Annotated Bibliography

18

The Rites of Passage Arnold van Gennep

Funerals

On first considering funeral ceremonies, one expects rites of separation to be their most prominent com- ponent, in contrast to rites of transition and rites of incorporation, which should be only slightly elabor- ated. A study of the data, however, reveals that the rites of separation are few in number and very simple, while the transition rites have a duration and complexity sometimes so great that they must be granted a sort of autonomy. Furthermore, those funeral rites which incorporate the deceased into the world of the dead are most extensively elaborated and assigned the greatest importance.

Once again I must be satisfied with a few brief suggestions. Everyone knows that funeral rites vary widely among different peoples and that further variations depend on the sex, age, and social position of the deceased. However, within the extraordinary multiplicity of detail certain dominant features may be discerned, and some of these I shall class together.

Funeral rites are further complicated when within a single people there are several contradictory or

different conceptions of the afterworld which may become intermingled with one another, so that their confusion is reflected in the rites. Further- more, man is often thought to be composed of several elements whose fate after death is not the same – body, vital force, breath-soul, shadow-soul, midget-soul, animal-soul, blood-soul, head-soul, etc. Some of these souls survive forever or for a time, others die. In the discussion that follows I shall abstract from all these variations, since they affect the formal complexity of rites of passage but not their internal structure.

Mourning, which I formerly saw simply as an aggregate of taboos and negative practices marking an isolation from society of those whom death, in its physical reality, had placed in a sacred, impure state,1

now appears to me to be a more complex phenom- enon. It is a transitional period for the survivors, and they enter it through rites of separation and emerge from it through rites of reintegration into society (rites of the lifting of mourning). In some cases, the transitional period of the living is a counterpart of the transitional period of the deceased,2 and the

From Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, tr. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960

[1909]).

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termination of the first sometimes coincides with the termination of the second – that is, with the incorp- oration of the deceased into the world of the dead. Thus among the Habé of the Niger plateau ‘‘the period of widowhood corresponds, it is said, to the duration of the journey of the deceased’s wandering soul up to the moment when it joins the divine ancestral spirits or is reincarnated.’’3

During mourning, the living mourners and the deceased constitute a special group, situated be- tween the world of the living and the world of the dead, and how soon living individuals leave that group depends on the closeness of their relationship with the dead person. Mourning requirements are based on degrees of kinship and are systematized by each people according to their special way of calcu- lating that kinship (patrilineally, matrilineally, bilat- erally, etc.) It seems right that widowers and widows should belong to this special world for the longest time; they leave it only through appropriate rites and only at a moment when even a physical relationship (through pregnancy, for example) is no longer dis- cernible. The rites which lift all the regulations (such as special dress) and prohibitions of mourning should be considered rites of reintegration into the life of society as a whole or of a restricted group; they are of the same order as the rites of reintegration for a novice.

During mourning, social life is suspended for all those affected by it, and the length of the period increases with the closeness of social ties to the deceased (e.g., for widows, relatives), and with a higher social standing of the dead person. If the dead man was a chief, the suspension affects the entire society. There is public mourning, the proclamation of holidays, and, following the death of certain petty kings of Africa, a ‘‘period of license.’’ At this very moment (1908) in China, new political, economic, and administrative necessities tend to mitigate the considerable effects on the society of the Emperor’s and Empress Regent’s deaths.4 Formerly, social life even in the households in China was completely suspended on such occasions for many months – a suspension which in our time would be simply catastrophic.

The transitional period in funeral rites is first marked physically by the more or less extended

stay of the corpse or the coffin in the deceased’s room (as during a wake), in the vestibule of his house, or elsewhere. But this stay is only an attenu- ated form of a whole series of rites whose import- ance and universality has already been pointed out by Lafitau. ‘‘Among most savage nations, the dead bodies are only in safekeeping in the sepulchre where they have initially been placed. After a certain time, new obsequies are given them, and what is due them is completed by further funeral duties.’’5 Then he describes the rites of the Caribs: ‘‘They are convinced [that the dead] do not go to the land of souls until they are without flesh.’’ The existence of a transitional period also interested Mikhailowski.6

The chief rite of this period consists of either remov- ing the flesh or waiting until it falls off by itself. On this idea are based, for instance, the ceremonies performed by the Betsileos of Madagascar, who have a first series of rites while waiting for the corpse to decompose in its abode (where its putrefaction is accelerated by a great fire) and then a second series for the burial of the skeleton.7

For others, the transition stage is sometimes subdivided into several parts, and, in the postliminal period, its extension is systematized in the form of commemorations (a week, two weeks, a month, forty days, a year, etc.) similar in nature to rites of the anniversary of a wedding, of birth, and some- times of initiation.

Since funeral stages already have been closely stud- ied for Indonesia,8 I shall use instances from data pertaining to other regions. The ceremonies of the Todas are similar to the Indonesian rites.9 They in- clude cremation, preservation of the relics and burial of the ashes, and the erection of a circle of stones around them. The whole procedure lasts several months. The dead go to Amnodr, a subterranean world, and there they are called ‘‘Amatol’’; the route is not the same for all the clans, and it is surrounded with obstacles. The ‘‘bad’’ fall from a thread which serves as a bridge into a stream on whose shores they live for a while, mingling with individuals from all sorts of tribes. The buffaloes also go to Amnodr. The Amatol walk a great deal there, and when they have worn their legs up to the knees they return to earth. Among the Ostyak of Sale- khard,10 the house is stripped of all its contents except

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the utensils of the deceased, who is dressed and placed in a dugout canoe. A shaman asks the deceased why he has died. He is taken to the burial place of his clan and deposited in the boat on the frozen ground, with his feet facing north, surrounded with all the things he will need in the next world. The deceased is thought to partake of a farewell meal eaten on the spot by the mourners, who then all leave. The female relatives make a doll in the image of the deceased, and they dress, wash, and feed it every day for two and a half years if the dead person was a man, or for twoyears if it was a woman.11 Then the doll is placed on the tomb.

Mourning lasts five months for a man and four months for a woman. The dead go by a long and tortuous route toward the north, where the dark and cold land of the dead is located.12 The length of the journey seems to coincide with the period during which the doll is kept. Thus there is a series of preliminary rites, a transitional period, and a final funeral when the dead person reaches his final abode.

The Northern Ostyaks place the land of the dead beyond the mouth of the Ob, in the Arctic Ocean;13

it is illuminated only by the light of the moon. Not far from that world the road divides in three forks which lead to three entrances, one for the assassin- ated, the drowned, the suicides, etc., another for the other sinners, and a third for those who have lived a normal life. For the Irtysh Ostyak, the other world is in the sky. It is a lovely country reached by ascending ladders each three hundred to one thousand feet long, or by climbing up a chain; from it the gods, the sacred bears (totems perhaps),14 and the dead sometimes come back to earth – or so say the ancient legends of the epics.15 It seems to me that there must be a relationship between the length of time during which the dolls are kept and the supposed duration of the journey into the other world.

The funeral ceremonies of the Kol of India furnish a good example of a combination of known prophy- lactic rites with rites of passage.16 Their order runs as follows: (1) Immediately after death the corpse is placed on the ground ‘‘so that the soul should more easily find its way to the home of the dead,’’ which is under the earth. (2) The corpse is washed and painted yellow to chase away evil spirits who would stop the soul on its journey. (3) For the same purpose the assembled relatives and neighbors utter pitiable

cries. (4) The corpse is placed on a scaffold with the feet facing forward so that the soul should not find the way back to the hut, and for the same reason the procesion travels by detours. (5) The cortege must not include either children or girls; the women cry; the men are silent. (6) Each man carries a piece of dry wood to throw on the pyre. (7) Rice and the tools of the deceased’s sex are placed there, and in the mouth of the corpse there are rice cakes and silver coins for the journey, since the soul retains a shadow of the body. (8) The women leave, and the pyre is lighted;17 the litter is also burned to prevent the deceased’s return. (9) The men gather the calci- fied bones, place them in a pot, and bring the pot back to the deceased’s house where it is hung from a post. (10) Grains of rice are strewn along the route, and food is placed in front of the door so that the deceased, should he return in spite of all precautions, will have something to eat without harming anyone. (11) All the deceased’s utensils are carried far away, because they have become impure and because the deceased may be hidden in them. (12) The house is purified by a consecrated meal. (13) After a certain time the ceremony of ‘‘betrothal,’’ or ‘‘union of the deceased with the population of the lower world,’’ is performed. Marriage songs are sung, there is dancing, and the woman who carries the pot leaps with joy. (14) A marriage retinue with music, etc., goes to the village from which the deceased and his ancestors have originated. (15) The pot containing the bones of the deceased is deposited in a small ditch, above which a stone is erected. (16) On their return the participants must bathe. All those who have been mutilated or who have died because of a tiger or an accident remain evil spirits and cannot enter the land of the dead. That land is the home of the ancestors to which only persons who have been married can go. They return to the earth from time to time, and when they wish they are reincarnated in the first-born (this holds especially for grandfathers and great-grandfathers).18

This is not the place for a comparative description of worlds beyond the grave.19 The most widespread idea is that of a world analogous to ours, but more pleasant, and of a society organized in the same way as it is here. Thus everyone re-enters again the categor- ies of clan, age group, or occupation that he had on

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earth. It logically follows that the children who have not yet been incorporated into the society of the living cannot be classified in that of the dead. Thus, for Catholics, children who die without baptism forever remain in the transition zone, or limbo; the corpse of a semicivilized infant not yet named, cir- cumcised or otherwise ritually recognized, is buried without the usual ceremonies, thrown away, or burned – especially if the people in question think that he did not yet possess a soul.

The journey to the other world and the entrance to it comprise a series of rites of passage whose details depend on the distance and topography of that world. First I should mention the Isles of the Dead to be found in the beliefs of ancient Egypt,20

Assyro-Babylonia,21 the Greeks in various times and regions (cf. Hades of Book XI of the Odyssey),22 the Celts,23 Polynesians,24 Australians,25 and others. These beliefs undoubtedly are the reason for the practice of giving the deceased a real or miniature boat and oars. Some peoples see the other world as a citadel surrounded by walls (such as Sheol, the underworld abode of the dead in Hebrew tradition which has bolted doors26 or the Babylonian Aralu),27

as a region with compartments (for instance, the Egyptian Duat), as situated on a high mountain (as do the Dyaks), or in the interior of a mountain (as in Hindu India).

What is important to us in these cases is that, since the deceased must make a voyage,28 his survivors are careful to equip him with all the necessary material objects – such as clothing, food, arms, and tools – as well as those of a magico-religious nature – amulets, passwords, signs, etc. – which will assure him of a safe journey or crossing and a favorable reception, as they would a living traveler. Thus, in some particu- lars, these rites are identical with those discussed in chapter III. The Lapps, for instance, took care to kill a reindeer on the grave so that the deceased might ride it during the difficult journey to his final destin- ation.29 Some believed the journey lasted three weeks, while others said three years.

A great many similar customs could be men- tioned. The passage is marked, for instance, by the ancient Greek rite of ‘‘the obol (coin) for Charon.’’30

This rite has also been encountered in France, where the deceased was given the largest coin available, ‘‘so

that he would be better received in the other world.’’31 The practice persists in modern Greece. Among the Slavs the money for the deceased is intended to pay the expenses of the trip, but among Japanese Buddhists it is given to the old woman who runs the ferry across the Sanzu; the Badaga use it for the passage over the thread of the dead. Moslems cannot cross the bridge formed by a sharpened sword unless they are pure or ‘‘good.’’ In the Zend-Avesta dogs guard the bridge of Chinvat just as in the Rig-Veda Yama’s dogs, who are spotted and have four eyes, guard the paths that lead to one of the ancient Hindu abodes beyond the grave, a sort of cavern, ‘‘a closed and covered enclosure’’ which is reached through a dark underworld.32

Sometimes special powers – magicians, evil spirits, deities – are charged with showing the dead the way, or with leading them in groups. (Those of ancient Greece are known as psychopompoi – guides of souls to the afterworld.) This role of Isis and of Hermes-Mercury is quite well known. Among the Muskwaki (commonly known as Fox) at the lifting of mourning the deceased is guided toward the prairies of the next world by a young warrior who takes the name of the deceased, gallops for several miles, makes a detour, and returns. He retains that name henceforth and is considered the adopted child of the relatives of the deceased.33

The Luiseno Indians of California have a dramatic ceremony which has the direct effect of sending the spirits of the dead away from the earth and ‘‘attach- ing,’’ or fastening, them, as if by a physical bond, to the four sections of the sky and particularly to the Milky Way.34

Because of the familiar themes combined in the Haida’s ideas about the next world, I shall describe them in some detail. The road to the afterworld leads to the banks of a sort of bay; on the other side of it is the land of souls, from which a self-propelled raft is sent by a soul to the deceased. When he has arrived on the other bank, the deceased begins the search for his wife, which takes a very long time, since the villages are scattered like those of the Haida and each dead person has only one wife assigned to him. When he is dying, a man indicates in which village he wants to live, and messengers are sent to guide him on his voyage. Each offering to the de-

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ceased multiplies for his use, and the funeral songs help the deceased to enter his village with his head held high. The dead send riches to their poor earthly relatives. In the land of the souls sacred dances are performed, and everyone amuses himself. Beyond that land lives a chief called Great Moving Cloud, who is responsible for the abundance of salmon. After some time in the land of souls the deceased equips a canoe, reassembles his belongings, and amid the lamentations of his companions goes away to a country called Xada. This is his second death, and he also goes through a third and a fourth. Upon his fifth death he returns to earth as a blue fly. Some think the four deaths occur only after several human reincarnations. There are different countries for the drowned, for those dead by violent means, for shamans, and so forth.

The funeral rites for a person who dies in the ordinary way are given below. The face of the de- ceased is painted, a sacred headdress is placed on his head, and he is seated on the bier, where he remains for four to six days. Special magical songs are sung, recited first by the members of the clan and then by those of the opposite clan. All sorts of food and drink and tobacco leaves are thrown into a ‘‘crying fire.’’ These become multiplied many times and are taken by the deceased to the other world. Relatives put on the signs of mourning – they shave their heads and stain their faces with pitch. The coffin is carried out through a hole in the wall and is taken to the grave house, where only the deceased of the same clan can be placed.

For ten days the widow fasts, uses a rock in place of a pillow, and bathes daily without washing her face. Then she gathers some children of the opposite clan and serves them a meal. (The Haida are exog- amous.) ‘‘This feast was called ‘causing one’s self to marry.’ The object of it was that she might marry someone next time who had still more property, and that she herself and her new husband might have long lives and be lucky. Another informant added that the widow went through regulations much like those of a girl at puberty.’’35 Briefly, while the purpose of the rites is to unite the corpse with those of members of his clan and to provide him with what he will need during his voyage and in his sojourn beyond the grave, these rites are at

the same time prophylactic and animistic (the opening in the wall of the house, the coffin, the vault, etc., prevent a return of the deceased) or prophylactic and contagious (mourning, baths, etc.).

The funeral rites of ancient Egypt furnish a good example of a system of rites of passage whose pur- pose is incorporation into the world of the dead. Here I shall examine only the Osirian ritual,36 whose fundamental idea is the identification of Osiris and the deceased on one hand, the sun and the deceased on the other. I think there must at first have been two separate rituals which were unified on the theme of death and rebirth. As Osiris the deceased is dismem- bered and then reconstituted; he is dead and is born again in the world of the dead, and so there are a series of resurrection rites. As Ra (the sun), the deceased dies each evening upon arrival at the edge of Hades. His mummy is thrown into a corner and abandoned; but the series of rites it undergoes during the night in the sun’s barge, revives him little by little, and in the morning he is again alive and ready to resume his daily journey in the light, above the world of the living. These multiple rebirths of the sun ritual have been combined with the single recon- stitution of the deceased upon his first arrival in Hades, according to the Osirian ritual, so that this reconstitution has come to take place daily. The performance of the converging rites is in accordance with the general idea that the sacred, the divine, the magical, and the pure are lost if they are not renewed in periodic rites.

The following is the syncretic pattern according to the Book of What Is in Hades and the Book of the Doors.37 Different conceptions of Duat (Hades) were current in different periods and places, but through fusions and combinations the priests of Thebes developed a complete plan. Hades was ‘‘like an immense temple, very long, divided into a certain number of rooms separated by doors and having at each end an outside court and a pylon (gateway building) contiguous to both the inside world and the outside world.’’38 In the first hour of the night, when the sun was dead, he received in his barge the souls which were ‘‘pure,’’ that is, buried in accordance with the proper rites and provided with the necessary talismans, and the doors guarded by baboons and spirits were opened to him. The dead

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who did not go in the sun’s bark had to vegetate eternally in the vestibule.39

According to the Book of the Doors, the doors were identical to those of fortresses and were guarded at the entrance and the exit by a god in the form of a mummy, at the bend by two uraei (cobras) emitting flames and nine mummy-gods; passage was obtained by an incantation.40 The journey is described in the Guide for the Traveller in the Other World.41 For details I refer the reader to the works cited, but I want to mention that each compartment was separated from the preceding one by doors whose opening had to be secured by ritual means. The names of the first three and of the last are unknown; the names of the fourth and the doors following it were ‘‘the one which hides the corridors,’’ ‘‘the pillar of the gods,’’ ‘‘the one adorned with swords,’’ ‘‘the portal of Osiris,’’ ‘‘the one which stands upright, motionless(?),’’ ‘‘the guardian of the flood,’’ ‘‘the great one of beings, the begetter of forms,’’ and ‘‘the one which incloses the gods of Hades.’’ At the exit there was also a vestibule.

These ‘‘opening of the doors’’ had a counterpart in the ritual of daily worship – the opening of the doors of the naos (the part of the temple within the walls): the cord was broken, the seal was removed, and the bolts were slid.42 Then came the dismember- ment and reconstitution of the god, a rite which was also part of the funeral (opening the mouth,43 etc.). The second opening of the naos reaffirmed the first. The god was washed with water and incense, dressed in sacred bands, and anointed with paint and per- fumed oils. Then the statue was replaced in the naos and installed on the sand, just like the mummy and the statue of the deceased in the funerary ritual. The ritual closing of the naos which followed was the principal rite of departure from the sanctuary.44

Thus the divine worship had for its object the daily revival of Ra-Osiris, just as the funeral rites both (1) revived the deceased and made him a god by mum- mification and various rites, and (2) prevented a real and final death by a reconstitution and nocturnal rebirth.45 There are, therefore, parallels among the funeral rites, the daily worship, the inauguration of a temple, and the ritual of enthronement.46 The death and rebirth, simultaneously, of Ra, Osiris, the king, the priest, and every deceased man who was ‘‘pure’’

certainly constitutes the most extreme case known to me of a dramatic representation of the death and rebirth theme. It should be added that birth into life on earth was in itself considered a rebirth.47

All these rites of rebirth prevented the deceased from dying again each day. The belief in such a possibility is found among many peoples, sometimes combined with the idea that after each death the deceased passes from one abode to another, as among the Haida. Among the Cheremiss, some groups believe that the deceased dies only once, but others – for example, the Cheremiss of Vyatka – say that a man may die seven times and pass from one world to another and that he is then changed into a fish.48 The Cheremiss rites consist of feeding the deceased often at first and then periodically through ‘‘commemorations.’’ The events of the afterlife ex- plain in part the alimentary and sumptuary rites of the Vogul and the Ostyak, some of whom believe that the soul of the deceased lives for a time in the world under the sea or in the skies,49 then diminishes little by little until it is only the size of a certain small insect or transforms itself into that insect, and then disappears altogether.50 The doctrine of worlds superimposed on each other is widespread in Asia and existed in Mithraism. (There were seven planet- ary worlds and successive initiations.)

Like children who have not been baptized, named, or initiated, persons for whom funeral rites are not performed are condemned to a pitiable existence, since they are never able to enter the world of the dead or to become incorporated in the society established there. These are the most dangerous dead. They would like to be reincorpor- ated into the world of the living, and since they cannot be, they behave like hostile strangers toward it. They lack the means of subsistence which the other dead find in their own world and consequently must obtain them at the expense of the living. Fur- thermore, these dead without hearth or home some- times have an intense desire for vengeance. Thus funeral rites also have a long-range utility; they help to dispose of eternal enemies of the survivors. Persons included among the homeless dead vary among different peoples. In addition to those already mentioned, this category may include those bereft of family, the suicides, those dead on a journey, those

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struck by lightning, those dead through the violation of a taboo, and others. What I have said holds in general, but the same act does not have the same consequences among all peoples, and I want to reiterate that I do not claim an absolute universality or an absolute necessity for the pattern of rites of passage.

In this connection, I want to mention the diverse beliefs concerning the fate, in the next world, of persons who have committed suicide. Lasch isolated four categories: (1) Suicide is considered a normal act, and the fate of the person who has committed it is the same as that of the ordinary dead; in case of serious illness, mutilation, etc., suicide may even be a means of insuring that the soul is in good condition and not weakened or multilated, (2) Suicide is rewarded in the other world (suicide of the warrior, the widow, etc.). (3) The person who has committed suicide cannot be incorporated with the other dead and must wander between the world of the dead and that of the living. (4) Suicide is punished in the next world, and the individual must wander between the two worlds for the duration of the time he would normally have lived, or he is admitted only to a lower region of the world of the dead, or he is punished by tortures, etc. (as in hell).51 Obviously the character of the funeral rites, those pertaining to prophylaxis and purification as well as rites of passage, differs with each one of the four categories.

The rites of passage are present also in rites of resurrection and reincarnation, for even if a soul has been separated from the living and incorporated into the world of the dead, it can also reverse the direc- tion and reappear among us, either by itself or under the constraint of another person. The means are sometimes very simple. It may be sufficient for the soul to be reincarnated in a woman and to reappear in the form of a child. That is the case, for instance, among the Arunta of Australia, who think that souls lies in wait in stones, trees, etc., and that from there they leap into women who are young, fat, and desirable. The rites of reintegration into the world of the living which ensue are those that have been studied with reference to birth and naming.

The ceremonies of the Lushae tribes of Assam furnish a good example of the ‘‘eternal return.’’52

The deceased is dressed in his best clothes and tied in

a sitting position on a scaffold of bamboo, while next to him are placed the tools and weapons of his sex. A pig, a goat, and a dog are killed, and all the relatives, friends, and neighbors divide the meat; the deceased is also given food and drink. At nightfall he is placed in a grave dug right next to the house. His nearest relative says goodbye and asks him to prepare every- thing for those who will come and join him. The soul, accompanied by those of the pig, the goat, and the dog – without whom it would not find its way – goes dressed and equipped to the land of Mi-thi-hua, where life is hard and painful. But if the deceased has killed men or animals on the hunt, or if he has given feasts to the whole village, he goes to a pleasant country on the other side of the river, where he feasts continuously. Since women can neither fight nor hunt nor give feasts, they cannot go to this beautiful country unless their husbands take them there. After a certain time, the soul leaves one or the other of these regions and returns to earth in the form of a hornet. After another lapse of time it is transformed into water and evaporates in the form of dew, and, if a dewdrop falls on a man, that man will beget a child who will be a reincarnation of the deceased.53 When the child is born, two chickens are killed, and the mother washes herself and the child. The child’s soul spends the first seven days perched like a bird on the clothes or the bodies of his parents; for this reason they move as little as pos- sible, and during this time the household god is appeased with sacrifices. All sorts of ceremonies follow, and during one of them the nearest maternal relative gives a name to the child – that is, the child is permanently incorporated into the clan.

Sometimes the souls of the dead are reincarnated directly into animals, vegetables, etc., especially into the totems. In that case there are rites incorporating the deceased into totemic species.

There is not always a special place beyond the grave for the dead. At least it frequently happens that their abode is in the environs of the house, the tomb (called ‘‘the isba of the dead’’ by the Votyak), or the cemetery (called ‘‘village of the dead’’ by the Man- dan). In that case the burial is the real rite of incorp- oration in the world of the dead. This is very clear among the Cheremiss. Perhaps as a result of the Moslem influence of the Tatars, the Cheremiss also

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believe in a next world, analogous to the Ostyak heaven, which is reached by a pole forming a bridge over a cauldron, or by a ladder. The Mordvinian dead also have their abode in the tomb or the cemetery.54 The bond with the living, and therefore the transition, lasts for a longer time in these instances, since, as has been pointed out, it is periodically renewed by the living, either by com- munal meals or by visits or by feeding the deceased (through a hole in the ground and in the coffin, with a reed, by depositing food on the tomb, etc.). But a moment always comes when this tie is broken, after being loosened bit by bit. The last commemoration or the last visit completes the rites of separation in relation to the deceased and the reconsolidation of the society or restricted group of the living.

The following is a list of rites of passage con- sidered in isolation; I make no claim that it is complete, any more than other lists given in this volume.

Among rites of separation, some of which have already been reviewed, it is appropriate to include: the various procedures by which the corpse is trans- ported outside; burning the tools, the house, the jewels, the deceased’s possessions; putting to death the deceased’s wives, slaves, or favorite animals; washings, anointings, and rites of purification in general; and taboos of all sorts. In addition, there are physical procedures of separation: a grave, a coffin, a cemetery, a wicker mat, places in the trees, or a pile of stones is built or used in a ritual manner; the closing of the coffin or the tomb is often a particularly solemn conclusion to the entire cere- mony. There are periodic collective rites expelling souls from the house, the village, and the tribe’s territory. There are struggles for the corpse, wide- spread in Africa, which correspond to the bride’s abduction. Their true meaning seems not to have been understood up to now: it is that the living do not want to lose one of their members unless forced to do so, for the loss is a diminution of their social power. These struggles increase in violence with the higher social position of the deceased.55 As for the destruction of the corpse itself (by cremation, pre- mature putrefaction, etc.), its purpose is to separate the components, the various bodies and souls. Only very seldom do the remains (bones, ashes) constitute

the new body of the deceased in the afterlife, what- ever Hertz may think on the matter.56

Among rites of incorporation I shall first mention the meals shared after funerals and at commemora- tion celebrations. Their purpose is to reunite all the surviving members of the group with each other, and sometimes also with the deceased, in the same way that a chain which has been broken by the disappear- ance of one of its links must be rejoined. Sometimes a meal of this sort also takes place when mourning is lifted. When the funerals are observed in two stages (provisional and permanent), there is usually a com- munion meal for the relatives at the end of the first, and the deceased is thought to partake of it. Finally, if the tribe, clan, or village is involved, convocation by drum, crier, or messenger gives the meal even more of the character of a collective ritual.

As for rites of incorporation into the other world, they are equivalent to those of hospitality, incorpor- ation into the clan, adoption, and so forth. They are often alluded to in legends whose central theme is a descent to Hades or a journey to the land of the dead, and they are mentioned in the form of taboos: one must not eat with the dead, drink or eat anything produced in their country, allow oneself to be touched or embraced by them, accept gifts from them, and so forth. On the other hand, drinking with a dead person is an act of incorporation with him and the other dead, and it consequently enables one to travel among them without danger, as does the payment of a toll (coins, etc.). There are other special rites such as a club blow administered by the dead on a newcomer’s head,57 the Christian sacra- ment of extreme unction, or the custom of placing the deceased on the earth. Finally, the ‘‘dances of the dead’’ performed by certain American Indians, by the Nyanja of Africa,58 by members of secret soci- eties, and by other special magico-religious groups should perhaps be included in this category.

NOTES

1 Van Gennep, Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar, pp. 40, 58–77, 88, 100–3, 338–9, 342.

2 This is what George Alexander Wilken had already seen about Indonesia (‘‘Uber das Haaropfer: Und

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einige andere Trauergebräuche bei den Völken indo- nesiens,’’ Revue coloniale internationale, 1886 and 1887, see p. 254); he has been followed by Robert Hertz, who generalizes his point (‘‘Contribution à une étude sur la représentation collective de la mort,’’ Année sociologique, X [1905–6], 82–3, 101, 105, 120). In reality, the duration of mourning depends more often, as is stated below, on two other factors.

3 Desplagnes, Le plateau central nigérien, p. 221; on beliefs concerning the other world, see pp. 262–8.

4 [Both died in November, 1908. Van Gennep must be referring to the considerable internal turmoil in China due to economic and political reform and to the often unsatisfactory relations with European powers.]

5 Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages amériquains, II, 444. 6 M. M. Mikhailowski, Shamanstvo, fasc. 1 (St. Peters-

burg, 1892), p. 13. 7 See reference in van Gennep, Tabou et totémisme à

Madagascar, chap. vi, pp. 277–8. 8 Hertz, ‘‘La représentation collective de la mort,’’ pp.

50–66; a collection of detailed descriptions of the world beyond the grave, journeys to reach it, etc., may be found in Kruijt, Het Animisme in den Indischen Archipel, pp. 323–85, a work based on the theories and points of view of Tylor, Wilken, and Le Tour- neau.

9 See Rivers, The Todas, pp. 336–404; for a description of Amnodr see pp. 397–400); for a description of the rites, see also Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, pp. 145–6, 172–84.

10 I will keep the name given by the informant, al- though the Ostyak of Salekhard are a mixture of true Ostyaks and Samoyeds; see Arnold van Gennep, ‘‘Origine et fortune du nom de peuple Ostiak,’’ Keleti Szemle: Revue orientale pour les Études Ouralo-Altaiques (Budapest), II (1902), 13–22.

11 Gondatti, Sledy iazychestva u inorodtsev Severo-Zapadnoi Sibirii (‘‘Traces of Paganism among the Natives of Northwest Asia’’) (Moscow, 1888), p. 43; he states that the doll is kept for six months. If the deceased was a man, the widow sleeps next to it; among the Irtysh Ostyak, according to Patkanov (Die Irtysch-Ostiaken, p. 146), the doll has in recent times been replaced by the pillow and undergarments of the deceased.

12 V. Bartenev, ‘‘Pogrebalnyia obychai Obdorskikh Ostiakov’’ (‘‘The Funeral Rites of the Ostyak of Obdorsk [Salekhard]’’), Shivaia Starina, V (1905), 478–92; Gondatti, p. 44.

13 I do not understand why Gondatti, followed by Patkanov (Die Irtysch-Ostiaken, p. 146), later says of this world that it is underground when it is under- water. Incidentally, there is no doubt that there was some Christian infiltration into the beliefs of the Vogul and the Ostyak (the devil, hell, punishment).

14 See my summary in the Revue de l’histoire des religions, vol. XL (1899), of the monograph by N. Kharouzine, Le serment par l’ours et le culte de l’ours chez les Ostiak et les Vogoul.

15 Patkanov, Die Irtysch-Ostiaken, p. 146. 16 See Hahn, Einführung in das Gebiet der Kolsmission,

pp. 82–8. 17 If it is raining too hard, the corpse is buried according

to specific rites so that it may be disinterred after the harvest and cremated; in this instance the ceremony takes place in three stages.

18 I mention this document because it provides proof for what has been said above (p. 52) about the rite in which the newborn are placed on the ground (also performed by the Kol; see Hahn, Einführung in das Gebiet der Kolsmission, p. 72), as are corpses. Dieterich (Mutter Erde, pp. 25–9) has collected parallels for the latter practice, which he explains as ‘‘a return to the bosom of Mother Earth’’; it can be seen that here, at least, this theory is not acceptable. I would like to add that the Kol bury dead children but do not burn them ‘‘because they do not have souls’’ (the Kol acquire a soul only on their wedding day) and do not have the right to go to the land of their ancestors, the purpose of cremation being to give access to it. Another of Dieterich’s theories (Mutter Erde, pp. 21– 5) also collapses on this point.

19 See, among others, Tylor, Primitive Culture, ch. xiii. 20 On the subject of the fields and islands of Aaru, the

judgment and journey of the dead, see Gaston Mas- péro, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique, I (Paris: Hachette, 1895), 180ff., with bibliography.

21 Ibid., pp. 574ff. 22 See, among others, Ervin Rohde, Psyché (2d edn.;

Tübingen: J. C. Mohr, 1898); Albrecht Dieterich, Nekyia (Leipzig: B. C. Teubner, 1893); A. J. Reinach, ‘‘Victor Bérard et l’Odyssée,’’ Les essais, 1904, pp. 189–93.

23 K. Meyer, The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895). 24 Johannes Zemmrich, ‘‘Toteninseln und verwandte

geographische Mythen,’’ Internationales Archiv für Eth- nographie, Vol. IV (1891).

25 See Carl Strehlow and Leonhardi, Dic Aranda und Luritja-Stämme in Zentral Australia (Frankfurt am Main: Völker-Museum, 1907–8), I, 15; II, 6.

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26 See Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode: Nach dem Vorstellung die alter Israel in dem Judentus einschliesslich Volkglaubens in Zeitale Christi (Giessen, 1892).

27 Maspéro, Histoire ancienne, I, 693ff. 28 Regarding the world of the dead according to Sabian

beliefs, see Siouffi, Étude sur la religion des Soubbas, pp. 156–8; on the roads which lead there and join together, pp. 126–9; and on the corresponding fu- neral rites, pp. 120, 121 n., 124–6. The soul re- quires seventy-five days to make the journey, but mourning lasts only sixty days; the communal meal and the meal of commemoration are absolutely ob- ligatory; the rite of the ‘‘last mouthful’’ provides the deceased in the other world with ‘‘something more than his ordinary ration, which is ordinarily insuffi- cient.’’

29 N. Kharuzin, Russkie Lopary (Moscow, 1890), p. 157, and for more information of the same kind, Mikhai- lowski, Shamanstvo, pp. 19–24.

30 See Richard Andree, Totenmünze (2nd edn.; 1889), p. 24. Also Mélusine, passim.

31 J. B. Thiers, Traité des superstitions (Paris, 1667); for other French parallels, see Sebillot, Le folk-lore de la France, I, 419, where information can be found on the crossing of the sea (inside the earth) to reach hell.

32 See Oldenberg, La réligion du Véda, pp. 450–62; another abode is in the sky. Oldenberg is right in believing these two conceptions to be independent and juxtaposed on one another, but they are not elements in a dualistic system. This coexistence of different beliefs among a people is a frequent occur- rence, and when there is localization of some dead in one of these worlds, and others in the other worlds, it is often on a social and magico-religious basis rather than on an ethical one.

33 Owen, Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians, pp. 83–6. 34 Du Bois, The Religion of the Luisenio Indians, pp. 83–7. 35 J. R. Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the

Haida (‘‘Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Ex- pedition,’’ V, Part I [Leiden, 1905]), 52–4; for Haida ideas of the afterlife see pp. 34–7.

36 Gaston Maspéro, Études de mythologie et d’archéologie égyptienne, vol. II: Compte rendu de les hypogées royaux de Thèbes (Paris: E. Leroux, 1893), 1–187; G. Jequier, Le livre de ce qu’il y a dans l’Hadès: Version abregée publié d’après les papyrus de Berlin et de Leyde avec variations et traduction (Paris: E. Bouillon, 1894); Alexandre Moret, Le Rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte, and La royauté pharaonique.

37 This book was written to conciliate the solar theory with the Osirian theory not taken into account in the

Book of What Is in Hades; see the summary of it given by Maspéro, Les hypogées royaux de Thèbes, pp. 163–79.

38 Jequier, Le livre de ce qu’il ya dans l’Hadès, p. 19. 39 Ibid., pp. 20, 39–41; Maspéro, Les hypogées royaux de

Thèbes, pp. 43–4; note the conversation between the god and cynocephalus (baboon) for the ‘‘opening of the doors.’’

40 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 166–8; on the door which opens on the place of judgment, see Livre des morts (‘‘Book of the Dead’’), ch. cxxv, I, ll. 52ff.

41 Maspéro, ibid., vol. I. p. 384. 42 Moret, Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte,

pp. 35ff. 43 Ibid., pp. 73–83, 87–9; Maspéro, ‘‘Le Rituel du

sacrifice funéraire,’’ Les hypogées royaux de Thèbes, pp. 289–318.

44 Ibid., pp. 102–212. 45 Moret, Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Egypte, p.

226; cf. pp. 10–15 and pages noted above. 46 The compartments of Hades belong to at least two

originally distinct systems. The final rebirth is se- cured on the twelfth hour, according to the Theban ritual, by the passage of the sacred barge, from tail to head, across the gigantic serpent ‘‘The life of the gods’’ – symbol, says Jequier, of the renewal due to the serpent’s ability to change skins each year (Le livre de ce qu’il y a dans l’Hadès, pp. 132–3). But this does not explain the reason for the passage across the two bulls’ heads (Maspéro, Les hypogées royaux de Thèbes, pp. 169–71); on the subject of the twelfth hour, see pp. 96–101.

47 Ibid., I, 23 ff., 29. It should be noted that the purpose of mummification is precisely to make rebirth, the life beyond the grave, possible.

48 Ivan Nikolaevitch Smirnov, Les populations finnoises des bassins de la Volga et de la Kama, trans. Paul Boyer (Paris: E. Leroux, 1898), I, 138.

49 See above, p. 215, and the sources cited there. 50 Gondatti, Sliédy iazytchestvra u inorodtsev Sièvero-

Zapdnoı̈ Sibirii, p. 39. 51 R. Lasch, ‘‘Die Verbleibsorte der abgeschiedenen

Seele der Selbstmörder,’’ Globus, LXXVII (1900), 110–15.

52 Major Shakespear, ‘‘Typical Tribes and Castes,’’ p. 225.

53 This is one of the very rare cases of reincarnation through the father.

54 See Smirnov, Les populations finnoises, I, 133–44, for the Cheremiss; pp. 357–76 for the Mordvinians.

55 For references, see Hertz, ‘‘La représentation col- lective de la mort,’’ p. 128 n. 2.

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56 Ibid., p. 78; Hertz here presents a modification of Kleinpaul’s theory, which is too absolute.

57 Haddon, Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, V, 355; this same rite is among those per- formed at marriage.

58 See F. A. Werner, The Natives of British Central Africa (London: A. Constable, 1907), p. 229; R. Suther- land Rattray, Some Folk-lore, Stories, and Songs in Chi- nyanja (London: SPCK, 1907), p. 179.

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