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Even among the most primitive peoples the attitude at death is infinitely more complex and, I may add, more akin to our own than is usually assumed … The nearest relatives and friends are disturbed to the depth of their emotional life.
BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI, Magic, Science and Religion
In their extensive writings on the mourning customs of other peoples social anthropologists have been more interested in the variety of rituals prescribed than in the emotional responses of the bereaved. Yet there is evidence enough to show that these responses resemble in broad outline, and often in great detail, those familiar to us in the West. Social custom differs enormously. Human response stays much the same.1
First, a word about social custom. ‘There are very few universal traits or practices found in all human societies,’ writes Gorer (1973, pp. 423-4). ‘All recorded human societies speak a language, conserve fire, and have some sort of cutting implement; all recorded societies elaborate the biological bonds of bearer, begetter, and offspring into kinship systems; all societies have some division of labour based on age and sex; all societies have incest prohibitions and rules regulating sexual behaviour, designating appropriate marriage partners, and legitimizing offspring; and all societies have rules and ritual concerning the disposal of the dead and the appropriate behaviour of mourners.’ In some societies a funeral is the most important of all social ceremonies in terms of numbers present and duration (Mandelbaum 1959; Palgi 1973).