71102.pdf

What makes anthropology worthwhile is that it forces us to ques- tion what would seem self-evident. We know that people the worl ...

with a murdered man in the cupboard, however well preserved chem- ically—even with a sunflower growing out of the top of his hea ...

The pollution of the dead is also the reason why, in so many places in the world, grave-digging and the handling of corpses are ...

actually are a dangerous source of pathogens. What makes the avoid- ance sound symbolic or mystical are the explicit notions ("b ...

really answer in a precise and satisfactory manner. Even if you have a very definite theological answer, the question "Where do ...

dation is that (1) the prey cannot move anymore, (2) it will not grow anymore, (3) it is not conscious anymore, (4) this is irre ...

cott reports, which leaves the body upon death and defines personal identity.^16 People generally use conventional metaphors to ...

Another crucial dimension of any interaction with people is, obvi- ously, who the person is whom we are dealing with. This is so ...

mation be coherent. For instance, if the face-recognition system delivers information that a person is familiar, the person-file ...

etc.) and are just confused by stimuli that do not conform to these requirements. In contrast, in those with prosopagnosia the f ...

directed action. But they have great difficulty in representing other agents' beliefs or objects of attention. This may be cause ...

macy system and the intuitive psychology system typically exchange lots of information with the person-file system. Now somethin ...

gion system, predation system). But disposing of the corpse also involves handling a person who is notyet absent, as far as our ...

Why we feel grief at all is not really very well understood. However, we can make sense of some aspects of the feeling if we tak ...

inference systems would suggest thatbeing preyed upon is a much more salient source of intuitions and emotions. In actual fact, ...

ate salient cognitive effects. Dead bodies are salient whatever we want to think about them. They create special cognitive effec ...

effect of particular literate theologies, a point I will discuss in another chapter. But it is just that: one ideology among the ...

7 WHY RITUALS? On the appointed day, the villagers gather near a shrine dedicated to Buyut Celi, a long-departed hero who is now ...

presents flowers, incense, rice and water to the goat, worships it and whispers prayers in its ears, promising the animal that i ...

ACTIONS OF GREAT MOMENT (AND LESS MEANING) These examples were taken from Java, India, Nepal and Central Africa, but I could hav ...