Diversity, Time Alter Rituals of Death

In this scientifically inclined society, it’s a primitive element of human nature that lingers. Even as death has become a more distant experience for the living, with elderly relatives dying more frequently in nursing homes and hospitals, the remains of loved ones still are a precious physical link for survivors, and unearthing them is considered an act of utmost disrespect.

The possibility that such a thing may have happened at Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton outraged the community last week. The state shut it down because inspectors had found fragments of bones and caskets scattered about the grounds in February, leading them to suspect cemetery workers had disinterred bodies and reburied them improperly.

“It’s the disrespect,” says Judith Morgan, 54, who has 14 relatives at the Compton Cemetery, “the utter lack of respect that the act has to represent.”

The social attitudes that lead Americans to expect permanent graves are hard to gauge, says David Sloane, associate professor of policy, planning and development at USC. But it makes sense, he says, that society grew to expect professional care for graves just as other aspects of death--such as tending the ill and preparing the deceased for burial--became the domain of professionals in the 20th century.

“At one level, people are less likely to want to be near a cemetery, have daily interaction with a cemetery, and yet they want to make sure it’s kept secure,” Sloane says.

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Despite the rise of science, secularism, looser family ties and transitional views on death, what is done with relatives’ bodies--from traditional burial to, increasingly, cremation and even attempts to preserve them for reviving in the future--remains a deeply personal decision in American society.

“One of the things that is important to point out,” says Ronald K. Barrett, professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University who has studied cultural issues surrounding death, “is that for blacks, and many of the people impacted [at the Compton cemetery] were black, in terms of final disposition, placing the body in the ground is a very traditional ritual, something that goes back to West African customs.”

In history, ways to dispose of the dead, all innately religious, have included everything from cannibalism to leaving the bodies to the elements, to funeral pyres, to burials in the earth.

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In American society, the grave--a visible place where a person can come to visit a loved one--has been the traditional resting place of the deceased. But even as it remains a respected place, there have been some shifts in social attitudes and slight changes in disposing of the dead.

For instance, since the founding of the country, some Christian faiths have long opposed cremation because of their beliefs that it will interfere with the ultimate resurrection of the body. But cremation has become increasingly popular since the 1960s, when it was a rare choice.

By 1998, 23.7% of all deaths in the United States were handled through cremation, according to statistics from the Cremation Assn. of North America. In California--the Northeast and West Coast have been quickest to adopt the practice--41.8% of all deaths were handled through cremation that year. The industry projects that by 2010, cremations will be up to 65% in California.

Some say the popularity of cremation began with the publication of Jessica Mitford’s “The American Way of Death” in 1963--a scathing critique of the exploitative nature of the funeral business. Other elements have also come into play, such as finances. Cremations cost about $1,000, just a fraction of what a funeral with a burial can cost.

Many in the religious establishment loosened their opposition to cremation in part because of its legitimate practical uses, such as in Japan where land for burial is scarce.

At any rate, cremation has become a deeply religious and personal way to handle a loved one’s remains.

“I happen to know an individual who still has his wife’s ashes in a container on the fireplace.” He has decided that when he dies, “their ashes will be mingled and scattered together,” said Gerald Larue, a USC professor emeritus of religion. “So you have a romantic element here too.”

To a much lesser extent, alternate ways of handling the body, driven by scientific advancement, also are arising.

For instance, the idea that one day it will be possible to reverse aging and dying has given birth to cryonics, a controversial process of preserving people--immersed in liquid nitrogen, among other things--to be resuscitated when science is capable of such a feat.

Immigrants Bring Traditions Here

Just as cremation may not be as popular in the African American community, says Barrett, there are other subtle cultural differences in how Americans view the remains of the dead, particularly with the influx of immigrant traditions in the last two decades.

On the first two days of November, some people in Los Angeles--mostly of Mexican American ancestry--can be seen visiting graves and bringing food and drinks to cemeteries for Dia de los Muertos--a festive event to celebrate the departed. The Chinese have a similar observance called Ching Ming, in which family members bring food to the grave for their ancestors. In these traditions, a grave is particularly important because it provides a physical place for family to gather.

The increasing diversity in rituals has also opened up the funeral industry to changes--from the rites that are performed at funerals to how the bodies are cleansed and placed within graves.

“The way in which our society is becoming more diverse is lending itself to this democratization of how we handle the dead,” said Gary Laderman, an Emory University professor of American religious history and author of “Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883” (Yale University Press, 1996).

Indeed, a Buddhist ceremony is more likely to be a cremation and include incense burning.

In Chinese culture, the feng shui tradition places great importance on the placement of the ancestral grave--including its elevation and exposure to the winds, said Mari Womack, an anthropologist who has taught at UCLA Extension. The graveyard is a place of solidarity for the living family.

In the Jewish tradition, exactly a year after a loved one’s death, the family returns to set the stone on the grave.

In the Muslim tradition, it is preferred that the body be buried pointing toward Mecca.

“We are much further along,” Barrett said. “One of the most exciting things happening is a tremendous . . . affirmation of multicultural differences.”

Multiculturalism is not all that has affected how Americans view the grave.

In the earlier history of the country, funerals were held at home, bodies were prepared by relatives and graves were often on a family’s property.

A phenomenon of the 20th century has been the distance that began to develop between people and the experience of death. Increasingly, those who saw death face to face were professionals: from doctors to funeral home workers.

In the last part of the century, people have been further distanced from graves as more families began to scatter across the country.

“Sometimes the grave becomes significant,” Larue said. “I do have people visit [the grave] who say that is as close as they get to the person. Sometimes they talk to the person.”

This scattering, though, requires alternate ways of keeping in touch with a loved one’s grave. The Internet, for example, is beginning to provide--as part of the larger funeral arrangement services--online memorials that family members can visit no matter how far away they are, and where they can leave notes for the deceased or each other.

Los Angeles-based https://www.plan4ever.com and https://www.americanmemorials.com in Philadelphia are two such companies.

The idea for the Los Angeles company began with a doctor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center whose grandfather wanted to be buried in Kentucky. The doctor realized that the grave would hardly be visited because most of the relatives didn’t live in Kentucky anymore.

“Some people [upload] pictures of the grave site because they can’t go back as much as they’d like,” said Stuart Miller, chief executive officer of Plan4ever.

Baby boomers are the force behind the new personalizing of funerals--for loved ones and in plans for their own--that includes such requests as engraved caskets with a favorite country scene or the signatures of grandchildren.

“By having these personal funerals, you continue that relationship through eternity,” says Jeffrey Seeley, vice president of sales and marketing for Batesville Casket Co. in Indiana.

Moving Bodies Wasn’t Always Taboo

As in the Compton case, the practice of moving bodies and reusing graves has never been socially accepted but has been common at times in American history, said Sloane, who wrote “The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).

In the cities of the 19th century, it wasn’t unusual for full cemeteries to be moved as new development--parks, streets--arose. Potter’s Field, a burial ground for the poor and for unclaimed bodies in New York City, was one such cemetery from which bodies were moved in the middle of the 19th century.

Then too, Sloane says, there were scandalous occasions when, for instance, bodies would fall out of caskets. It was in the 20th century that Americans grew to expect that cemeteries would remain untouched--primarily because of the rise of urban planning and permanent assignment of land use.

Jose Cardenas can be reached at jose.cardenas@latimes.com.