Death and the Regeneration of Life Death and the Regeneration of Life written by Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry focuses on the significance of symbols of fertility and rebirth in funeral rituals. Their book includes many theories that anthropologist have studied with the idea of life and death. The idea of death and the regeneration of life changes with each culture and tradition. Everyone has his or her own opinion of how it shall work. With the help of many contributors to the book, one is able to read the different types of ways some cultures value their own rituals.
The notions of fertility and sexuality often have a considerable prominence in funeral practices. These practices have excited the attention of anthropologists
The burial of the corpse helps recharge the fertility of the descent group and the fertility of land. If it is loss after death, then the group will not be able to use the energy released from the body. The body also rescues the deceased itself from obliteration. Without the burial and reburial of the body the group believes that termination of the society could be ahead of them. Not only do societies value the body after death, they also value the fate of the soul. After the ones death it takes time for the mourners to readjust. This phase of readjustment is very dangerous for the soul of the deceased. This is because the soul may be socially uncontrolled by the mourners. To stop this from occurring, the mourners have a final ceremony. This involves the reassertion of society manifested by the end of mourning and by the belief that the soul has been incorporated into the society of the dead and has settled down in the same way as the collective consciousness of the living has been resettled by the rituals (4). After the final ritual, it is the nature of society and the state of collective conscience that determines both the treatment of the body of the corpse and the soul of the corpse. Once the soul is properly set free, the problem that now arises is the transfer of the soul from one dimension to another. The transfer of the soul will explain the parrells between the symbolism of mortuary ceremonies and the initiation rites. Each of the rites