Since the beginning of human history, death has been the most terrifying force and the greatest teacher that our species has had. Being notoriously difficult to understand, it seems inevitable that humans are afraid of it. Yet death has been an important teacher to every generation of man. Without death, men would have never conceived the idea of a separate body and soul. Without this distinction, it is quite possible that many of the religions …showed first 75 words of 1700 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1700 total…Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993. 2-18. Iwasaka, Michiko, and Barry Toelken. Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 1994. Laungani, Pittu, Colin M. Parks, and Bill Young, eds. Death and Bereavement across Cultures. London: Routledge, 1997. 138-139. Matsunami, Kodo. International Handbook of Funeral Customs. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1998. xvii. Silberman, Bernard S., ed. Japanese Character and Culture: A Book of Selected Readings. Tuscon, AZ: University of Arizona P, 1962. 207-210.