The death rituals of rural Greece
By: by Loring M. Danforth ; photography by Alexander Tsiaras.
Contributors: Tsiaras, Alexander.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1982
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 169
Subjects: Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Greece; Death -- Social aspects -- Greece; Laments -- Greece -- History and criticism; Greece -- Rural conditions; Greece -- Social life and customs
Description: This compelling text and dramatic photographic essay convey the emotional power of the death rituals of a small Greek village--the funeral, the singing of laments, the distribution of food, the daily visits to the graves, and especially the rite of exhumation. These rituals help Greek villagers face the universal paradox of mourning: how can the living sustain relationships with the dead and at the same time bring them to an end, in order to continue to live meaningfully as members of a community? That is the villagers' dilemma, and our own. Thirty-one moving photographs (reproduced in duotone to do justice to their great beauty) combine with vivid descriptions of the bereaved women of "Potamia" and with the words of the funeral laments to allow the reader an unusual emotional identification with the people of rural Greece as they struggle to integrate the experience of death into their daily lives.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 153-161.
Includes index.