Tag Archives: Funerals

An Indian Pre-Cremation

Nationality: Indian
Age: 67
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Mumbai, India
Performance Date: 28/04/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

The Interviewer will be referred to as ‘I’, and the informant as ‘N’. Explanations and translations for Hindi words will be italicised and in parentheses. The Informant is a 67-year-old Punjabi father, raised primarily in Gujarat.

N: At funerals or… wakes, before the cremation, we all wear white. The body is washed and then put on the pyre. Once the body is, is put on the pyre, the two biggest toes are tied together, and all… like the nose, the ears, all orifices are stuffed, and you put haldi (turmeric) on the forehead of a woman, and vibuti (ash) on the forehead if it’s a man, and a garland of flowers (marigold) is put around their neck. Then, the eldest son of that person, as part of the ritual and to signify departure of the soul, what he does is take an earthen pot, fills it up with water. That pot, that water is supposed to signify life. The earthen pot is full of life. He takes one circle around the pyre and then, at the beginning of the second circle, he drops it from his right shoulder where he had held it, to the ground. The earthen pot breaks, the water flows out, and that is supposed to… that is to signify the person is… his life, his spirit has left him. Then only can the pyre be lit. 

I: What if the person does not have a son? 

N: Then the daughter does it if permitted within that, within their family or community’s customs and she wants to, or the next of kin, closest male relative does it. The ritual is to signify departure of life from that body, so it can get reincarnated again. 

Analysis:

As the informant states, this particular ritual with the earthen pot is to signify and aid the departure of life from this body, and I think this is especially important to consider while taking into account the Hindu belief in reincarnation. Therefore, this is not only to help the life out of one body, that in itself helps it into the next. The toes are tied, probably because of rigor mortis and sudden jerks, and the orifices are sealed because bodies have a tendency to bloat up. When it comes to the question about the eldest son, I wanted to ask that because I was aware that oftentimes, women weren’t really allowed to be an active part of funeral processions, and I was curious to know how that has changed as time has passed. There is no one solid answer, because in some families and communities, women are allowed to carry out the rituals, but in others, it is still seriously frowned upon, and in other-others, it is just initially discouraged.

Filipino Funeral Etiquette

Nationality: Filipino-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Electrical Engineer
Residence: Long Beach
Performance Date: April 28 2020
Primary Language: English

Informant: Another story is something that happened to my dad when he was at a funeral. I guess the folklore part is that, uh, when you’re at a funeral, you shouldn’t be, ah, like, overly, I guess, happy-looking? Because it’s disrespectful to the dead, um, and, well, the way it goes is if you do that, then the dead person at the funeral will haunt you.

Um, so when my dad was at this funeral, I think it was a funeral– I don’t know if he knew the person, but he was with, ah, his own family members, and they were goofing around, i think they were like gambling in the back, while the funeral was going on. So, ah, that was happening, and then, all of a sudden, the, ah, corpse stood up– or not stood up, sat up in the coffin, and then it stared at my dad and his group, and I can’t remember if he said it screamed or not, but essentially it, after staring at them, it fell back down.

Collector: Do you know why it happened??

Informant: Well, because, ah, they were gambling at this person’s funeral! Because it was possessed by the ghost of the dead person, presumably. 

The worst part of it was that, uh, yeah, basically like a bit of a curse placed on them,, ah, I can’t remember what my dad said for the other people who were there, but he said for like a month, whenever he would, ah, close his eyes and try to sleep, he would get like flashes of the face of the dead person, just like staring at them. 

Context: My informant is a close friend of mine, and is a Filipino American young man. His father is an immigrant from the Philippines, and has extended family still living there.

Analysis: I wish I had had the chance to interview my informant’s father about this experience, as he apparently had personally witnessed it. It is interesting that when I asked my informant why this happened, he answered as if it was obvious– because his father had disrespected the deceased. This piece of folklore seems to act as a warning to never disrespect the dead at their own funeral.

Chinese Ritual-Tomb Sweeping Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 52
Occupation: Postman
Residence: Goleta, CA
Performance Date: 19 March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Spanish

Qingming Jie is a public holiday in Taiwan and parts of China that translates to Tomb Sweeping Festival. It is also known as Pure Brightness Day. My dad tells me that the Chinese take death and funerals very seriously. So, on this holiday, which usually occurs sometime in April (it changes based on the lunar calendar), relatives of the deceased must go to their graves and clean them. So, kids and their parents have to go to the graveyards and sweep the tombs and decorate them with Chinese charms. They also leave food at the tomb for their ancestors to eat.

My dad said that even though it was a day of respect, it could be fairly scary when he was little. He said that most the times the graveyards would be dingy and dirty and it was your responsibility to go and clean the tomb and make it look acceptable. So, as a little kid, he did not like Tomb Sweeping Day. After cleaning the tombs, they would pray for their ancestors.

The Qingming Festival originally started as a way to honor a man named Jie Zitui. Supposedly, Jie had cut a part of his leg meat off to save his lord from hunger, since his lord had had to go into exile when the crown was in jeopardy. After 19 years, the lord came back, and decided to reward Jie. However, during that time, Jie had hid away in a mountain with his mother and in order to find Jie, the lord ordered that the mountain be set on fire. Both Jie and his mother were found dead and from then on the lord ordered that only cold food could be eaten on the day that Jie died. Other traditions involved with this festival is kite-flying and spring outings. Both are done after the tomb sweeping is finished as a way to then celebrate life and prosperity.

Source URL: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/qingming.htm