Funeral Food

Studies have been published of the funeral customs prevailing in certain cultures or communities. Ethnographers and anthropologists find much to chew on, perhaps because there are many cross-cultural links to be made, and customs now current may have antecedents of great antiquity. The Mexican Day of the Dead, for one, can be traced back to a pre-Columbian past. Archaeologists, too, can seem unhealthily preoccupied with funerals. Graves and grave goods bulk large as the relics of prehistoric societies, and study of the remains of any funerary ritual is often enlightened by cross-reference to modern times.