Contradicciones en los rituales funerarios

This work is based on an ethnographic investigation of funeral rituals, conducted in a village within a region characterized by a high concentration of the Tujia ethnic group (Hunan, China). The article analyzes several contradictions identified during fieldwork. The first pertains to the opposition between corpse and spirit, highlighting the static feature of the former and the dynamic of the latter. The second relates to the emotional dimensions of death and the funeral rituals that follow: sadness is accompanied by joy, which is related to the necessity of the funeral being a “lively” (renao) event. The third concerns two forms of energy –one auspicious and the other malevolent– that unfolds during the ritual. The study presented in this article also reveals the existence of a liminal period through which the spirit must undergo to become an ancestor, in order to continue playing an important role in the family. The contradictory characteristics identified throughout the ritual reveal distinct functions of the funeral, related, on one hand, to the solace of the grief of loss and the restoration of the boundaries between the world of the living and that of the dead; and on the other, to the reaffirmation of ethical and social principles that include a form of “moral education” for the younger generations.

Ethnic group · Ethnography · Grief · Liminality · Opposition (politics) · Sadness · Cultural and Mythological Studies · Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health