Deadly Comfortable!
Hey there,
I hope everyone reading this is having a lively day. My name is Sara Daruvala, I am a third year Anthropology Major and Greek and Roman Studies Minor.
Personal comfort when it comes to dead bodies was mentioned in the first class, and ever since I have been attempting to gage my own comfort with human remains. Ethically, as a fellow human being should I be repulsed by any human remains simply as a default reaction? On the other hand if I'm not repulsed at all by any amount of distortion to a body does that make me an emotionless shell of a being (these examples being the two extremes within which several diverse levels reside)? I actually am not sure to tell you the truth. Personally I would not judge a person if they happened to pick either of the options mentioned above.
I realized that I do not know my tolerance for different forms of human remains is because I have not been around many. Perhaps in this scenario experience is the only real way to decidedly have an opinion. Some things you already know will not be your taste, for instance I have extremely sensitive olfactory senses and I do not think I could handle anything rotting or that had a particularly pungent odor. I have had experiences with a few dead bodies. All these experiences come from one of my classes that i took last semester in fact. The class was ANTH 352 with Dr. Donaldson, Modern Human Osteology I believe. We worked with a lot of bones in this class. However I observed them so objectively that in my head they were far removed from the concept of human remains. I treated the bones like any other tool used for education, such as a telescope, with care and respect but not for the reasons that perhaps should have been primary. However, the times I did notice the significance of what these objects were was after my snack breaks in the bone lab. I would realize that I just ate a sandwich or some fishy crackers... with hands that had just been handling human remains (of which some residue may have remained). Oh no! I stopped mid-thought as a more disturbing thought entered my mind. Did this mean that I was now an accidental cannibal (perhaps in an anally literal sense)? Though the thought was disturbing I did not feel overly affected by my actions and was just able to shrug it off. I repeated this event a few more times unintentionally, only realizing after the fact what I was doing.
Thus I have concluded that I seem to be deadly comfortable with dry skeletons (adult or child) outside any sort of cultural context. Many cultures do incorporate human remains into rituals, and sometimes bodies are buried multiple times and have to be handled in different forms. Perhaps it is a western notions to be so blatant to dismiss human remains. Again, that is just a speculation, I myself have been raised where the majority of my beliefs are westernized. Clearly I have been raised to think that I should be repulsed by the thought of human bones (especially the part of potentially putting bone residue in my mouth) but really I'm unaffected by them and if anything I really enjoy studying and handling the bones.
PS I'm sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable with my subject matter that was not my intention.
Hey there,
I hope everyone reading this is having a lively day. My name is Sara Daruvala, I am a third year Anthropology Major and Greek and Roman Studies Minor.
Personal comfort when it comes to dead bodies was mentioned in the first class, and ever since I have been attempting to gage my own comfort with human remains. Ethically, as a fellow human being should I be repulsed by any human remains simply as a default reaction? On the other hand if I'm not repulsed at all by any amount of distortion to a body does that make me an emotionless shell of a being (these examples being the two extremes within which several diverse levels reside)? I actually am not sure to tell you the truth. Personally I would not judge a person if they happened to pick either of the options mentioned above.
I realized that I do not know my tolerance for different forms of human remains is because I have not been around many. Perhaps in this scenario experience is the only real way to decidedly have an opinion. Some things you already know will not be your taste, for instance I have extremely sensitive olfactory senses and I do not think I could handle anything rotting or that had a particularly pungent odor. I have had experiences with a few dead bodies. All these experiences come from one of my classes that i took last semester in fact. The class was ANTH 352 with Dr. Donaldson, Modern Human Osteology I believe. We worked with a lot of bones in this class. However I observed them so objectively that in my head they were far removed from the concept of human remains. I treated the bones like any other tool used for education, such as a telescope, with care and respect but not for the reasons that perhaps should have been primary. However, the times I did notice the significance of what these objects were was after my snack breaks in the bone lab. I would realize that I just ate a sandwich or some fishy crackers... with hands that had just been handling human remains (of which some residue may have remained). Oh no! I stopped mid-thought as a more disturbing thought entered my mind. Did this mean that I was now an accidental cannibal (perhaps in an anally literal sense)? Though the thought was disturbing I did not feel overly affected by my actions and was just able to shrug it off. I repeated this event a few more times unintentionally, only realizing after the fact what I was doing.
Thus I have concluded that I seem to be deadly comfortable with dry skeletons (adult or child) outside any sort of cultural context. Many cultures do incorporate human remains into rituals, and sometimes bodies are buried multiple times and have to be handled in different forms. Perhaps it is a western notions to be so blatant to dismiss human remains. Again, that is just a speculation, I myself have been raised where the majority of my beliefs are westernized. Clearly I have been raised to think that I should be repulsed by the thought of human bones (especially the part of potentially putting bone residue in my mouth) but really I'm unaffected by them and if anything I really enjoy studying and handling the bones.
PS I'm sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable with my subject matter that was not my intention.
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