From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

“The land was donated by Dragon Mountain Temple, a Zen Buddhist group. They don’t keep the pyre hidden. As you drive into town there is a metal sign with a single flame reading ‘PYRE.’ The sign was handmade by a local potato farmer (also the coroner), and stands as an obvious landmark.”

Doughty emphasizes that Crestone’s open-air pyre became a reality because of the cooperation of a diverse group of people. The citizens of Crestone met with the pyre’s owners to discuss the pyre until they grew comfortable with its presence. A religious group donated the land. Community members take pride in something that they used to be uncomfortable with. This exemplifies Doughty’s optimism that Westernized people can change their ideas about funerary practices.

“Families are kept behind glass windows in air-conditioned rooms, watching as the body disappears into a small metal door in the wall. The machine concealed behind the wall is the same industrial oven found in the warehouses, but the family cannot see the wizard behind the curtain. The camouflage removes the family further from the reality of death and of the clunky, environmentally inefficient machines. For the privilege of taking mom to a ‘cremation tribute center,’ the price may rise above $5,000.”

Doughty describes what happens during a typical cremation in the United States. The funeral industry has created layers of obfuscation to distance people from the physicality of death, and Doughty uses the metaphor of the “wizard behind the curtain” to emphasize how these cremation centers go to great lengths to conceal this process. She compares traditional industrial crematoriums with “cremation tribute centers,” which are ostensibly more human-centric crematories that provide outreach and comfort to the family. However, Doughty puts “cremation tribute center” in quotation marks to emphasize the irony in the name since these facilities only purport to provide comfort and lead families to witness the cremation. The cremation process is still hidden, and families are charged a premium.

“In India, family members transport dead bodies to a row of cremation pyres along the banks of the Ganges River. When a father dies, his pyre will be lit by his eldest son. As the flames grow hotter, his flesh bubbles and burns away. At just the right time, a wooden staff is brought forth and used to crack open the dead man’s skull. At that moment, it is believed the man’s soul is released.”

Doughty interweaves stories about Cultural Diversity in Death Practices throughout her chapters. Though the book is structured around eight chapters, set in eight main locations, this technique allows Doughty to explore funerary practices in dozens of places around the world. This quotation describes why open-air cremations are a standard practice followed by Hindus in India. Many Hindus believe that if a person is cremated in an indoor, industrial facility, their soul remains trapped within that room. Thus, The Western Sanitization of Death can be actively harmful to some cultures, depending on their belief system.

“Tourists (at least, the ones I could tell were tourists because of their white skin and Western European accents) were corralled in the far back corner of the courtyard. This is the primary tension of Toraja’s death tourism industry: how to get tourists close, but not too close. Our exile in Section J seemed more than fair to me, and I plunked myself down to observe as Paul set up his camera for photographs.”

Some non-Western locations with unique death practices benefit from the income provided by tourism. However, Doughty believes that funerary traditions and deathcare are cultural matters that should not be intervened upon by outsiders. She carefully considers Ethical Engagement With Diverse Death Practices and respects the boundaries that people set for tourists.

“Halfway through the meal, I held up the bamboo leaf and looked closer at the crisp, fatty skin and saw the hair follicles, still visible. This is the flesh of a dead animal, I realized, and was for the moment repulsed. For as much time as I had spent facing human mortality, I didn’t recognize a dead animal that didn’t come wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam.”

Doughty shows that The Western Sanitization of Death is so extreme that it even affects food consumption. Meat, as most Americans see, comes from the grocery store and often does not resemble the animal it came from; this creates distance between the consumer and the reality that meat is the “flesh of a dead animal.” Doughty realizes this as she eats pork from a pig that was butchered and roasted right before she was served its meat.

“The Días de los Muertos parade did not inspire the James Bond film. The James Bond film inspired the parade. The Mexican government, afraid that people around the world would see the film and expect that the parade exists when it did not, recruited 1,2000 volunteers and spend a year re-creating the four-hour pageant.”

Doughty uses italics to highlight the irony of this bit of historical information. While Día de los Muertos has been practiced for a long time, the Mexico City parade is new. People who viewed the parade in the James Bond film Spectre might expect that it was inspired by the parade, so it is ironic that the reality is the other way around.

“Not only did Días de los Muertos return to major cities—looking at you, James Bond parade; the festival also came to represent the struggles of many disenfranchised political groups. These groups adopted Días de los Muertos to mourn for those kept from the public eye, including sex workers, indigenous and gay rights groups, and Mexicans who had died trying to cross the border to the U.S.”

While the “James Bond parade” version of Día de los Muertos is a somewhat corporatized, pop-culture spectacle, Doughty stresses that the holiday itself empowers groups of people who are most marginalized in society. This shows the broad social and cultural power of funerary practices.

“Our whale hasn’t come down here to ‘rest in peace’ and lie on the ocean floor in cool, undisturbed darkness. Her remains are about to become the location of a grand banquet that will last decades. This process, known in the ocean science community as a whale fall, creates an entire ecosystem around the carcass—like a pop-up restaurant for the alienlike creatures of the primordial depths.”

Doughty describes a phenomenon called “whalefall,” where a whale will sink to the seafloor after death. Its body goes through three stages of dissolution, each benefiting a different type of deep sea creature: larger animals eating soft tissue, which can last up to 18 months; small creatures “inhabiting the whale’s bones and nearby sediments the decomposing body has enriched with organic compounds,” which can last up to five years; and bacteria decomposing bones and “releasing hydrogen sulfide that feeds deep sea shellfish like mussels, clams, and snails,” which can last decades (“Whale Fall 101.” National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, 18 Jan. 2021). In nature, a whale’s corpse gives back to the environment. Doughty uses this anecdote to set up the stakes for Katrina Spade’s human decomposition initiative.

“Dr. J’s approach is part of a new wave in scientific donation practices, where a doner body is considered a person, not a nameless cadaver.”

Despite The Western Sanitization of Death, there are individual people in Western contexts who are approaching deathcare, funerary practices, and death culture with more sensitivity and compassion. In Chapter 4, Doughty discusses a specific type of corpse: those donated to science. Katrina’s collaborator, Dr. J, is part of a new wave that wants to recognize donated corpses as individual human beings rather than objects without history or personality.

“Women’s bodies are so often under the purview of men, whether it’s our reproductive organs, our sexuality, our weight, our manner of dress. There is a freedom found in decomposition, a body rendered messy, chaotic, and wild. I relish this image when visualizing what will become of my future corpse.”

Doughty argues that Ethical Engagement With Diverse Death Practices can overlap with and affect other social systems, particularly systems of oppression and inequity. Katrina and Doughty find that in a society where women’s bodies are “under the purview” of men, decomposing after death can provide women with a sense of freedom and autonomy that were not accessible to them in life. In this way, by choosing their own death practices, they can assert their power over the social systems in place in the United States.

“That’s not to say there wasn’t any tension. One employee, an older gentleman, asked if I was enjoying my time in Barcelona.

‘It is gorgeous, I don’t want to leave. Perhaps I will stay here and apply for a job at Altima!’ I said in jest.

‘With your views we would not hire you,’ he joked back, not without a slight edge to his voice.”

As Doughty travels the world exploring Cultural Diversity in Death Practices, she finds that Spain’s funerary practices are most like those in the United States. Doughty’s views on death are too radical for the funerary officials in Spain. The gentleman she speaks to engages in the sort of closed thinking that Doughty warns her readers not to engage in, where certain alternative views toward death culture are immediately disparaged.

“People showed up for death here. They showed up for daylong viewings, sitting close vigil with the body. They showed up for witness cremations: 60 percent at this location. Perhaps the barrier of glass was the training wheels required to let a death-wary public get close, but not too close.”

Doughty’s experiences in Spain add nuance her ideas about The Western Sanitization of Death. She sees that Spain sanitizes almost all aspects of death. The notable exception to this is that they rarely embalm people, but only because the funeral business pressures families into burying or cremating the dead within 24 hours. However, compared to the United States, a large number of people in Spain choose to watch cremations. Doughty wonders if this means that an incremental approach is needed to transform the United States’ relationship with death.

“The cultural meaning of suicide in Japan is different. It’s viewed as a selfless, even honorable act. The samurai introduces the practice of seppuku, literally ‘cutting the abdomen,’ self-disembowelment by sword to prevent capture by the enemy. In World War II, nearly 4,000 men died as kamikaze pilots, turning their planes into missiles and crashing into enemy ships. Apocryphal but famous legends tell of the practice of ubasute, where elderly women were carried on their sons’ backs into the forest to be abandoned in times of famine.”

Wherever possible, Doughty adds nuance to her discussion of types of deaths and views on death with contextually specific information. She stresses that this is important because there are no universal views on death. This quotation gives several examples of historic Japanese views of dying by suicide. These views are motivated by cultural stories of honor, self-sacrifice, and selflessness. These are a contrast to American views on dying by suicide, which are heavily affected by Christian culture and often view the act as one of selfishness or a sin. This juxtaposition of selflessness versus selfishness in perceptions of suicide shows how attitudes about death are culturally informed and mobile, rather than fixed.

“The chief mourner begins with the feet, picking up bones with the chopsticks and placing them in the urn. Other family members join in and continue up the skeleton. The skull will not fit into the urn intact, so the cremator might intervene to break it up into smaller bone fragments using a metal chopstick. The final bone, the hyoid (the horseshoe-shaped bone underneath the jaw) is placed in the urn last.”

Doughty describes the Japanese practice of kotsuage. Unlike Americans, who keep sterile ashes with no bones in urns, Japanese people usually decide to keep their loved ones’ bones. Unlike in the United States, where bones are broken apart, they are left whole in Japan, and the mourning family engages in the practice of combing through ashes for bones to put in the urn. This allows them time to physically be with their dead and the ability to engage in one more act of care for them.

“What’s more, and what sets them apart, is that the Japanese have not been afraid to integrate technology and innovation in their funerals and memorials. We don’t have a single space like Ruriden with its glowing Buddhas or Daitokuin Ryōgou Ryoen with its robot retrieval system. Our funeral homes are considered high-tech if they offer online obituaries or a photo slideshow during the funeral.”

Doughty finds Japan unique because it is the only location she visits that uses technology to close the distance between people and their dead. Places like Daitokuin Ryōgou Ryoen include traditional shrine decorations in their graves, but they use technology to facilitate mourning. This blend of tradition and technology inspires Doughty, who sees American funeral homes as falling behind.

“Women like Doña Ana and Doña Ely represent a threat to the Catholic Church. Through magic, belief, and their ñatitas, they facilitate a direct, unmediated connection to the powers of the beyond, no male intermediary required.”

This quotation introduces another example of how Cultural Diversity in Death Practices can be a subversive act that uplifts marginalized groups. In Bolivia, ñatitas are kept culturally relevant by Indigenous Aymara women who are subject to violence and discrimination due to their gender and ethnicity. Culturally hegemonic institutions, like the Catholic Church in this case, thus see this funerary practice as a threat against their authority.

“The party is not for the owners, but for the skulls themselves, making sure the ñatitas are esteemed and validated for the work they’ve done throughout the year. ‘One tends to be very romantic and say the whole festival should remain untouched. But if it were completely untouched, you or I wouldn’t be anywhere near it,’ Andres said.”

Doughty believes that the annual festival given for the ñatitas is remarkable in that its purpose is not to comfort or entertain the living. Instead, it is designed to respect the skulls themselves. Since it is not a festival for the living, tourists are not traditionally welcome to participate in it. Doughty’s companion touches on the ethics and aesthetics of funerary practices when he points this out.

“Despite the increasing acceptance of the Aymara and the ñatitas, when Bolivians are asked if they keep a ñatitas at home or believe in their powers, many will still say, ‘Oh, no no no, they frighten me!’ They don’t wish to appear to be bad Catholics. There is still an underground aspect to the practice. Many more Bolivians (even the professional class, like chiropractors and bankers) keep ñatitas than would ever admit it publicly.”

This example shows how even people within a culture with a given death practice must balance Ethical Engagement With Diverse Death Practices. Some Bolivian people see the keeping of ñatitas as being at odds with their Catholic faith. Yet the fact that many keep these skulls secretly indicates that they feel a connection to it and are interested in the practice.

“Joshua Tree’s national burial section opened in 2010. They set aside sixty burial plots, forty of which are now filled, in a plot of land surrounded by a low wooden fence. The natural burial section, tiny compared to the vast desert surrounding it, further highlights how ludicrous our modern policies on burial are. The world used to be our burial ground.”

Doughty provides this context about natural burial in Joshua Tree to reveal how new alternative burial practices are in America. She also uses irony in her description: In a massive desert, only such a tiny slice of land was able to be set aside for natural burial. This emphasizes how highly regulated burial policies can be and how this can hamper any attempts to change the industry.

“Without the vultures, the bodies in the towers of silence lie waiting for the sky-dancers who will never show. The neighbors can smell them. Dhan Baria’s mother was placed in the tower when she died in 2005. One of the tower’s attendants told Baria that the bodies lie exposed and half rotten, with not a vulture in sight.”

This quote shows how changes in animal populations that are triggered by humans can have negative effects on funerary practices. The Parsi people in India rely on vultures to eat deceased bodies, but the vulture population has died off after ingesting medicines that were given to cows. As a result, human bodies rot where they are deposited. Doughty says that in cases such as this, innovation in death practices can be necessary.

“Since I first discovered sky burial I have known what I wanted for my mortal remains. In my view burial by animals is the safest, cleanest, and most humane way of disposing of corpses, and offers a new ritual that might bring us closer to the realities of death and our true place on this planet.”

One of Doughty’s central goals is to close the distance that Western culture creates between people and the physicality of death. In a sky burial, there is no corpse to turn to ash with large, carbon-emitting machines; no chemical embalmment; and no rotting, which might create temporary unpleasant smells. Additionally, it provides sustenance to the natural world, which, in turn, provides sustenance to humans.

“There is a story of a Western tourist trying to get around the no-photography rule by hiding behind a rock and using a long-range telephoto lens, not realizing that his presence scared off the vultures who usually waited on that ridge. After being frightened off, they didn’t show up to consume the corpse, which was considered a bad omen for the ritual.”

Tibet outlawed tourism, video recording, and photography of their sky burial rituals. Despite this, thanotourists—like the one Doughty describes—continue to engage in disrespectful behavior. This quotation engages the theme of Ethical Engagement With Diverse Death Practices. This tourist’s overreach shows the exploitative, consumerist, and harmful side of thanotourism.

“At almost any location in any major city on Earth, you are likely standing on thousands of bodies. These bodies represent a history that exists, often unknown, beneath our feet.”

Despite The Western Sanitization of Death, which creates distance between the living and the dead, Doughty argues that the presence of death is never actually far from the living. As of 2022, demographers estimated that roughly 117 billion people have lived in human history; subtracting the Earth’s population around the middle of 2022, which was just shy of eight billion, that means that roughly 109 billion humans have died on the planet (Kaneda, Toshiko, and Carl Haub. “How Many People Have Ever Lived On Earth?” Population Reference Bureau, 15 Nov. 2022); this number does not include dead animals and pre-human ancestors. This massive unknown history, and this mass of death, exists “beneath our feet” at all moments. To Doughty, this reality is inevitable and should be acknowledged.