Death as we know it in mainstream America is, well, different than what I experienced in the remote regions of Alaska where the earth and the animals and the sea life and humans are so intricately connected. Death there is a continuation of life, and neither feared or pushed away. Death in remote Alaska is a community happening, very spiritual and at the same time very grounded in the present, something to be honored, touched, felt.
When I first encountered death in the village, my first month of being there, I was taken aback and amazed at the care, work, and love that went into death here at the end of the earth.
Death in the villages is so different than the way we white-wash death here in mainstream America. Here, we never see the dead body until the funeral home personnel, who neither knows or cares about our dead, dresses the body in clothes we barely recognize, artfully plasters the dead person’s face with make-up to make them look “asleep” and often plops on a wig to make them look young and what… more vibrant? After this routine, the body is readied for “viewing.” From a distance of course.
Next comes the expensive (very expensive) plush casket, funeral home protocol, and services… all designed to keep us at least an arm’s length away from the dead body and the realities of the death that has just occurred. Very sterilized and surreal. We keep as far away from the dead as possible… I wonder if unconsciously we might be having thoughts that it, death, is catching.
In the villages, it is common and expected that the dying be kept at home and cared for until death arrives. No nursing home with its isolation and loneliness, no hospital with its regulations about who and when can be with the dying. Dying at home, surrounded by family and community members dropping in daily, is common and expected. Many people in these remote places die in the same bed that they had slept in every night of their lives… the one they had made love in, the one they had birthed their babies in, and the one that had welcomed them as they grew old and ill.
Here, the life bed and the death bed are one.
After death in remote Alaska, unless the death has been unexpected or accidental, the body never leaves the village.
In the villages where I worked, everyone had a task when there was a death.
In these remote places, there are certain villagers who wash the body. Others make clothing for the body, including exquisitely beaded mits and moccasins. Two or three men of the village make a casket out of birch or spruce wood. The older women line the casket with whatever pieces of material they have available and place common blankets over the body.
There is a team of 6 or 8 men who dig the grave… making a fire over the gravesite to thaw the ground. They dig down as far as they can then make another fire, over and over until a 6’ grave is ready.
After the funeral and before the potlatch meal for the community, the casket is put into someone’s old pick-up and carried to the cemetery with everyone following on 4 wheelers or snow machines. Everyone has a hand in helping and connecting with the death.
Then, there is the potlatch. Food had been prepared for a week. Gifts to give away were gathered. All ages, starting with babies and toddlers are partaking in the celebration of the deceased life and the passing to God’s hands.
Death is no stranger here, but to me, seemed like the abiding companion to a life deeply and richly lived.