Families and communities pay professional mourners to take part in funeral rites and corteges and to express the grief of their patrons. The mourners do so in traditional and forceful forms, such as chanting funeral hymns or crying aloud; in ancient Greece they sometimes even pluck their hair or inflict token wounds on themselves to express their grief. Elsewhere they may improvise or declaim poetry about the deceased and his ancestors. The fact that their sorrow isn’t as sincere as the relatives’ isn’t relevant. Rather, they are viewed as unappealing but necessary features of any funeral.