Tag Archives: funeral

Namaz E Janaza

My informant is Pakistani and has lived in many countries worldwide, yet has deep knowledge of his culture and is very associated with certain events and occasions that occur in Pakistan.

Funeral Ritual:

This prayer, typically known as “Namaz E Janaza” is a common type of prayer “performed at funerals”. It is a ritual that has “existed in Islam for a very long time” and is “very important to our religion and culture.” The ritual is illustrated by a “group of people that are praying as the body is put in front of them” He states that it is because “everyone is praying towards god when the body is also there” conveying the influences of religion on their life. The informant also states that it is “the same Islamic prayer from the Qur’an that people read.” It is a widely known tradition in South Asia, specifically Pakistani culture when it comes to funeral rituals and events that must take place in order to properly bury a body.

Context:

The ritual is “always performed by men in a room separate to the women,” and the informant continues to assert that “they cannot be together and a woman cannot speak the prayer to the body” highlighting the strict nature of this ritual and the specific cultural customs on death and funerals. It is usually done in Pakistan but also occurs in other Muslim countries that still honour this method of performing the funeral ritual. It is a very important aspect of how the body is sent to heaven and is a pivotal step in “family healing using religion and ensuring they continue in heaven”

Analysis:

The religious aspect of funerals is very common in many cultures, however, in Islamic culture, the split of the men and women into separate rooms signifies the power that the prayer holds as it is part of their tradition. Death and prayer being portrayed in a ritual allow families to use the religious scripture provided to them as a mode of grieving their loved ones in a structural manner, making it easier on the family that is closer to them. Although, the formality of the occasion eliminates personalisation of the funeral and family members when burying and honouring the dead as they must follow the known written words instead of making them uniquely theirs, which is seen in other cultures. However, it is a religious and important part of their cultural identity, therefore, the prayer does not solely mark the death of an individual but paves a path to their god that they are praying to, following the practices of their culture and tradition as it is passed down.

Pag Pag

Text: 

After a Filipino funeral or wake, it is a widely held superstition that the mourner does not return immediately to their home, but instead stops at another location before returning home. That way, the spirit of the deceased cannot follow you home.

Context:

The informant is my 67, and was born and raised in the Philippines, and still continues to live there. After the funerals she attended in her youth, she was told by her parents and other elder family members that they had to go someplace else, and could not immediately return home. Usually, this other location was a restaurant, where family members shared a meal before going home after the funeral.

Analysis:

The term “pag pag” literally means “to shake off something”, usually used in the context of dust or dirt. In other contexts, this term could refer to dusting off your shoes before entering the house. However, this “pag pag” is more meaningful and symbolic in that the thing you must shake off before entering the house is the deceased spirit from the person laid to rest at the funeral. Filipinos have many superstitions surrounding the dead, pag pag being one of them, and act as a means of warding off evil spirits or malevolent forces. By stopping at another location before going home, you avoid leading the spirit of the dead directly to your home, which Filipinos believe will bring bad luck.

Funeral Headbands

Context:

H is a pre-med Biology major at USC who grew up in Vancouver, Washington. His parents immigrated to the US from Vietnam.

Text:

H: “For funerals, you have to visit every day for the first week after the funeral and then once a week for seven weeks. And then, on the hundredth day since the funeral, everybody comes back to the temple. It’s like, the biggest day for them (the dead). You pray for them, wish them well at the temple. The hundredth day is when you have everybody together and you have a big feast. You have these white headbands that you wear and on the hundredth day, they chop off the headband.”

Analysis:

Since H was raised in a Viet-American household, he and his family’s celebration of weddings is similar to an Irish wake funeral, but also adds cultural specificity to Viet customs. For example, it is common in Irish funerals to throw a party on the deceased’s behalf, not only as a celebration of the deceased when they were alive but as a re-engineering of the domineering sorrow of a funeral. H’s feast on the hundredth day pays homage to the one who died without inviting negative emotions into the celebration of the individual.

Funerals are a liminal space, as Von Gennup puts it, lingering between the stages of life and death in a person’s existence on Earth. Rather than using funerals as a chance to mourn, H and Irish funeral traditions connect with members of their community and pray for safety into the next part of existing for the dead. This acceptance of death, the massive respect and commitment to the dead after the funeral, seems cultural, as does the white headbands and time. There is an acceptance of death as time marches on, not a denying of it. Rather, H’s family seems to come to terms that nothing can get in the way of death but glimmers for an appreciation of life and the one the once dead led.

Georgian Funeral Traditions

[T]: Funerals…I hated those things. They’re usually first held in whoever dies…their house. There’s usually a casket, usually an open casket in the living room and everyone and their mother literally has to show up or else you’re the most disgraceful thing known to humankind so there’s like hundreds of people and you know that someone’s died because you walk or drive past the street and there’s hundreds of people going in and out of the apartment building.

[Me]: Is it everybody in the community or just everybody that ever knew the person?

[T]: Everyone that ever knew the person basically…word gets around. And then…you have to typically wear black, you go in straight faced and when you walk into the living room you have to…there’s like all the women that were closely related to the deceased person sitting in a circle around the open casket and then you have to walk in a circle around the casket and look in…which is really traumatizing and then you say your condolences to everyone and typically in like more the villages and the outer areas of Georgia, the women weep loudly…that’s another thing they audibly weep the whole time and the louder they weep the more it shows that they loved the person. After you do that round you turn around and leave and go outside and usually people stand outside and have a drink or two and then they leave.

Day two of celebrations is when you have a huge feast, but that’s a little more intimate. It’s usually only like 100 people as opposed to like a thousand.

[Me]: Is there anything that you characteristically make for this feast? Like a food staple? Does everyone bring something or does the family of the deceased make everything?

[T]: Typically all of our feasts are the same cuisine…just a lot of typical Georgian food: a lot of meats, fish, grains, because grains are tied to the earth and holiness, a lot of greens and spinach and nuts…our typical feast tradition is that is has to look as though no one’s touched it so it has to be a lot of food…like mountains of food and especially when you’re honoring the dead it has to look like no one’s touched it so it’s a sign of respect.

[Me]: Do any of these funeral rites have official titles or are they just understood to be done when someone dies?

[T]: Oh yeah the viewing is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which kind of translates to “letting them rest” or “resting them away” and then…oh no, the first part is called პანაშვიდი [pronounced “panashvidi”] and the second part is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which is when they take them…there’s a bunch of people that drive to the church and then to the graveyard where they’re buried. Part 3 is the feast which is called the ქელეხი pronounced “qelekhi”], don’t know what that translates to but that’s what it’s called.

Translation Key:

გასვენება – pronunciation: gasveneba – literal translation: “letting them rest” – English equivalent: wake

პანაშვიდი – pronunciation: panashvidi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral

ქელეხი – pronunciation: qelekhi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral feast

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific wedding, funeral, or other ritual traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

There’s a lot of insight into Georgian culture from these funeral traditions. From the expectation of women weeping loudly at the wake to the abundant feast, it’s clear that the community places a lot of emphasis on paying respect to the deceased in traditional ways. The way that T describes the foods present at the qelekhi (ქელეხი) also speak to the overarching themes the culture and community value: connections to the Earth and holiness. T is a close friend of mine, and from other conversations we’ve had I know that outside of the capital city of Tbilisi, the villages are rather poor, very religious, and close-knit—these funeral traditions absolutely reflect that fact. Funerals represent, for a lot of cultures, a transition in identity for the deceased as they leave their place amongst the living and join the dead; I would have to do more research to be sure, but these traditions seem to indicate that in Georgian culture, people who have died are still very much a part of the community—just in a different way.

Dark-Humor at a Funeral

Background: N is an American with part Irish/Norwegian descent. During funerals, he remembers his uncles sharing a compilation of the deceased person’s best jokes and most scandalous stories to garner a few laughs.

Text:

N: “When the official funeral ceremony was over, I remember my four great uncles would gather at the reception and start cracking jokes at the dead person’s expense…sort of brutal to be honest. They’d air out all the person’s dirty laundry, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it… I always thought it was super fun as a kid because everyone was laughing… I didn’t understand the profanity much.”

Interviewer: “Did they do this at every funeral?”

N: “Pretty much anyone’s, mostly at each other’s to be honest…maybe because they knew they wouldn’t be offended if someone were cracking jokes over their own deathbed. It sadly got to the point where no one was left to share the jokes…and the tradition sort of died out.”

Interviewer: “Did anyone ever get upset?”

N: “I don’t really remember but I think everyone got pretty used to it. But [the uncles] definitely stayed serious at certain funerals, like if the person were less closely related to the immediate family, if you know what I mean.”

Analysis:

In many western societies, funerals are viewed as a time to mourn and be sorrowful over the passing of a lost loved one. However, others choose to celebrate and reflect upon the life of the deceased by having a bit of fun. Most likely, N’s heritage played a role in the type of traditions involved at funerals. His uncles’ habits of telling jokes at the funeral can also reflect how Irish or Norwegian culture, specifically in America, choose to take a more joyous perspective in the face of mortality. Although someone’s life cycle might come to an end, their impact is remembered and cherished by the family through oral tradition. Notably, N’s uncles refrained from telling the jokes at funerals of people considered outsiders to their immediate family, thus demonstrating how the tradition can be particular to the family as well. While the in-group finds it amusing, they must be cautious of how out-groups perceive the practice.