involving a Pan Am plane in the mountains in northwest Bali, Indonesia, in
April, two years later.

Such accidents produce a great number of casualties at once and the site of
the crash presents such an alarming sight that one cannot help but turn one's
face from it. Moreover, the collection and identification of the remains and their
subsequent conveyance to their home countries and the holding of memorial
services for the dead must be done with the utmost sincerity in the midst of the
agony and grief of the victims' families. Often a variety of foreign passengers
of different nationalities, faiths and beliefs are traveling in the same plane, and
the manner, customs, legal procedures and so on, of the place where the
accident occurred are not necessarily in accord with those of the deceased and
their families. In the situations where I mediated between those who had
suffered (the bereaved families) and those who had caused the suffering (the
airline company), I could not help but worry about how to deal with the
situation in a way that would satisfy all parties. Thus it occurred to me that it is
absolutely vital to examine the various funeral customs in the world in order to
avoid confusion and misunderstanding. I believe that such information would be
useful not only for travelers going abroad but also for those who wish to
strengthen their understanding of each other.

The study of the customs of funeral services in various countries has been
made mainly by cultural anthropologists and folklorists. Since the 18th century
when the voluminous work Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les
Peuples du Monde (English translation is available) by Barnard Pickart of the
Netherlands was first published, many books have been written on this subject,
including a joint work by Habenstein and Lamers entitled Funeral Customs the
World Over ( 1972). However, these works present fragmentary analysis dealing
only with past practices, and none seems to treat the current funeral customs
prevailing throughout the world. Thus, I have briefly introduced the funeral
customs now practiced in various parts of the world. Although I firmly believe
that someone will have to wrestle with this problem in further depth sooner or
later, in order to do this properly it is necessary for a group of scholars to
research the subject in cooperation and to look at the problem from various
angles. Consequently, it would be impossible to complete the work in a short
time. But we cannot wait with folded arms for such a work to be published.
Even as I write, many travelers are in fact dying in foreign lands.

At present there are more than 190 independent countries in the world. The
funeral practices in each are closely related to the culture, history and
geography of the country concerned. Funeral customs differ widely according to
the area, racial demographics, social and political structure, religion and so on.
Even within a single country, it is therefore difficult to define general
characteristics. However, for the sake of convenience, I have broadly classified
the countries within the following geographical framework: Asia, Oceania,
Africa, Middle East, Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, North and

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