Though often intense, emotional reactions to death are too varied and shifting to provide the foundation for a theory of mortuary ritual. A recent cross-cultural study concluded that grief is shown at funerals in most societies, but not all. Even this weak result was achieved only by defining grief so widely as to include virtually any negative emotion, namely, “sorrow, mental distress, emotional agitation, sadness, suffering, and related feelings” (Rosenblatt, Walsh, and Jackson 1976: 2). These authors approach funeral practices assuming that they fulfill certain panhuman needs to perform “psychological work.” But the need to release aggression, or break ties with the deceased, or complete any other putatively universal psychic process does not serve to explain funerals. The shoe is on the other foot. Whatever mental adjustments the individual needs to make in the face of death he or she must accomplish as best he or she can through or around such rituals as society provides. No doubt the rites frequently aid adjustment. But we have no reason to believe that they do not obstruct it with equal frequency.

Despite the perennial appeal of such theorizing, something more is needed to explain the remarkable richness and variety of funeral rituals. In succeeding chapters, we turn away from emotion in order to explore the meaning of these rites in social terms.