Dancing on the Grave

by Nigel Barley

"Dancing on the Grave takes a fresh look at the astonishing variety of ways in which cultures around the world have handled death and given it meaning. Some cultures, most famously Ancient Egypt, have virtually bankrupted themselves to deal adequately with the death of a single person. Others, such as the nomadic peoples of southern Africa, have done little more than simply pull down the roof on to the corpse and walk away, while wrapped bodies in Torajan houses are used as handy shelves to store cassettes. Expertly guiding the reader through such diverse areas as myths about death, beliefs about ways to mourn, joking at funerals, post-mortem videos, cannibalism, headhunting and royal mortuary ritual, Nigel Barley shows how even the most exotic can be related to broader themes relevant to us all." "Both personal and, as one would expect of this author, wittily exploratory, Dancing on the Grave gives an account of mortality that is far from depressing, is indeed a celebration of human i