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Releasing Body and Soul: Double Burial Among the Tetum
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15027 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1996 |
2,623 Words |
| Author
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David Hicks
David Hicks is professor of anthropology at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook. He has written and
translated six books on anthropology, the most recent of which
is Cultural Anthropology, coauthored with Margaret A. Gwynne.
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The deceased's lengthy presence in soul form is interpreted in Tetum religion as a gradual but progressive weakening of kinship ties as he becomes increasingly "more dead." Kinsfolk provide rice and palm wine to sustain the deceased-as-soul while he awaits his final interment.
The Tetum believe that death, far from being an instantaneous act, is a process that can be defined by stages of "deadness." For example, someone whose cessation of essential bodily functions would, in a Western sense, define him as dead is regarded by the Tetum as "more dead" or "less dead" depending upon the time that has lapsed since their cessation. One result of this belief is that death lacks the finality westerners attribute to it. The deceased is not considered to be a body that has been abruptly deprived of all human qualities but rather a being that has taken the first step toward the world of the spirit. Only in time--and by ritual transformation--will the final step be taken through the portals of that unseen domain.
The initial step consists of a precursory burial of the corpse; the culminating step involves the soul that once animated it. This practice, an example of what anthropologists refer to as "double burial," has underlying psychological and sociological justifications. The lack of finality psychologically cushions the shock of losing a loved one and aids the grieving relatives to become reconciled to their loss. At the same time, double burial helps society adjust itself to the removal of one of its members.
The Tetum double burial
The Tetum view their cosmos
... (1998 of 15924 Characters)
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