Funerals are a rich topic of research that appeals to scholars working across many disciplines. In Southeast Asia and China, funerals carry great weight and importance, resulting in elaborate multi-day ceremonies and the enacting of rituals by family members many days, weeks, and/or years following a relative's death. The time, energy, wealth, and attention given to ensuring the success of a funeral ritual is integral to understanding a region's culture and religion and the changes that have transpired over time. The inarguable role that death plays as a part of life has led to a wealth of studies examining the various ways that individuals and cultures across Asia cope with loss and transition. These two recent publications continue in that tradition, and while the books have many differences, both formal and informal, they are important contributions to the rich conversation around Southeast Asian funerary rituals. These books demonstrate possible approaches for understanding the relevance of funerals and their continued importance for dealing with loss and change. Together, they cover a wide range of practices and beliefs that help foster an understanding of the nuances of funeral traditions and a larger context for death and spirits in Southeast Asia and China.
Both of these books present funeral traditions as dynamic rituals that adapt to cultural change for relevancy and survival. Influences that include religious conversion, colonialism, modernity, and migration away from villages to urban centers have all affected change in the treatment of the dead and the continuation (or lack thereof) of local themes in ensuring care for deceased family members. The two books offer both a larger cultural context and more individualized understandings of funeral ritual and purpose. They also demonstrate that death might at first appear to be a rite of passage falling squarely in the realm of a religious domain, but in fact bears strong connections to political, agricultural, and economic elements of society. Through participation in and support of funeral ceremonies, people learn about their history and make decisions about their future.
Conversion to Christianity in particular and the effects of conversion on funeral traditions are the central focus for Michaela Budiman's book on contemporary funerals among the Sa'dan Toraja. After presenting her initial outline of the foundations of Toraja history, language, and culture, Budiman draws from seven months of fieldwork on Sulawesi, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, to gain an understanding of how and why Toraja funerals have changed often in quite a pronounced way in less than a century. Budiman gives many examples to show how Toraja and Christian funereal practices have merged or are observed side by side. The size of a funeral, the amount of money spent on the multiday ceremony, the treatment of the corpse, and the meaning of the animal sacrifice are all elements that have been affected by religious and cultural shifts.
Even if on the surface some Toraja funeral rituals seem unchanged, prayers to the Christian God or leaders of the ceremonies reveal some deeper effects of conversion. Perhaps most interesting is the difference between Christian sects and their views on traditional funeral rites. Budiman highlights the views of Toraja Pentecostalists and the marked changes they bring to Toraja funerals, including the singing of hymns and the ban on slaughtering animals. The approach toward the water buffalo that are so central to Toraja culture and especially Toraja funerals has shifted for many Toraja Pentecostalists and Muslims who view the ritual sacrifice as standing in strong contrast to their religion. Budiman's most effective details regarding these changes are in the documentations from her interviews, in which interpretations of local funeral traditions and beliefs are voiced by Toraja informants. These interviews are included in their entirety and give insight to interested readers about those elements of the funeral ceremonies that are most important and reasons for changes that have transpired in recent years.
Although lacking in interpretive chapter and section titles, Contemporary Funeral Rituals of Sa'dan Toraja is detailed, well organized, and useful for researchers interested in Toraja culture or Southeast Asian funerals. Throughout the book, in her discussion of background information, data, and her interpretations and conclusions, Budiman adheres to a conservative format. She separates her chapter on the background or foundations of Toraja culture from her examination of Toraja funerals, complete with subheadings that certainly make it easy for readers to find the information they desire but leave little space for interdisciplinarity and interpretive analysis, often valuable offerings for contemporary researchers.
This stands in contrast to the relative flexibility of the edited volume Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China, which includes contributions that examine a variety of rituals surrounding death in many different Buddhist communities in Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, and China. The reader gets a strong sense of the power of death and death rituals in Buddhist communities, and the integral role that Buddhism plays in cultural understanding of death and loss. Editors Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig compiled their book with an understanding of the strong connection between Buddhism and death, knowing the dearth of research on funeral themes in Buddhist Southeast Asia, and acknowledging the need for a comprehensive understanding of the role of the dead as active members of a family or community in the time after a funeral ceremony. Moving far beyond questions addressing beliefs about rebirth and doctrine, the book explores the materiality of death, the effects of socialist revolutions and political changes on death rituals, and the interpretations of continuity in funeral ceremonies. Because this is a book specifically looking at Buddhist traditions, it also functions as a challenge to entrenched notions of Theravada versus Mahayana and examines connections between localisms and doctrinal texts.
Williams and Ladwig state that their goals in developing the book were to present the diversity of Buddhist funeral cultures in Southeast Asia and China and to provide more access to anthropologically informed studies on the subject (p. xiii). Their deeply involved understanding of the subject certainly helps—they developed the project that resulted in the edited volume based on their extensive research project that produced many exhibitions, photographs, and films on funerals in Thailand, Laos, and China, accessible at least in part online.
Williams and Ladwig's introduction does an excellent job of laying out the issues surrounding the study of Buddhist funeral cultures and establishing the contribution the volume makes to the field. Their discussion establishes a background that explains previous scholarship and also cultural beliefs about death, ghosts, and rebirth. They present ideas about future research prospects, acknowledging that the overall book is largely focused on “traditional” funeral practices and that more work needs to focus on modern, urban practices.
Following the introduction, eleven chapters explore the theme of Buddhist funeral cultures in a diverse arrangement of offerings. These chapters are organized thematically and geographically and successfully move the reader across localities and traditions. Subjects include a comparison of funeral chanting in South and Southeast Asia; a study of the connection between rag robe construction and rice field farming in Cambodia; an examination of the role of rag robe offerings as illustrated in Thai manuscripts; an exploration of the relationship between festivals and ghosts in Laos; monks’ funerals in Burma; and bad deaths, ghosts, and funeral traditions in China. Each of these chapters offers a wealth of information about local funeral traditions based on fieldwork, archival work, textual studies, and object analysis, and the reader benefits greatly from the variety.
One of my favorite chapters was “Corpses and Cloth: Illustrations of the Paṃsakūla Ceremony in Thai Manuscripts” by M. L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati. Chirapravati focuses on painted representations of Thai funerals from the early nineteenth century and rare illustrations that show the central funeral ritual of the rag robe offerings to monks. In her thorough examination, she is able to show that the Thai paṃsakūla ritual has changed since the early nineteenth century both in the way that the cloth is presented to monks and in the incorporation of the corpse. Importantly, this chapter is an excellent example of the role that visual culture can play in the study of the funeral cultures in Southeast Asia. Art history is an area of study that is frequently overlooked or underrepresented in edited volumes of this sort, with scholars placing more value on texts, spoken words, emotions, and actions over the role of objects as active agents within funeral settings. Chirapravati's chapter, through her solid analysis of her sources, argues for the inclusion of visual analysis in future work on similar subjects.
Even without the inclusion of art history or material culture, acknowledgement of the role of objects can also be made through the incorporation of photographs and other documentation. In her book, Budiman provides twenty-eight photographs of objects, scenes, ceremonies, and people related to Toraja funerals. These help the reader to envision the context of the funerals but also emphasize that people, words, and actions make up only part of the Toraja funeral ceremony. Objects and offerings maintain significance. Meanwhile, only Chirapravati's chapter in Buddhist Funeral Cultures includes images. My bias as an art historian and specifically as a researcher interested in the role of material objects in funeral ceremonies has led to my most pointed critique of the two books, particularly the edited volume. Although I do not expect all researchers of funerals to focus on material or visual aspects, including images of funeral ceremonies or other rituals related to the dead, it goes a long way in presenting a complete picture for others exploring similar themes.
Both Contemporary Funeral Rituals of Sa'dan Toraja and Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China are exciting contributions to the study of funeral traditions in Southeast Asia. They are examples of vastly different methods for developing an understanding of death as it is appreciated and revered in localities across the region. The books’ approaches to presenting cultural and religious change as central to funerals in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Asia serve as insightful reminders that the need to care for the dead and respect local meanings may be adapted over time, but it never disappears.
