Abstract
Despite that fact that few societies are impervious to traumatic events leading to death and bereavement, there is paucity of studies pertaining to the societal-specific reactions to loss considering that grief reaction tend to be marked with psychosomatic problems. Societal-specific reactions could shed light on what constitutes culture-specific or culture-reactive idioms of distress. This paper considers whether grief process and task of grief emanating from Euro-American thanatological literature has heuristic counterpart to grief reaction observed in different parts of the world. The present exploratory process of qualitative enquiry considers how the family in Oman narrated their perceptions, beliefs, and practice of their dead relatives. After sudden death, carrying out funeral customs and ritualistic grieving practices for the deceased may appear to indicate an acceptance of the loss in traditional Omani society. In actuality, however, the family begins to be preoccupied with the idea that the deceased is somewhat still alive. Instead, the relative of dead equate the fate of deceased with ensorcerement and zombification. Present qualitative enquiry suggests that in the traditional Omani society, such preoccupation with ensorcerement and zombification is likely to have brought hope, reduced stress of sudden death and facilitated a long but easy transition through bereavement. This is interpreted as culturally sanctioned reactions to loss that appear to constitute explanatory models that entail negation of loss without indication of pathological sequel. Within context of similar reaction from Japan and Haiti, it appears that although death is universal phenomenon, reaction to it differs from culture to culture. It is concluded that cross-cultural study on coping with traumatic events would likely to pave the way for further research and the appreciation of the diversity of human experiences. Such undertaking is relevant in this age of globalization and acculturation where psychosomatic problems are becoming a global challenge.
