Śmierć jako kontynuacja życia

Abstract

The reality of death may be fascinating or scaring. In a man the fear acquires a special meaning, as among the living creatures only he can imagine death; however, this image is a rather misty one, as death is a phenomenon that cannot be tested. It scares people, as a man senses an existential threat of his self-affirmation and he realizes that death reduces him to the level of all other living creatures. Although science says that the process that occur in the human body are not fundamentally different from the ones that take place in animals, a man does not believe in his own death and tries to convince himself that his soul is immortal. Although his body may be mummified, burned to ashes, or it may decompose, this does not have to mean the man’s definitive end. In societies belonging to various cultures and civilizations there is the conviction that physical death and decomposition of the body that follows do not mean a complete annihilation of the man, as something immaterial is left from him: his soul, spirit, or some other form of existence. Each culture reacts to death in a way characteristic to it and exposes it as a superior value. The attitude a particular community has towards death depends on the religion that is practiced in it, on the worldview and the hierarchy of values obtaining there. The article presents the understanding of the fact of death in the history of mankind, starting from some primitive peoples, through the biblical approach, to the folk tradition based on folk religiousness in Polish peasants. In working up this subject literature concerning this issue was used, and in discussing the Polish characteristics of the problem, besides quoting other works, the author’s own ethnographical field investigations were referred to; they were conducted in the Opoczno and Radom regions and it concerned customs connected with the burial and All Souls’ Day. Belief in life after death is noticed in the country inhabitants’ notions about afterlife, which is manifested, e.g., in providing the dead with various accessories necessary in “the next world” Life there is imagined as similar to life on the earth, albeit in a complete ly new reality. Moreover, in all the communities and cultures mutual relations can be seen between the world of the spirits of the dead and the world of the living. Remains of the old customs and beliefs in life after death testify to man’s faith, even in primitive cultures, as well as to the fact that man is destined to live eternally; this faith among contemporary Christians is supported by Christ arisen.