The Village Funeral

I was walking back from the main road after dinner. Sydney and I heard some drums in the distance. I turned to her and said, "You want to go check out what's going on?"

"Yeah."

We talked about whether it could be the musician caste celebrating the New Moon at their temple. As we followed the noise we realized it wasn't coming from that temple. We found ourselves in front of a hall used for weddings and large gatherings. We hung around and asked the people at the entrance what was going on. A young man from Kerela explained that his great-grandmother had died and this was her funeral. We were invited in to see the woman's body and snack on some bananas (maybe India's version of funeral potatoes) .

Sydney and I hung around to help send this old woman on to the next world--or maybe just back into the cycle of rebirth. We watched as the women in the family danced and chanted around the woman's body--a song of mourning. Sydney and I attentively stood as the family carried her sheet covered body and laid her on a bench (not unlike the one on which we were just sitting) and then remove her jewelry (the worst was watching one of her daughters try to unscrew the lady's nose ring). The family members who wished to placed oil and herbs on her head and in her hair. Little babies were forced to by their mother's hands to rub the old lady's forehead. Our makeshift translator, a great granddaughter who was going to college and at the moment explaining the ceremonies, choose not to participate. One woman then wash the body with 5 large silver buckets of water. The older men and the women argued about the manner in which to do these ceremonies, yelling over the beating drums and animately pointing. They covered her body in a yellow saffron powder. The different families produced gifts of red and white cotton to cover this old woman's body as her remains would be consumed in fire. They offered the gifts after following the drummers in a circle around the funeral pyre and her body. They put their backs toward the corpse as they tossed the cloth on her body.

The grandchildren and great grandchildren lighted incense and placed it under the bench by her feet. Then the family lighted a camphor flame on a tray with bananas and coconuts and placed it at the foot of the woman. Then each one of the guests, including Sydney and I, at the funeral prayed over a camphor flame touching the woman's feet.

I said a quick prayer for the family. And then followed the men as they carried the soaking wet body from the bench to the pyre they had made out of wood and decorated with flowers earlier that evening. The drummers started the procession. The men hefted the pyre onto their shoulders and walked out to the road. The women followed behind. Some young men went ahead and lighted firecrackers--since this was a celebration. The women weren't allowed to watch the body being burned--that was a role for the men. So, we walked until the women around us stopped. We listened and watched the procession continue without us.

Both Matthew and one of the family members at the funeral informed us that we should wash before we go home. Sydney and I took cold bucket showers in the bathroom and got ready for bed as we told the other girls what we had seen. As I laid on my mat listening to the drums continue late into the night. Wondering how the old woman felt about the celebration surrounding her death.

Even though she was under the sheet I could tell she had a small, frail body. I pictured her among the other widows who gather under the large tree by the musician caste temple and realized they probably didn't make much fuss over her in the last few years, but they pulled out all the stops for her funeral. But maybe we're not to different. We wait until someone's funeral to say all the nice things we've been thinking about him or her, when it's too late for them to enjoy it.