and they'll pack them int fireworks and send you the box to set up and fire off yourself!
Subject, of course, to local bylaws about shooting fireworks into the night sky, you have the perfect reason to 'celebrate' the passing of your loved on... you MIGHT, however, want to warn people the dust those particles of Uncle Jerry out of their hair...
And finally, I must ask what level of devotion to ANY religion (in this case Buddhism) would cause someone to want to do THIS to themselves?
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t119/ilkeryoldas/mumonk.jpg
Sokushinbutsu. "Living Buddhas".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
It took around three thousand days to accomplish this (a practice called "nyūjō")... if it worked at all... one thousand days of a special diet and rigorous exercise to divest the body of body fat, followed by one thousand days of eating nothing but bark and roots and drinking a tea made from poisonous tree sap (inducing vomiting and body fluids) then sealing oneself in a specially-made tomb in the lotus position with nothing but a breathing tube.
Once per day, the monk rang the bell inside to let those on the outside know he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, they sealed the tomb completely for ANOTHER one thousand days and waited.
To those who failed to become mummies (and were, instead, simply rotted corpses) the locals still revered them for their level of dedication. On rare occasion, however, mummification was successful and the remains are declared to be a Buddha and put on display!
Japan banned the unburying of them in 1879 and assisted suicide has since been declared illegal in Japan... and no Buddhist sects today advocate or practice this.
As per the course syllabus and by request from Erin, a little about me:
I am currently completing a degree in the combined Biology-Psychology program, and will be minoring in Anthropology due in no small part to Erin's fantastic teaching style.
I am a Registered Massage Therapist (have been since 2004) and have decided to pursue a second career - ideally medicine.
I enrolled in this course as I very much enjoy the teaching style of the professor (Erin) and have an avid interest in human culture - on both sides of the grave. I hope that learning more about different cultures and societies (and their practices) will grant me a better understanding of humanity in general.
