Kings and peasants from El-Zuma/El-Detti microregion in the Early Makurian period. Economic aspects of animal bones from funerary contexts.

Tumuli fields at El-Zuma and El-Detti were dated to the 2nd phase of the Early Makurian period, c. AD 450-550. They represented three types of tombs of different sizes and structures. The animal remains from these graves were analyzed in the context of animal economy practiced by the people who lived in the vicinity of the burial sites. aDNA analysis was conducted for cattle remains to explain its origin and significance for the inhabitants of the region. The research showed agricultural nature of the settlement located to the north of the Nile Valley with a great importance of cattle and sheep breeding. It also indicated the northern direction of trade and cultural contacts of the society based in the El-Zuma/El-Detti microregion and the deep social stratification within this group.

Virtopsy shows a high status funerary treatment in an early 18th Dynasty non-royal individual.

This work presents the multidisciplinary investigation of the head of Nebiri (Museo Egizio, Turin S_5109), Chief of Stables, a high status elite person from the 18th Dynasty involving MDCT, 3D brain surface and facial reconstructions accompanied by a consideration of previously presented chemical analysis of the embalming materials found in fragments of bandages used on the head and viscera (lung) found in one of the four canopic jars. Comparison of the techniques used for the cosmetic treatment of Nebiri with those used in other elite and high status non-royal persons confirms the validity of the use of the term "high status elite" in the case of Nebiri. This case highlights the importance of using modern forensic techniques both to enhance new technologies of retrospective diagnosis on altered human remains and to increase knowledge of past populations.

Funerals and families: locating death as a relational issue.

Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Death and Sociology of the Family, this paper argues that the organization and funding of funerals is an overlooked and available lens through which to examine cultural and political norms of familial obligation. Drawing on interviews with claimants to the Department for Work and Pensions' Social Fund Funeral Payment, the paper shows how both responsibility for the organization and payment of a funeral is assumed within families, and how at times this can be overridden by the state. In highlighting the tension between reflexive choice and political norms of family espoused in this policy context, it supports Gilding's () assertion that understanding family practice through reflexivity alone neglects the institutions and conventions within which 'doing' family takes place. In so doing, the paper further makes a case for families and relational negotiations and tensions to be more explicitly included within sociological understanding(s) of death more generally.

Memorial services offered following an early pregnancy loss in Scotland.

Empirical evidence suggests that memorial services and mementoes aid the grieving process for couples following an early pregnancy loss, and reduce the risk of psychological morbidity with its attendant sequelae. Following a telephone questionnaire, the provision of and signposting to memorial services was found to vary across 20 Early Pregnancy Units (EPUs) identified in Scotland, with local media resources employed, rather than personal invitation, and no consistency at which gestational age or when mementoes were offered. These discrepancies need to be resolved. All units were aware of national charities working in this area.

Ethical challenges posed by the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.

This paper examines how people in West Africa are reacting to the Ebola virus disease, an epidemic presently prevalent in the region. Certain lifestyle changes are suggested. Additionally, the heart of the paper focuses on the request by governments to be allowed access to experimental drugs, such as Zmapp and TKM-Ebola, for their infected populations. The author argues that granting such a request would circumvent research ethics procedures, which could potentially constitute significant risk to users of the drugs. The Pfizer Kano meningitis trial of 1996 is cited as an example to buttress how unapproved drugs could prove fatal.

Funerary artifacts, social status, and atherosclerosis in ancient peruvian mummy bundles.

BACKGROUND: Evidence of atherosclerotic plaques in ancient populations has led to the reconsideration of risk factors for heart disease and of the common belief that it is a disease of modern times. METHODS: Fifty-one wrapped mummy bundles excavated from the sites of Huallamarca, Pedreros, and Rinconada La Molina from the Puruchuco Museum collection in Lima, Peru, were scanned using computed tomography to investigate the presence of atherosclerosis. Funerary artifacts contained within the undisturbed mummy bundles were analyzed as an attempt to infer the social status of the individuals to correlate social status with evidence of heart disease in this ancient Peruvian group. This work also provides an inventory of the museum mummy collection to guide and facilitate future research. RESULTS: Statistical analysis concluded that there is little association between the types of grave goods contained within the bundles when the groups are pooled together. However, some patterns of artifact type, material, atherosclerosis, and sex emerge when the 3 excavation sites are analyzed separately. CONCLUSIONS: From the current sample, it would seem that social class is difficult to discern, but those from Huallamarca have the most markers of elite status. We had hypothesized that higher-status individuals may have had lifestyles that would place them at a higher risk for atherogenesis. There seems to be some indication of this within the site of Huallamarca, but it is inconclusive in the other 2 archeological sites. It is possible that a larger sample size in the future could reveal more statistically significant results.

Perception of HIV/AIDS among the Igbo of Anambra State, Nigeria.

Perception is fundamental in the fight against stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). Perception generally influences discriminatory attitudes towards PLHIV which exacerbates their problems and quickens the degeneration of the disease from HIV to AIDS. This study examined the Anambra people's perception and knowledge of HIV/AIDS with the goal of creating knowledge on these issues in order to design effective intervention programmes towards the reduction of social stigmatization associated with the pandemic. The study was carried out in Idemmili North and Oyi local government areas of Anambra State. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to elicit information from respondents who were adult males and females of 18 years and above. The research instruments were questionnaires and in-depth interview schedule. Questionnaires were administered on 1000 respondents while 13 people were interviewed in-depth. Analysis of quantitative data were conducted by using the Statistical package for Social Sciences. Univariate analysis in the form of frequencies were conducted which generated the distribution of respondents across the research variables. Furthermore, multivariate analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses and sought for relationships among variables. The qualitative data were reported in themes based on the research objectives and were analysed jointly with the quantitative data. The findings were that majority of the respondents viewed HIV/AIDS as a disease that afflict immoral people and as a punishment from God. Only a handful of them saw the disease as a disease that could afflict anybody. Also, many of the respondents said that AIDS is real but showed a low level of knowledge. It was further indicated that there were significant relationships between educational level, sex, occupation, income influence perception and peoples' reactions to HIV positive status of a relative while there were no significant relationships between these variables and knowledge of HIV/AIDS. It was concluded that these negative perceptions were as a result of the people's low level of knowledge and cultural belief systems, which see a strange illness as punishment from God for disobedience. Furthermore, the fact that most of the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents had significant relationship with perception and reaction to HIV was an indication that most people in the study area had a uniform perception. It was also an indication that government HIV/AIDS awareness programmes were not effective. It was recommended that strategies for effective HIV educational programme should be sought and carried out in the study area. Effective intervention programme have the power to change behaviours and would likely change the people's negative perception and low level of knowledge of HIV/AIDS, thereby reducing stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Socio-economic transformation of Akan funeral rites in Ghana: the changing process.

Cultural traditions at the end of life solidify societal members. As the world becomes more globalized, socio-economic factors affect how traditional practices are expressed, and the role and toll they make on modern societies. This article examines the contemporary Akan funeral practices in Ghana. Akan lineage members, from birth through puberty, marriage, maturity, old age, go through various rites of passage that bond them culturally and spiritually to others in society. One such ritual is funeral celebration. Funeral celebration, an old practice, has always been at the heart of public social events of Akan people. However, the changes in Ghanaian Akan funerals over the past 4 decades, and their impact on the people, make this an important topic. The article describes the Akan belief of life after death, the respect accorded to the dead, the prestige associated with successful funeral celebrations, and socio-economic factors that continue to shape Akan funeral practices. Socio-economic impact and the resulting challenges are discussed.

'Eat coffee candy and die': sex, death and Huli funerals.

BACKGROUND: Sex and death have traditionally been linked in Huli culture in the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea. Huli regarded that close contact with women could result in men becoming sick or dying. However, there has been rapid social and economic development in the area and Huli traditions are changing. At the same time, HIV prevalence is rising. METHODS: Twenty-five semistructured in-depth interviews were carried out with key informants during a study on HIV risk in the Southern Highlands. Interviews were conducted mostly in Tok Pisin. Interviews were transcribed and the data were analysed though thematic coding. RESULTS: Huli people use 'eating coffee candy' as a metaphor for engaging in sex at funerals. This is very new and against traditional values, where women attended funerals and men only built the coffins and buried the body. Nowadays, sex occurs at funerals. This change has disturbed older people because it has not only changed the customary meaning of the funeral space, but it has also encouraged the spread of HIV. Huli use the fatalistic expression 'Eat coffee candy and die,' to refer to funerals as a space of HIV risk. CONCLUSION: Huli community and church leaders, and health workers are attempting to deal with the situation by not allowing men to stay at the funeral site overnight, burying the dead on the same day they die and using customary village law to charge men caught having sex at a funeral. However, traditional beliefs and rapid social change in the context of an HIV epidemic need to be taken into account.

A Partida – “Departures” The gift of last memories / Departures” – The gift of last memories

Este artigo expressa as percepções do autor a respeito do filme “A Partida”, de Yôjiro Takita. A busca pelo sentido da vida, a importância dos ritos mortuários, a dignificação e a transcendência da morte são também abordados.

This article expresses the author's perceptions about the film "The Departure" by Yojiro Takita. The search for the meaning of life, the importance of mortuary rites, the dignity and transcendence of death are also discussed.

Imagining the absent dead: rituals of bereavement and the place of the war dead in German women's art during the First World War.

Drawing on women's visual responses to the First World War, this article examines female mourning in wartime Germany. The unprecedented death toll on the battlefronts, military burial practices and the physical distance from the remains of the war dead disrupted traditional rituals of bereavement, hindered closure and compounded women's grief on the home front. In response to these novel circumstances, a number of female artists used their images to reimagine funerary customs, overcome the separation from the fallen and express acute emotional distress. This article analyses three images produced during the conflict by the artists Katharina Heise, Martha Schrag and Sella Hasse, and places their work within the civilian experience of bereavement in war. By depicting the pain of loss, female artists contested the historical tradition of proud female mourning in German society and countered wartime codes of conduct that prohibited the public display of emotional pain in response to soldiers' deaths. As a largely overlooked body of sources, women's art adds to our understanding of the tensions in wartime cultures of mourning that emerged between 1914 and 1918.

"The last thing that tells our story": the Roodepoort West Cemetery, 1958-2008.

This article attempts to capture some of the complexity in the way that memory, meaning and agenda interact in the history of the cemetery of Roodepoort West. Roodepoort West was the 'old location' where Africans and others lived until 1955, after which a gradual process of removals took place until 1967, when it was finally destroyed. However, not everything was lost of the old location. The cemetery remained, after unrest caused by the proposed removal of the local cemetery during the late 1950s persuaded the authorities to leave it alone. More recently, the cemetery has played a part in land restitution, becoming both a site of tension and remembrance. This article explores the many meanings attached to the old cemetery, and funerals more broadly, over a period of time beginning from the 1950s to 2005. By looking at the history of funerals, and the cemetery, new insights and an alternative understanding of what it meant to live in an urban area in Apartheid South Africa can be gained.

Psychotherapy with immigrant patients in France: an ethnopsychiatric perspective.

This article focuses on recent developments in clinical ethnopsychiatry theorized by the French psychologist Tobie Nathan, as understood and practised by a member of his clinical research team. Alongside Western psychological theories, Nathan's approach sets out to include, within its clinical research setting, cultural and religious theories and healing practices related to unhappiness and disease. All such theories, regardless of the culture or civilization they belong to, are regarded as potentially valid and also as possible therapeutic tools. In this perspective, Nathan criticizes the concepts of representation or belief and prefers to talk about objects and theories. To illustrate his unique approach to therapy, the treatment of a Cameroon immigrant teenager and her family, conducted at the University clinic founded by Nathan, is extensively presented in this article.

Colonial bones: the 2006 burial of Savorgnan de Brazza in the Congo.

The Franco-Congolese agreement to enshrine the corpse of Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza in a grand memorial tomb in Brazzaville (2006) has been decried by many observers as neo-colonial farce. This article interprets France's agenda to propose a "suave reconquest" of its former colonies, and Sassou Nguesso's forceful mobilization of national and regional support. Beyond the immediate political significance of the episode, however, the article proposes new ideas on the ways in which modern states, North and South, depend on "tournaments of value" that assign polarized worth to persons, and often back up international deals with transactions in sanctified human remains. The tactic, forged in part during the colonial era, illuminates important aspects of today's global imaginaries of domination. Brazza's bones work, in France and Africa, as a carnal fetish that, borrowing form various philosophies of power, merges Western and African beliefs in the body politic.

Organ donation procedures: an epidemiological study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of organ and tissue donation processes on family members of deceased donors and the probability that they would be an organ or tissue donor in the future. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey of 69 families of deceased donors of the organ procurement organizations of the Federal University of São Paulo. RESULTS: Donors were predominantly men (57% vs 43%) with a median age of 35.9 years. The primary causes of death were classified as natural (65%), traumatic injury (33%), and other (1%). Of the family members surveyed, 40% had an elementary school education and 59% were unemployed. Family members expressed an understanding of the brain death diagnosis (67%). Among them, 74% had no doubt about brain death and had time to ask questions. The diagnosis was provided by the doctor responsible for the patient (89%). Family members also used funeral aid benefit (63%), perceived organ donation positively (97%), and indicated that they would donate again (79%). A significant relationship was found between families that took advantage of the funeral aid benefit and families that would donate again (79% vs 22%, P = .002). CONCLUSION: The intent to donate organs for transplantation may be based more on moral and cultural factors that go beyond the family members' knowledge about the donation process per se.

Building bridges in American Indian bereavement research.

Due to the severity of the risks involved in violation of ethical principles with research of American Indian populations, more attention in literature is needed on the topic. This article reviews discussions of ethical and methodological issues, uses Muscogee Creeks' responses from the author's prior study (Walker, 2008; Walker & Balk, 2007) as an example and application, and specifically focuses on the research of death and bereavement. The article provides ethical reflection and recommendations for designing death and bereavement research as an outsider to the culture, as well as for building trust with participants in American Indian populations.

The growth of death awareness through death education among university students in Hong Kong.

This study attempts to explore the attitude toward death, which ranges from fear of death to its acceptance, held by students of one of the universities in Hong Kong. It also tries to examine the relationship between their attitude toward death and their ratings of life and death. Another aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a death education course offered in that university. It is found that the present death attitude of Hong Kong university students is not satisfactory and that it has been significantly improved after students took a death education course.