Re: Corpses (was Re: Gender in conlangs.....)

At 10:24 PM 11/4/03 -0600, you wrote:
>On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 21:52:24 -0500, Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>
>wrote:
>
> >My Cwendaso/Tovláug do not have that much knowledge about what happens
> >after death.  They do believe that the soul/spirit/whatever survives, i.e.
> >it is not annihilated, but that is about all they know.  They have a
> >profound reverence for human life in general, and they treat corpses and
> >human bones with the utmost care and reverence, and have no fear of
> >them.  They might possibly gender human remains as epicene to give them the
> >dignity of something human and also so that corpses can be made male or
> >female by verbal agreement.  Or they might also gender them as inanimate to
> >show up the contrast that the corpse used to be a living, breathing human
> >being, and now it is most definately not (although it is still most
> >definately human, and will never cease to be.)
>
>That's an interesting contrast with Zireen cultures, which also affects
>their languages. A Zireen ceases being a Zireen at death -- a dead Zireen
>must be referred to as "the corpse of a Zireen" (or "a Zireen who has
>died", depending on context). While "a dead Zireen" is grammatical, it can
>only refer to a líve Zireen who is for some reason (by analogy or metaphor)
>thought of as being "dead".
>
>This grammatical complexity is also true of other living beings; the
>example in my language notes is "a dead dragon".
This sort of discussion makes me realize that I will have to give some
thought to how the Trehelish speak about the dead.  Once the corpse or
skeleton is burnt, the spirit leaves this world forever and wanders in "a
dark land under a starless sky."  The "dark land" is essentially another
plane of existence completely separate from this one, and it is,
presumably, the domain of the Death god, whom Trehelish mythology (and the
mythologies of related peoples) acknowledges to be more powerful than any
of the other gods.

As far as a Trehel is concerned, once the body is burnt, the person is no
longer there - the spirit is no longer in this world.  However, a corpse
still has a spirit in it, so I think that they would speak of the person as
still being there.  They are very uneasy about corpses because of the
ghosts in them, so funerals are performed as soon as possible.  (Cwendaso,
on the other hand, perform their funerals in a timely fashion simply to
avoid the unpleasantness of singing a funeral over a decomposing
corpse.  Of course, since they generally inter in communal barrows, they
really can't get away from that sort of unpleasantness, in the end.)

The Trehelish probably need a complex vocabulary for human spirits in
different states.  I'll have to do some work in that department.  Right
now, I can see three-fold distinction: a spirit in a living body, which is
almost completely tied to the body (certain religious rituals, high fevers,
madness, etc. can loosen this bond somewhat and allow the
spirit/soul/whatever to wander in a way that it ordinarily wouldn't be able
to); a spirit in a dead body, which is bound to the bones of that body and
to this world, but is capable of wandering abroad and of harming the living
(and this is why the Trehelish are so frightened of uncharred bones, and
even of fresh corpses); and a spirit which has been released from its body
by the burning of that body and is now no longer in this world at all but
in the dark land under a starless sky.

The real question is how Trehelish people would relate to someone who has
just died.  Say your wife has died.  You loved her very much, but she is
now a corpse inhabited by a spirit, and the spirits of the dead are not
safe - they can harm the living.  So there is a dilemma here.  I strongly
suspect that Trehelish people are afraid to touch the body of a departed
relative any more than absolutely necessary.  They would be afraid that it
might not be safe to do so.  It is even possible that they employ priests
(of the Death god) to prepare the body for cremation so that they don't
have to risk touching it.  Actually, I think that it is highly likely that
they get the priests to do it.

It's been rather helpful to sort of "think aloud" as I have composed this
post.  I guess other questions include what they do with the cremated
bones.  They consider them to be empty - truly dead; the spirit is
elsewhere and cannot return.  Cremated bones are also harmless.  I expect
that they must entomb them in some way.  Somehow I expect that the wealthy
probably build nice tombs.  I also do not know whether they believe that
the dead need anything.  If the dead are in need of anything, then I know
that it must be sent to them by burning it.  However, my image of what the
Trehelish "dark land under a starless sky" is like is that it is a very
empty place; its not the sort of place where you would really need
anything, so I expect that they do not burn funerary offerings.

Isidora

Replies