The Nomadic Alternative – Page 178

simulacrum of living blood, wished for them some happier existence

elsewhere. Reverence for, even adoration of, the dead body is so

integral a part of our culture that we take many bizarre funerary

practices for granted. Cenotaphs and mausolea, pyramids, tumuli,

stupas, coffins and gravestones, plus the infinite variations of

mortuary technique - embalming, enshrouding, cremation, inhumation

or ritual dismemberment - together with funerary offerings, from

slaughtered pets to strangled wives, miniature armies or farmyards,

alcoholic drinks or hair-oil, have provided the principal raw

material of archaeology and the lucrative rewards of funeral direc-

tors. Awareness of the awful finality of death, hope for the life

to come, and the need to preserve some souvenir or memorial of those

who have died, has been judged a touching proof of our humanity.

No human group, it is thought, simply chucks its dead out to rot.

What could be more unprincipled or inhuman than callous disregard

of the dead - or worse - the practice some hunters have of abandoning,

without any great emotional concern, the aged or infirm to their

fate?

Nothing can be more irritating than walking long distances with

someone who cannot keep up. Hunters have no transport but their own

legs, and as movement is the yardstick by which their community

stands or falls, a crippled walker abdicates his or her right to

membership. This may sound excessively callous, but life is not

always pleasant. The rest may decide that the falterer's time has

now come, and leaving some provisions to prepare for death, they

simply pass on. Or more likely, the old and sick, sensing their pre-

sence to weigh heavily on the rest, walk out into the wilderness,

and keep on walking till they have "passed into the Great Cold".

The living flatly decline to refer to the dead again by name.

Death is a condition for which there is no answer and they prefer

not to reflect upon it. (And the by-product of this sensible atti-

tude is a lack of historical memory with quarrels spread over

generations.) The Mbuti collapse a hut over a dead body and move

on; the Fuegians never approach a campsite defiled by death in