Societal Norms Associated with Death and Burial in St. Lucia Within the Last Sixty Years

There are few subjects that occupy the human imagination more than death, dying and the afterlife. While all cultures experience death among its members, cultural responses to death, dying and body disposal varies infinitely. St. Lucia, an island within the Caribbean archipelago is identified by a unique cultural history that can be traced back to multiple sources. These include but are not limited to its British and French colonial heritage, African diasporic influence, and life ways of its indigenous population. This chapter will explore elements of St. Lucian cultural behaviors, specifically regarding its approach to death and dying as a life course transition and a social process, and how it has changed and evolved over the past 60 years. This will include the examination and discussion of mourning practices (the wake and repast), body disposal practices (burial or cremation), funeral ceremony forms, clothing/funeral attire style and colors, community involvement and period of mourning between death and burial of the deceased and beyond. The research methods used by the author to collect data for this chapter were interview-based. The societal norms associated with death and burial in St. Lucia within the last 60 years richly adds to the knowledge about St. Lucian cosmological ideas of death and mortuary rituals.