Respect for the Dead (was Re: What a great group)
Joel and Lynn GAzis-SAx (gazissax@best.com)
Tue, 21 Nov 95 07:27:44 GMT
In article <48s0el$h7a@nnrp3.news.primenet.com>,
jlong@Primenet.Com (John Long) wrote (in alt.society.funerary):
>Seems that it's ok for one culture to dig up another's graves. I was
>checking some computers in a college anthropology lab, and saw these
>boxes with skulls in them. Just plain old cardboard boxes. No respect.
>The culture that the owners of those skulls belonged to, is constantly
>reminding their "conquerers" to please, if you don't mind, we'd
>appreciate it if you didn't bulldoze our ancestors' resting place for
>that nice hotel or shopping center or whorehouse or whatever...
Stanford University reached an accord with several of the indigenous peoples
of California to return hundreds of bones which had been collected by their
anthropologists over the years. I see this as the beginning of a hopeful
trend and wish that other universities would follow Stanford's lead.
The collection of bones is a remnant of an age when anthropologists measured
skull capacities. But not all disadvantaged peoples end up in boxes. A large
Chinese cemetery in San Francisco was turned into Lincoln Park and a golf
course was laid out over it. A similar cemetery for paupers and medical
school cadavers in nearby Colma, California, was likewise turned into a golf
course.
Regards,
Joel GAzis-SAx
************************************************************************
Joel and Lynn GAzis-SAx Main email: gazissax@best.com
lynn@elan.com Visit Alsirat, the horror magazine
gazissax@netcom.com http://www.best.com/~gazissax/alsirat.html
jsax@igc.apc.org http://www.best.com/~gazissax/gazissax.html
The Marx Brothers@Darkweb (Joel) Whoopi@Darkweb (Lynn)
************************************************************************
|