All societies take death seriously.
Our beliefs about the afterlife and the relationship between the living and the dead, the desire to respect, honor and remember the deceased, the mystery and fear surrounding the unknown, and the disruption and grief that occurs when we die, all contribute to keeping funeral customs from changing much. In the face of such deeply entrenched values, beliefs and emotions, we don't dare change the rites that we believe are necessary to not only fulfill our responsibilities to god and the deceased, but that help us and our society heal. Therefore, funeral customs are inherently conservative, traditional. Ordinarily they change very little across time. Besides our new rites and memorials, such as cremation , cybermemorials , spontaneous memorials , roadside memorials , inner city memorial walls , the Vietnam Wall and the AIDS Quilt, our traditional rites and memorials also have changed somewhat.