Effie Bendann

Effie Bendann (August 1877/78 – 24 June 1936) was an American teacher and author best known for her 1930 book Death Customs: An Analytical Study of Burial Rites, a comparative study of funerary customs and beliefs concerning death.

Life

Little biographical information about Effie Bendann has been identified. She was born in August 1877 or 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents Daniel Bendann and Hannah Lisner.[a][1]

Bendann worked as a teacher. She received a Ph.B. from the University of Chicago in 1915. The university's 1919 alumni directory listed her as a teacher at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut.[2] Together with Dora Weil, Bendann founded Camp Tapawingo, a summer camp for girls, at Keyes Pond in Sweden, Maine.[3]

According to census data, she lived in New York City in 1920 and 1930 and continued working as a teacher. Effie Bendann died on 24 June 1936 in Manhattan.[1]

Death Customs

Bendann's principal work was Death Customs: An Analytical Study of Burial Rites, published in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf in New York. The book is 304 pages dealing with funeral rites, death ceremonies and thanatology.[4]

The book examines burial rites and ideas associated with death in Australia, Melanesia, northern Siberia and India. Among the subjects discussed are the origin and causes of death, disposal of the dead, attitudes towards corpses, mourning, purification, taboos, funerary feasts, beliefs concerning life after death, and the cult of the dead.[5] Bendann's study discussed and criticized theories associated with earlier anthropologists including Herbert Spencer, Edward Burnett Tylor, James George Frazer and W. H. R. Rivers.

The book received contemporary scholarly attention. Reviews of Death Customs by Effie Bendann appeared in the scientific journals Nature and American Anthropologist in 1931.[6] The Nature review described the book's conclusion as rejecting the idea of a single uniform evolutionary sequence in the development of human cultures, while attributing some parallel developments to psychological rather than historical causes.[5]

The book was subsequently reprinted in later editions and remained part of the bibliographical literature on funerary and mortuary practices. English publisher Routledge reprinted it as part of the History of Civilization series in 1996.[7]

Bibliography

  • Bendann, Effie. Death Customs: An Analytical Study of Burial Rites. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 "Effie Bendann Death Certificate". The New York City Municipal Archives: Historical Vital Records. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
  2. ↑ University of Chicago Alumni Council (1920). Alumni Directory, the University of Chicago, 1919. The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "Tap's History". Camp Tapawingo. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  4. 1 2 "Death customs: an analytical study of burial rites / by E. Bendann". Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  5. 1 2 "Death Customs: an Analytical Study of Burial Rites". Nature. 127: 8–9. 3 January 1931. doi:10.1038/127008a0. Retrieved 17 August 2026.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  6. ↑ Clark Wissler (1931). "Death Customs; An Analytical Study of Burial Rites". American Anthropologist. 33 (3): 451. doi:10.1525/aa.1931.33.3.02a00250. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  7. ↑ "Death Customs". Routledge. Retrieved 17 August 2026.

Notes

  1. ↑ According to the 1900 United States census, she was born on 7 August 1878, while her death certificate lists her birthdate as 9 August 1877.
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