Some cultures have associated the afterlife with a geographic location. The notion of the existence of an underworld beneath the world of the living is common. The Babylonians, Assyrians, and other peoples of ancient Mesopotamia, for example, thought the dead lived on in a dusty, bleak underworld called the Dark Earth. Any pit, cave, or pond could be an entrance to that place. People on the islands of Melanesia in the southeastern Pacific Ocean imagine an underground world that is the mirror image of the upper world. Stories from the island of New Guinea, north of Australia, describe an underworld that lies beneath the ocean. Divers have claimed to see the souls of the dead working in undersea gardens. In Navajo mythology, the dead descend into a watery underworld. According to the Ibo of Nigeria, the underworld is ruled by the goddess Ala, who receives the dead into her womb.
Other cultures have placed the afterlife in the sky or among the stars. The Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest believe that the dead become rain clouds. Some Native Americans of the Southeast say that the souls of the dead dwell either in the heavens or in the west.
The west, where the sun sets each day, has often been associated with the afterlife of the spirits. Polynesian islanders, in the central and southern Pacific Ocean, locate their ancestral island in the west and believe that spirits of the dead can return there. The Celtic people from western Europe pictured an other world that was sometimes underground or under the sea, and sometimes an island in the west.
In most accounts, the Celtic other world was a magical place filled with enjoyable activities, such as feasting and, for heroic warriors, fighting. Some descriptions, though, indicate that the land of the dead had a grim and dangerous side. Annwn (pronounced AN-oon), the realm of the dead in Welsh mythology, could be fearsome. Less frightening was Valhalla (pronounced val-HAL-uh) of Norse mythology, a vast palace where warriors slain in battle spent the afterlife feasting, singing, and indulging in playful combat. Their afterlife was not eternal, however. One day Valhalla and the world would be swept away in the gods’ last Battle. In addition, not all warriors went to Valhalla. Freyja (pronounced FRAY-uh), goddess of love and death, took half of them to her own palace in the afterworld.
In contrast to vivid, lively, and joyous visions of the world beyond, the afterlife pictured by the peoples of the ancient Near East was dim and shadowy. The early Jews called their dismal, ghostly underworld Sheol (pronounced SHEE-ohl). The spirits who dwelled in the Assyro-Babylonian underworld felt neither pain nor pleasure but lived a pale, washed-out version of life on earth, complete with a royal court ruled by Nergal and Ereshkigal, the king and queen of the dead. The Babylonian heroic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, contains a description of the afterlife in which the hero’s dead friend Enkidu returns as a spirit to describe his existence in the “house of dust.”
Different Fates Peoples of the ancient Near East, such as the Mesopotamians and the early Jews, believed that the afterlife was the same for everyone. Other cultures, however, have expected the dead to be divided into different afterworlds. The Polynesians believe that the souls of common people, victims of black magic, and sinners are destroyed by fire. The souls of the upper classes, by contrast, journey to a spirit world where they live among their ancestors. Some ancient Chinese people believed that the afterlife was different for good and bad people: the souls of good people rose to the court of Tien (pronounced Tyen), or heaven, while the souls of bad people descended into one of the eighteen levels of hell, depending on their crimes in the world.
The Maya people of Central America believed that the souls of the dead went to an underworld known as Xibalba (pronounced shi-BAHL-buh). To escape and go to heaven, the souls had to trick the underworld gods. Among the Aztecs of Mexico, slain warriors, merchants killed during a journey, and women who died in childbirth joined the sun in the heavens. The ordinary dead spent four years traveling through the nine layers of an underworld called Mictlan (pronounced MEEKT-lahn), only to vanish when they reached the ninth level. The Aztecs believed that the rain god Tlaloc (pronounced TLAH-lok) was responsible for the deaths of people who died by drowning or of certain diseases such as leprosy. Tlaloc then sent these people to a happy afterlife that ordinary Aztecs did not share. Wall paintings in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan (pronounced tay-uh-tee-wah-KAN) show the garden paradise that welcomed the souls of Tlaloc’s dead.
In Norse mythology, warriors went to heavenly palaces, while other individuals ended up in a cold underworld called Niflheim (pronounced NIV-uhl-heym), or Hel. Among the Inuit (pronounced IN-yoo-it), or Eskimo, of Greenland, a happy land in the sky is the reward for the souls of people who have been generous or have suffered misfortunes in life; others go to an underworld ruled by the goddess Sedna. The Pima and Papago peoples of the American Southwest say that the spirits of the departed travel to a place in the east where they will be free from hunger and thirst.
Some cultures hold the view that the souls of the dead face judgment: the good are rewarded in the afterlife, while the evil are punished. The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed that a soul had to convince the gods that he or she had committed no sins in life. The dead person’s heart was placed on one side of a set of scales with a feather from the headdress of Ma’at (pronounced MUH-aht), the goddess of judgment, on the other. If the two balanced, the soul was declared sinless. A monster devoured those who failed the test.
The Zoroastrians of ancient Persia believed that the afterlife held a reward for the virtuous, or those of moral excellence. Those who lived a just earthly life experienced a form of pure light that signified the presence of Ahura Mazda, their only god, who stands for goodness, justice, and order. The ancient Greeks imagined the afterlife as a shadowy realm, called Hades (pronounced HAY-deez) after its ruling deity. They also spoke of a deeper pit of hell, Tartarus, to which those who had acted wrongly were sent to receive punishment. In the Shinto mythology of Japan, the dead go to a land of darkness known as Yomi, where they may be punished for their misdeeds.
After about 200 bce, the Jewish concept of Sheol gave way to a vision of judgment after death. The good entered the presence of God, while the wicked roasted in a hell called Gehenna (pronounced geh-HEN-na). This influenced the Christian and Islamic ideas about hell as a state or place of punishment for evil. Heaven, in contrast, is the union of virtuous souls with God. According to the Roman Catholic Church, there is a state of being between heaven and hell called purgatory, in which tarnished souls are purified on the way to heaven.
The Journey to the Afterlife Many cultures have regarded death as the beginning of the soul’s journey to the afterworld. The ancient Greeks pictured sea horses and dolphins carrying virtuous souls to the Elysian (pronounced il-EE-shun) Fields, also known as the Islands of the Blessed. Less noble Greeks undertook a darker journey, asking a boatman named Charon (pronounced KAIR-uhn) to ferry them across the river Acheron (pronounced ACK-er-on), which marked the boundary between the world and Hades.
Many Pacific islanders viewed the journey as a leap. Every island had a reinga, or leaping place, from which the soul was thought to depart. For the Maori of New Zealand, that place is the northernmost point of North Island, known as Cape Reinga. A sacred tree was often associated with the reinga. The Hawaiians believed that the souls of children lingered near the tree to give directions to the newly dead. Other Pacific peoples thought souls swam to the afterlife, and those weighted with sin would sink.
In some cultures, bridges linked the living world and the afterworld, and the crossing was not always easy. The Norse bridge shook ifsomeone not yet dead tried to cross it before his or her time. The Zoroastrians had to cross a bridge the width ofa hair. The just survived the crossing; the unjust fell into hell. Both the rainbow and the Milky Way were thought by various peoples to represent the bridge to the land of the gods or spirits.
The Fiji islanders of the south Pacific spoke of a Spirit Path with many dangers, a journey so difficult that the only ones who could complete it were warriors who had died violent deaths. A Native American myth of the far north says that the dead person’s shadow must walk a trail the person made during life. Along the way, the person’s ghost tries to keep the shadow from reaching the heavenly afterlife.
The living sometimes attempted the journey to the afterworld in search ofthe secrets, wisdom, powers, or treasures associated with the realm of spirits and of the dead. Welsh heroes entered the realm ofAnnwn to steal a magic cauldron, or kettle. Greek legends tell of the journeys of Orpheus and Odysseus to the land of the dead. The Navajo believe that searching for the realm of the dead can bring death to the living.
Return of the Dead In his play Hamlet, William Shakespeare called death “The undiscovered country from whose bourn [boundary]/No traveler returns.” Yet myths and legends from around the world say the dead do interact with the world of the living in one way or another.
In some cultures, the dead are thought to linger near the living as shades, or spirits. Southeastern Native Americans believe that newly dead souls remain near their villages hoping to persuade others to join them.
In some African myths, the souls of the dead stay close to living relatives in order to help and advise them. To consult with their dead ancestors, Mayan rulers performed a bloodletting ritual known as the Vision Serpent ceremony. During the ceremony, participants experienced visions in which they communicated with the dead.
The belief that the spirits of the dead can do good or ill in the world of the living lies behind some forms of ancestor worship. Ghosts of the dead, whether malicious, helpful, or merely sad, appear in the myths and folktales of many cultures. The Chinese perform ceremonies to honor the spirits of their ancestors and ensure that they will have good feelings toward their descendants. Some Native Americans honor the ghosts of their dead with annual feasts. The Navajo, however, avoid dwelling on death and never mention the dead in their rituals.
The dead sometimes return in another way as well: the soul may be reincarnated, meaning reborn in another body. The notion of multiple rebirths through a series of lifetimes is basic to the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Those who act wrongly in life may be reborn as less fortunate people or as animals or insects. Cultures in some areas of Africa also believe that souls are reborn, sometimes after a period spent in the underworld, or land of the dead.
Preparation for the Afterlife In many cultures, rituals associated with death were meant to help the deceased in his or her journey to the afterlife. The Greeks, for example, provided the dead with coins to pay the ferryman Charon. Although the Romans were less certain about the afterlife than the Greeks, they often followed the same custom and sometimes added treats for the dead person to offer to Cerberus (pronounced SUR-ber-uhs), the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld. The Tibetan Book of the Dead gives instructions for the soul to follow on its journey between death and rebirth.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the body had to be preserved after death in order for the spirit to survive, so they went to great lengths to prepare for the afterlife. They built tombs to protect their dead. The most elaborate are the great monuments known as the pyramids. Within the tombs, they placed grave goods, such as food, furniture, and even servants, for the dead person to use in the next life. The Egyptians also developed an elaborate form ofmummification, or drying and preserving a body to keep it from decomposing after death. The full process could take as long as two hundred days and was available only to the upper classes.
The Egyptians provided their dead with written instructions, including advice on how to survive the hazardous journey after death and guidebooks to the afterworld. The afterlife took many forms but was often pictured as a comfortable existence in a luxuriant realm of rivers, fields, and islands, although the royal dead were said to join the god Osiris (pronounced oh-SYE-ris) in the heavens. Texts inscribed on the walls of royal tombs included prayers, hymns, and magical spells to protect the dead from the dangers of the soul’s journey. They were included in one of the most famous collections of ancient Egyptian writings, the Book of the Dead, copies of which were often buried with the dead.
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia usually made no attempt to preserve the bodies of their dead or to bury them elaborately. One striking exception is a set of royal graves found in the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, located in present-day Iraq. The graves contained not only rare and precious goods but also the bodies of servants, dancing girls, charioteers, and animals, all slain to serve the dead in the afterlife. The Germanic peoples also buried grave goods with their chieftains. An early medieval burial mound at Sutton Hoo in eastern England contained an entire ship along with a quantity of gold and silver items.
The grave goods of male Bushmen of Africa consist of the dead man’s weapons. People preparing the body for burial coat it with fat and red powder and bend it into a fetal position, also known as a curled sleeping position. Then they place it in a shallow grave facing in the direction of the rising sun. Other South African tribes follow a different practice. They break the bones of dead people before burial to prevent their ghosts from wandering.
World History
