Thus has been my experience with human nature; the simple answer is too obvious, hence cannot be true. I brushed aside their one-line accounts as too simple, thin, opaque, implausible stereotypical or otherwise unsatisfying.? Rosaldo stuck to this limited line of thinking until he was forced to experience that intense unequaled rage himself. My life had not as yet provided means to imagine the rage that can come with devastating loss.(471)?.
The need to physically release this anger was extremely important to the Ilongots. Not only were the Ilongots reliant on the releasing their anger, they also had much more to be bereaved about. Because of their society and living environment, they were much more prone to experience that raw feeling of anger. We live in a culture where we extremely sheltered from the kind of loss that someone in a third world country might experience. Many of the catastrophes that the Ilongots may experience are unheard of to us. There are similar instances of such loss, however, the level of such misfortune is quite exceeding anything we may experience in our daily lives. These lesser events are commonplace and may give us an insight into the potential for bereavement. My preparation for understanding serious loss began in 1970 with the death of my brother, shortly after his twenty-seventh birthday. By experiencing this ordeal with my mother and father, I gained a measure of insight into the trauma of a parent losing a child.(476)? .
However, as disturbing and saddening, as it may be to lose a child, or a brother the likelihood of this situation being much worse in the Ilongot culture is much more likely. In the text a man is described who was forced to cope with the loss of seven children. Rosaldo only experienced the loss of this brother at first,'my bereavement was so much less than that of my parents and I could not imagine the overwhelming force possible in such grief.