Australia’s First Nations people take a very different approach. In this fifty-thousand-year-old culture with the longest continuing religion in the world, mourning is understood to impact the entire community of the deceased. In traditional communities everyone is nominally related by assigned kinships that define rights, responsibilities, and even who may marry whom. When someone dies, therefore, everyone who is part of that community takes part in rites known as Sorry Business, even if this means traveling a great distance. Each new arrival sets off another round of intense mourning.
