Neoandertals Defleshing The Cadaver Before Burial
Two mysteries of creation -- life and death
Their dead were buried, fearing their resurrection
The placement of heavy stone slabs upon their graves seen as impeding their dead from returning
Neanderthal corpses, tightly flexed, tied with thongs
Interring their dead, performing burial rituals
The defleshing of the body -- a symbolic act -- preventing its spirit from haunting them
Removing flesh to silence the destructive will of nature
removing flesh to see death making its way into the carcass
removing flesh...
Flesh, doomful like a rapid ghastly river
Cheek muscles from children were filleted out,
tendons were sliced and skulls were cracked to remove brains
Flaying will silence the vile enemy in the form of the Neanderthal ghost
Allaying the dead spirits, who possess destructive powers to the continent
(For thousands of years or more, the shell will see its ghostly owner nevermore)
(Series of rituals, praising the individual)
Buried together, entire kin groups remained united after death
Believed in an afterlife, a vision beyond death in their pre-abstract minds
Artifacts and fauna
guaranteed health in the spirit world...
Defleshing The Cadaver Before Burial, to protect the living from the undead
Death itself, regarded as a kind of sleep
Corpses arranged in sleeplike positions
Death had become something more than a mere brutish fact of nature
Leave the rotten meat witnessing the rebirth of an epoch
