Mourning: the cultures of pain – Diario Hoy In the news

Death is an inevitable and universal event, but mourning varies in each culture. So the suit from the English school of Eton – attended by, among others, David Cameron and Boris Johnson – is known worldwide, as it has been adopted as a ceremonial dress for children. The jacket, so curious and characteristic, is called an eton in France. This costume has its origin, it is said, in a mourning worn by the school in the 18th century on the occasion of the death of a sovereign.

In China, black is not the color of mourning: it is white that is associated with the idea of ​​death. Likewise, when a woman in Kiwai—on the western shores of the Gulf of Papua, in English New Guinea—is in mourning, she smears mud all over her body as a show of grief and puts a piece of clothing around her neck, that hangs down his back until it almost reaches the ground and in front reaches up to his chest.