National Geographic: Adventures in Time Page #5

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they'll share between them.

They have only thirty seconds

before the train pulls out again

and consider their daily ritual

like a workout at the gym."

Very few of us choose to risk our lives

on a regular basis.

For those who take up hazardous

occupations the excitement, danger

and rush of adrenaline can be addicting.

"When does a job become a mission?

A career become a quest?

How do you face each day at work

when you know it could be your last?"

"Who was Al? Al was our friend.

And I'm gonna miss him a hell of a lot."

The way we live our lives is often shaped

by our attitude towards death.

But few embrace the dead

as wholeheartedly as the Ngaju Dayaks

of central Borneo.

Anthropologist Anne Schiller has spent

almost 15 years studying the death rites

of the Dayak peoples.

She takes part in a ceremony called

Tiwah during which the villagers dig up

the bones of their dead parents

spouses and children.

They do this so the spirit of

their loved ones might go

in the afterlife to

what they call the prosperous village.

"If the head of a family

hasn't been able to hold a Tiwah

he is very troubled and unsettled

in his mind.

He asks himself,

how can I save my parents

so they can go to the

prosperous village?"

"This is all about taking care of

their parents

I mean what these people are doing is

they're- they're giving life to

their parents in the way their parents

gave life to them...

so they're caring for them the way

you care for a child.

You- you're washing it...

and you're nurturing it and

you're making sure it's comfortable."

Now that the bones have been exhumed

the Tiwah progresses

to the ritual blood sacrifice.

"Blood protects you from illness

it protects you

from evil supernatural beings

that might bother you

and so sacrifices are held

because you need that blood of the chicken

or the pig or the cow or the water

buffalo in order to anoint people

and to anoint things to make sure

that the people and the things remain safe.

From a culture that honors death

to the death of cultures themselves...

All over the world unique societies

are under threat

their cultures as vulnerable as

endangered plants or animals.

According to some estimates nearly half

of the world's six thousand languages

will disappear in the next century.

The realities of an emerging global

culture and economy

often provide little incentive

for preserving them.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning children.

How do you do?"

"How do you do? Thank you."

"Sit down."

"Thank you, sir."

How does a people hold on

to its own identity

its own traditions and still remain

open to the outside world?

Disappearing cultures

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