Research about death in different countries

 

In Mexico

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

In Mexican culture, death is viewed as a natural partof the human cycle. Mexicans view it not as a day of sadnessbut as a day of celebrationbecause their loved ones awakeand celebrate with them.

honoring the deceased using calaveras, aztec marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts.Visitors also leave possessions of the deceased at the graves.

People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them. Celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed.

A common symbol of the holiday is the skull (in Spanish calavera), which celebrants represent in masks, called calacas(colloquial term for skeleton), and foods such as sugar or chocolate skulls, which are inscribed with the name of the recipienton the forehead. 

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On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children's altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives. The three-day fiesta is filled with marigolds, the flowers of the dead; muertos (the bread of the dead); sugar skulls; cardboard skeletons; tissue paper decorations; fruit and nuts; incense, and other traditional foods and decorations.

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— Frances Ann Day, Latina and Latino Voices in Literature

 

 

Most visit the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried and decorate their graves with ofrendas (altars), which often include orange Mexican marigolds(Tagetes erecta) called cempasúchil (originally named cempoaxochitl, Nāhuatl for "twenty flowers"). In modern Mexico the marigold is sometimes called Flor de Muerto (Flower of Dead). These flowers are thought to attract souls of the dead to the offerings. It is also believed the bright petals with a strong scent can guide the souls from cemeteries to their family homes.

Toys are brought for dead children(los angelitos, or "the little angels"), and bottles of tequila, mezcal or pulque or jars of atole for adults. Families will also offer trinkets or the deceased's favorite candies on the grave. 

Some families build altars or small shrinesin their homes;[12] these sometimes feature a Christian cross,statues or pictures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pictures of deceased relatives and other people, scores of candles, and an ofrenda. Traditionally, families spend some time around the altar, praying and telling anecdotes about the deceased. In some locations, celebrants wear shells on their clothing, so when they dance, the noise will wake up the dead; some will also dress up as the deceased.

 

In United States

 

An ánima for the dead

 

Women with calaveras makeup celebrating Día de Muertos in the Mission District of San Francisco, California

In many U.S. communities with Mexican residents, Day of the Dead celebrations are very similar to those held in Mexico. In some of these communities, in states such as Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, the celebrations tend to be mostly traditional. The All Souls Procession has been an annual Tucson, Arizona event since 1990. The event combines elements of traditional Day of the Dead celebrations with those of pagan harvest festivals. People wearing masks carry signs honoring the dead and an urnin which people can place slips of paper with prayers on them to be burned. Likewise, Old Town San Diego, California annually hosts a traditional two-day celebration culminating in a candlelight procession to the historic El Campo Santo Cemetery. 

The festival also is held annually at historic Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Sponsored by Forest Hills Educational Trust and the folkloric performance group La Piñata, the Day of the Dead festivities celebrate the cycle of life and death. People bring offerings of flowers, photos, mementos, and food for their departed loved ones, which they place at an elaborately and colorfully decorated altar. A program of traditional music and dance also accompanies the community event.

The Smithsonian Institution, in collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso and Second Life, have created a Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum and accompanying multimedia e-book: Día de los Muertos: Day of the Dead. The project's website contains some of the text and images which explain the origins of some of the customary core practices related to the Day of the Dead, such as the background beliefs and the offrenda (the special altar commemorating one's deceased loved one).[37] The Made For iTunes multimedia e-book version provides additional content, such as further details; additional photo galleries; pop-up profiles of influential Latino artists and cultural figures over the decades; and video clips[38] of interviews with artists who make Día de Muertos-themed artwork, explanations and performances of Aztec and other traditional dances, an animation short that explains the customs to children, virtual poetry readings in English and Spanish.

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In Bolivia

Día de las Ñatitas ("Day of the Skulls") is a festival celebrated in La Paz, Bolivia, on May 5. In pre-Columbian times indigenous Andeans had a tradition of sharing a day with the bones of their ancestors on the third year after burial. Today families keep only the skulls for such rituals. Traditionally, the skulls of family members are kept at home to watch over the familyand protectthem during the year. On November 9, the family crowns the skulls with fresh flowers, sometimes also dressing them in various garments,and making offerings of cigarettes, coca leaves,alcohol, and various other items in thanks for the year's protection. The skulls are also sometimes taken to the central cemetery in La Paz for a special Mass and blessing.

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In Brazil

The Brazilian public holiday of Finados (Day of the Dead) is celebrated on November 2. Similar to other Day of the Dead celebrations, people go to cemeteries and churches with flowers and candlesand offer prayers. The celebration is intended as a positive honoring of the dead. Memorializing the dead draws from indigenous, African and European Catholic origins.

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In Guatemala

Guatemalan celebrations of the Day of the Dead, on November 1, are highlighted by the construction and flying of giant kites. Guatemalans fly kites in the beliefthat the kites help the spirits find their way back to Earth. A few kites have notes for the deadattached to the strings of the kites. The kites are used as a kind of telecommunication to heaven. A big event also is the consumption of fiambre, which is made only for this day during the year. In addition to the traditional visits to grave sites of ancestors, the tombs and graves are decorated with flowers, candles, and food for the dead. In a few towns, Guatemalans repair and repaint the cemetery with vibrant colors to bring the cemetery to life. They fix things that have gotten damaged over the years or just simply need a touch-up, such as wooden grave cross markers. They also lay flower wreathson the graves. Some families have picnicsin the cemetery.

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In Ecuador

In Ecuador the Day of the Dead is observed to some extent by all parts of society, though it is especially important to the indigenous Kichwa peoples, who make up an estimated quarter of the population. Indigena families gather together in the community cemetery with offerings of food for a day-long remembrance of their ancestorsand lost loved ones. Ceremonial foodsinclude colada morada, a spiced fruit porridgethat derives its deep purple color from the Andean blackberry and purple maize. This is typically consumed with guaguade pan, a bread shaped like a swaddled infant, though variations include many pigs—the latter being traditional to the city of Loja. The bread, which is wheat flour-based today, but was made with masa in the pre-Columbian era, can be made savory with cheese inside or sweet with a filling of guava paste.These traditions have permeated mainstream society, as well, where food establishments add both colada morada and gaugua de pan to their menus for the season.Many non-indigenous Ecuadorians visit the graves of the deceased, cleaning and bringing flowers, or preparing the traditional foods, too. 

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In Peru

Usually people visit the cemetery and bring flowers to decorate the gravesof dead relatives. Sometimes people play music at the cemetery.

 

California

Santa Ana, California is said to hold the "largest event in Southern California" honoring Día de Muertos, called the annual Noche de Altares, which began in 2002. The celebration of the Day of the Dead in Santa Ana has grown to two large events with the creation of an event held at the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center for the first time on November 1, 2015.[42]

In other communities, interactions between Mexican traditions and American culture are resulting in celebrations in which Mexican traditions are being extended to make artistic or sometimes political statements. For example, in Los Angeles, California, the Self Help Graphics & Art Mexican-American cultural center presents an annual Day of the Dead celebration that includes both traditional and political elements, such as altars to honor the victims of the Iraq War, highlighting the high casualty rate among Latino soldiers. An updated, intercultural version of the Day of the Dead is also evolving at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. There, in a mixture of Native Californian art, Mexican traditions and Hollywood hip, conventional altars are set up side-by-side with altars to Jayne Mansfield and Johnny Ramone. Colorful native dancers and music intermix with performance artists, while sly prankstersplay on traditional themes.

Similar traditional and intercultural updating of Mexican celebrations are held in San Francisco. For example, the Galería de la Raza, SomArts Cultural Center, Mission Cultural Center, de Young Museum and altars at Garfield Square by the Marigold Project. Oakland is home to Corazon Del Puebloin the Fruitvale district. Corazon Del Pueblo has a shop offering handcrafted Mexican gifts and a museum devoted to Day of the Dead artifacts. Also, the Fruitvale district in Oakland serves as the hub of the Día de Muertos annual festival which occurs the last weekend of October. Here, a mix of several Mexican traditions come together with traditional Aztec dancers, regional Mexican music, and other Mexican artisans to celebrate the day.

 

In Egypt

https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1731966428492423547.html

The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul of a person would not die after death, however would still cling to the body or statue. Therefore, after death, pharaoh and others were mummified as a method of immortality or embalming the dead with sesame oil (or medicine), and the mummy of ancient Egypt was the most famous. The ancient Egyptians embalmed their dead. Pay respect to the dead.

Some believe that the main reason ancient Egyptians mummified was because they believed in "eternal life after death." Since the paleolithic period, when Egyptians supposedly feared death and believed that the afterlife would be more or less free of it, elaborate preparations were made to bury the dead. In the pharaoh's time, due to the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the society and the gradually rigid hierarchical system, people's longing for a better afterlife became more urgent, and then formed the worship of the dead body. They believed that if the body of the dead was preserved in a recognizable form, the spirit of the human body, as we call it, would return to the body of the dead; If the body is intact and does not decay, the soul and body will live in another world. If the body rots, the soul ceases to exist, and the man truly dies; If a part of the body is damaged, the dead will lose the same part of the body in the afterlife. Therefore, in order to make the dead continue to live a better life in the afterlife, it is necessary to keep the body intact. At the same time, ancient Egypt's unique natural environment also contributed to the hope of the ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. The Nile's regular annual flood and retreat, the corresponding flowering and withering of plants, and the daily rising and setting of the sun gave the ancient Egyptians a sense that the world moved in cycles, that nature could go round and round, and that man should go round and round. In order to prepare for the afterlife resurrection, the body must also be well preserved. It is this belief of eternal life in the afterlife that led the ancient Egyptians to make and bury mummies with great care, even to the point of racking their brains.

 

This article is about the preserved person or animal. For the maternal parent, see Mother. For the monster, see Mummy (monster). For other uses, see Mummy (disambiguation).

Mummy of Ramesses II, one of the most famous mummies from ancient Egypt

A mummy is a deceased human or an animal whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least 1615 AD (see the section Etymology and meaning).

Mummies of humans and animals have been found on every continent, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats. Many of the Egyptian animal mummies are sacred ibis, and radiocarbon dating suggests the Egyptian Ibis mummies that have been analyzed were from time frame that falls between approximately 450 and 250 BC.

In addition to the well-known mummies of ancient Egypt, deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of America and Asia with very dry climates. The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old. Before this discovery, the oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BC. The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 AD at the site named Inca Cueva No. 4 in South America.

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