Most of us probably think of death as a dreadful thing that we would like to
avoid. But it is a reality that we have to face sooner or later. There is a saying
that someone else's death may be permissible, but our own death is not
possible. In his book La Mort, Vladimir Jankelevitch, a French philosopher,
classified death into three categories, namely, the deaths of the first, second and
third persons. The death of the first person is "my death," whereas that of the
second person is "my acquaintance's death," and the third person's is "other
death." "My death" is the most difficult to confront because it means our own
end. The death of the third person, on the other hand, is an everyday occurrence,
which may not be an immediate concern and is easily forgettable.

The information on the various funeral customs in the world in this book
mainly focuses on the death of the second person. In other words, I examined
the way people living in different countries deal with the death of an
acquaintance and what kind of post-mortem arrangements are made. Although
this kind of study may seem somewhat morbid, I believe that one can get a
better understanding of the different ways of life through viewing people's
individual and collective behavior in funeral customs.

I first became interested in the various funeral customs in the world when I
was asked to hold memorial services for those who had died in major plane
crashes. In such cases, I hastened to the crash site with the bereaved families to
assist in making arrangements to identify the bodies of the victims and in
conducting a memorial service for the dead. I did this at the request of the
airline companies in the wake of air disasters, including a crash of a JAL plane
in the suburbs of New Delhi, India, in June 1972, a crash at Shermechievo
International Airport in Moscow in December of the same year, and an accident

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