Purified by Fire Book Report

 

Cremation is traced to sun worship by some people and others from the fear of the dead. Other people consider practical issues such as the importance of taking home the remains of their dead warriors. This is because the reason why and where it was introduced is unknown. Initially, incineration was mostly practiced in prehistoric India. Early scriptures of the Hindus contained cremation chants whereby the priests who chanted the chants projected the soul to endure its fiery torment and then fly like a bird to the realm of the gods (Prothero 2001). The Hindu scriptures define cremation as a process of purification whereby incinerating the body is cleansing the soul in preparation for its rebirth. The ancient Greeks opted for cremation as well with the belief that fire splits up the pure souls from the adulterated body making it free to rise from its alter of flames into heaven. The Romans who also practiced cremation and the Greeks viewed incineration as an act of honor that was reserved for people of high social status. The Israelites however saw the act as a disgrace that suited the wicked.

At the period when Christianity began, the supremacy of cremation in the West came to a halt and the early Christians replaced cremation with burial. This was done following the fact that Jesus was placed in a tomb as well as the Jewish tradition of burial. Burials spread widely within the first century and by the late fourth century, cremation had been replaced by burial in the Christian West (Prothero 2001). At some point, cremation was declared as a capital offense by the emperor at the time. The motivation for Christians to prefer burial to cremation was the desire to differentiate themselves from the pagans as well as sociological, supernatural, and religious concerns. The Greeks viewed the body as a prison while Christians celebrated it as the temple of the Lord. The Greeks viewed the person as a soul and through cremation, the soul would escape from the pollution of the body, back to its original form. On the other hand, Christians who believed in burial viewed the human being as an entity with the soul and body as one being. Both Greeks and Christians had supernatural believes in how they disposed of the bodies of the dead either by cremation or burial. The Greeks had a myth of freedom whereby the person who was viewed as an immortal soul was freed by their death and cremation from the bondage of the body to the freedom of everlasting life. Christians on the other hand lived by a myth of integrity whereby the person split by sin and death into body and soul would be buried and would be made whole again by the miraculous resurrection of the body.

The protestant reformation transformed the Christian ways of dealing with death in the sixteenth century and this contributed to a cremation being legitimized. Later on, the revolutionaries tried to dechristianize funeral rites by promoting cremation. In the nineteenth century, the medical experts criticized burial maintaining that it was not hygienic and promoted cremation making it the talk of Europe (Prothero 2001). Following this, the Cremation Society of England was founded. Just like Europe, cremation came to the United States as rebirth rather than revolution. Cremation became very popular in the United States and some in some states it overcame burial and became the most preferred method of disposing of the dead.

When the modern American cremation began, a funeral reform movement arose. This gave cremation a boost because according to the funeral reformers, dying costs more than living in the sense that holding a funeral is expensive. From the fancy caskets, floral sets rented hearse among other things that made a funeral fancy (Prothero 2001). The initial color for funerals was black but the funeral reformers were able to bring a little bit of cheer and bright colors started flooding at funerals. Funeral homes, churches all over the country were weighed down at death with profligate floral and while funeral reformers commended this trend, they included costly clemencies. The funeral reformers argued that the only way to make a funeral less expensive and simple is by making it more private. An advocate of the family only funerals also noted that the entire system of public funerals was wrong. Private funerals were sanitary rather than ritualistic and they could attract few mourners to the health hazards surrounding the open grave.

Burial reformers believed that corpses are poison and burial is unsanitary and this is proved by history, which shows epidemics caused by the decomposition of human bodies. Such dangers were not only confined to the old urban graveyards but also the new rural cemeteries. The suburban areas were also becoming crowded and from experience, the sanitarians knew that the city slums could become a health risk due to overcrowding. While the cities impinged the suburban cemeteries, even the secluded cemeteries were thought to cause threats (Prothero 2001). Some people believed that the breezes that blew consisted of germs that spread diseases. Other than being a cause of air pollution, cemeteries were also said to be a water pollutant. This led to reformers thinking about change wondering if embalmment and mummification would be a good option but they did not agree to that. One of the alternatives for burying the dead was burying them in a perishable wicker field which allowed the soil to break down the corpse faster. To prevent contamination to the living creatures, it meant that the grave had to be ten feet rather than the typical six feet. The other alternative was designed to speed up decomposition by covering the corpse with caustic lime.

Several alternatives were proposed and out of them, the most popular one was cremation. Cremationists attacked burial in every form and maintained that their method was better when compared to burial. In terms of sanitary claims, cremationists believed that in terms of the sanitary concerns, cremation was the best alternative (Prothero 2001). According to medical experts, burial was a sanitary evil while cremation a benefit to public health. They argued that there is no dead body that is placed on the soil and does not pollute the earth, the air, and the water above it. Inhaling the graveyard gases is harmful and according to cremationists, the dead kill the living. They argue that cemeteries were fertile farms where diseases were planted through burial. To get away from all that cremation was supposed to replace burial and make it a thing of the past. This is because buried corpse causes a threat to public health by the noxious gases they produce and the germs from diseases. Burial was viewed as a crime against the living whereas cremation was promoted as the great purifier, the best sterilizer, and the true bactericide. This made cremation be termed as the cleanest way to dispose of the dead and the greatest in terms of sanitary concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Prothero, S. (2001). Purified by fire: A history of cremation in America. Univ of California Press.