Engaging the Dead

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores how and why funerals in rural West Garo Hills are significant occasions for the assertion of matrilineal and affinal relationships. Funerals allow people to guide a deceased person to the afterworld, while simultaneously facilitating their reconnection to the living. While people assess their obligations towards the dead, they are led to consider the extent to which they identify with the larger groups they are part of, and the kind of loyalties this involves. Funerals encompass a broad range of ritually significant gifts, most of which are embedded in reciprocal relationships. Funerals also connect people to place, not only with the interment of bodies or—following cremation—pieces of bone, but also in the various locations and objects that the dead are made to associate with.