Grief and a Headhunter's Rage (Edit)

Rosaldo's writing it easy to follow, clear and straight to the point and definitly with some passion. I can't imagine leaving everything behind and studying a culture and "to a point" living the culture that you're trying to study.

I like when he's talking about the emotion of death, the emotion that he got when Michelle Rosaldo died, ". . . she lost her footing and fell to her death some 65 feet down a sheer precipine into a swollen river below. Immediately on finding her body I became enraged. How could she abandon me? How could she have been so stupid as to fall? I tried to cry. I sobbed, but rage blocked the tears." This is amazing because I think people are like this all the time when a loved one is taken. Not only is he experiencing rage it's also selfishness. He describes it when he says "how could you abandon me?" Ultimately though, the reason why we western civilization become enraged is only based on selfish movtives. We are taught at an early age that death happens and the person dying or who is dead has gone to a better place. Unlike the Ilongot's who belief they need to release spirits by taking the head of someone, which is what they were taught through their culture.

Rosaldo experiencing rage gives a great reason as to why the Ilongot's do what they do, it's the rage inside them but based on cultural differences we deal with death in different ways. Death is a cultural issue, depending apon what you've been taught in your early childhood and have wittnesses you'll most likely practice in your adulthood.