We Must Stop Gruesome Postmortem Dismemberment

In 1854, Chief Seattle spoke to a group of early settlers. “Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars,” he said. “They are soon forgotten and never return.” He went on to explain how for Native peoples, the dead are “not powerless,” for while their bodies blend with the earth, spirits of the deceased travel on because “there is no death, only a change of worlds.”

Chief Seattle wasn't saying that the settlers failed to mourn or respect their dead—though they most certainly did so in a fashion much different from Native folk—but rather that their dead no longer played a dynamic role in the day-to-day existence of the living. He was trying to explain an interconnectedness that was incomprehensible to the colonizing culture. For Native peoples then, and now, those on the other side continue as vital members of our societies. Centered between us and the Great Mysterious, they are able to bridge the worlds. They are conduits, providing critical guidance necessary for our continuance as peoples.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/03/20/we-must-stop-gruesome-postmortem-dismemberment