A funeral is something we perform for the dead, certainly. But perhaps it is also something we do with them. We accompany them.

Across cultures, death is more than a biological event. From Maya cave burials and Balinese cremation to Chinchorro mummification, Zoroastrian exposure, Berawan secondary burial, and apotropaic graves in Poland, funeral practices reveal how humans understand the body, personhood, and the dead. What happens after the body dies—and when does a person finish dying? Explore the anthropology of mortuary and funerary practices around the world.

Dolly Parton and Tim Curry occupied opposite ends of the cultural imagination: she embodied light, sparkle, and a carefully constructed persona; he became darkness, transgression, and transformation. Their deaths at 80 invite reflection on celebrity, aging, memory, and the archetypes public figures become. We may never have known them, yet they inhabited our lives. The mortal body dies; the archetype remains.

Exploration of death themes in diverse world myths.

April missive about why we bury the dead.