(in English) The main topic of this thesis is both analysis and interpretation of the relationship between funeral rites, political power and society. Funeral rites are understood as a complex of performative, symbolic social acts, which are themselves comprised of various distinctive phases and signs. The meaning of these acts and signs is important because it can change the features and practice of the collective it is assigned to. The main purpose of this thesis is not only to perform a thick description of different kinds of communist funeral rite in the given time period but to interprate it in the wider social and cultural context as well. The concept of political religion as a heuristic tool was used in the thesis in order to distinguish an ambivalent nature of communist ideology which manifested itself in funeral rites. Funeral rites are analyzed as models for human behavior, which represent key values and norms of communist ideology. At the same time, funeral rites are analyzed as forms of cultural management. That is the reason, why are put under scrutiny not only the rites which are significant for society as a whole but also the funeral rites of individual actors.

Tratamos aqui de um estudo preliminar acerca das gravuras rupestres (petróglifos) situadas no baixo rio Negro, entre os municípios de Novo Airão e Barcelos, Estado do Amazonas. Nesta área foram foto-documentados e geo-referenciados, até o presente, 20 sítios rupestres ribeirinhos, a céu aberto, parcialmente submersos, em afloramentos rochosos areníticos e graníticos contendo gravuras de origem indígena pré-colonial. Estes sítios não apresentam depósitos arqueológicos e, portanto, não podem ser escavados nem inequivocamente associados aos sítios cerâmicos adjacentes na área (o que pecisa ser testado, todavia). Desta maneira, se configuram em variáveis quase isoladas, sem relações diretas com o restante do registro arqueológico regional nem datações de nenhum tipo. Cronologias internas e pontuais de alguns painéis podem, no entanto, ser identificadas sugerindo reuso e reavivamento diacrônico das gravuras. A área amostral apresenta variabilidade geológica (contato do escudo cristalino com bacia sedimentar) e variabilidade hidrográfica (confluência dos rios Negro/Branco/Jauaperi/Unini/Jaú). Propomos que essas características geoambientais podem estar contribuindo para a variabilidade no fenômeno gráfico-rupestre que estamos detectando na área, o que pode indicar diferenças crono-culturais na autoria desses petróglifos. De fato, o conhecimento acerca da conjuntura geológica da área levou-nos à proposição da variabilidade estilística como hipótese preliminar, o que foi confirmado no primeiro contato com essas gravuras e se constitui, portanto, em nosso primeiro resultado de pesquisa concreto, a identificação da variabilidade gráfico-rupestre na área, um quadro marcadamente heterogêneo. Dentre as abordagens teóricas correntes na arqueologia escolhemos utilizar duas delas em conjunto reflexivo. A primeira delas , na primeira parte do texto, se refere ao método formal de estudo de arte rupestre, a partir do qual podemos entender as gravuras rupestres (e pinturas) como sistemas pré-históricos de comunicação visual que funcionariam como linguagens gráfico-simbólicas das comunidades autoras. Nessa perspectiva, seriam passíveis de estudo enquanto uma variável, ou resultante, do comportamento humano no passado inseridas no registro arqueológico, portando características formalmente identificáveis e mensuráveis, estruturadas em perfis gráficos (perfis estilísticos) que, hipotética e simplificadamente, indicariam os perfis sociais dos autores rupestres. Utilizamos aportes da semiótica e da antropologia visual, entre outros, para análise de códigos simbólicos onde se evita a interpretação de significados, apoiando-se exclusivamente na análise formal do significante gráfico baseada nos aspectos materiais, ou seja, aspectos técnicos, morfo-temáticos, cenográficos, tafonômicos e geo-ambientais do grafismo rupestre. A segunda abordagem se traduz por uma tentativa de interpretação de um dos fenômenos gráficos identificados na área, através de associação a um complexo mitoritualístico característico do Alto Rio Negro, denominado genericamente de Jurupari. São identificadas correspondências entre a iconografia deste corpus gráfico e as representações públicas etnografadas relacionadas ao processo ritual e às narrativas míto-cosmológicas respectivas do complexo do Jurupari. Trata-se, pois, de um experimento com o método informado de estudo, em que um conjunto de discursos ameríndios é utilizado na classificação rupestre, neste caso, através, ainda que criticamente, de analogia etnográfica indireta. Se o processo de identificação das formas, desambiguação formal, e classificação (ordenamento de padrões gráfico-espaciais) das diferenças observadas entre formas se convertem na espinha dorsal da pesquisa; a segunda parte se converte numa tentativa de olhar as gravuras pela percepção ameríndia, ainda que indiretamente através de meta-representações etnográficas e testar, em caráter interpretativo, uma correspondência entre fração das gravuras encontradas e mitos e ritos ameríndios, com vistas para além dos modelos formais estilísticos não-indígenas. / This research presents a preliminary study about the petroglyphs from a sample area between Old Ayrão village and Branco river\'s mouth, at the lower Negro river basin, Western Brazilian Amazon. They comprise a corpus of open air and underwater Rock Art sites, fifteen (15) up until now, located on sandstone and granite riverine boulders and outcrops. Given the absence of archaeological stratified deposits, these sites can neither be excavated nor unequivocally related to adjacent ceramic sites in the survey area (which remains a possibility to be tested). Thus, they are bound in contextual isolation, lacking spatial as well as chronological control, remaining as outsiders of the archaeological record. The area presents geological variability (contact between crystalline Guiana shield and Amazon sedimentary basin) as well as hydrographical variability (confluence among Negro, Branco, Jauaperi, Unini and Jaú rivers). We propose that this environmental set contributes to the graphical variability we are detecting inside the rock art corpus (suggesting discrete corpora), which indicates possible chronological and cultural distinctions in the prehistoric authorship of these petroglyphs. Indeed, the preliminary knowledge of the actual geological context of the survey area, as well as its major fluvial confluence, has led us to first postulate the hypothesis of stylistic variability which was confirmed in the first contact with these petroglyphs. This, in fact, constitutes the first concrete result of our research, the identification of a multi-stylistic rock art zone in the Negro\'s basin, which we think is deeply related to the environmental set of the survey area, which in its turn was partially responsible for the establishment of different cultural groups, and the development of different cultural ways of representing the cognizable world (visible and invisible) into discrete strategies of visual thinking on the basin along the Holocene. Among the current approaches to rock art study we have chosen to apply two different but complementary general methods, Formal and Informed, as a dialectical reflexive conjunct. The first part of the text is committed to the formal method. Under this token, we are considering the petroglyphs (and pictographs) like prehistoric systems of visual thinking and communication, quasi-linguistically organized graphic-symbolic codes, of the authors\' communities. Focus on rock art under this scope (as a variable, or resultant, of human past behavior, culturally organized, inserted in the environment - archaeological record) is a profitable strategy in order to identify and measure formal material characteristics of rock art assemblages, which, we believe, can lead to the identification of discrete sets of structured graphical patterns that, hypothetically and simplistically, could be related to the socialcognitive profiles of those communities. So, we are applying a set of theoretical constructs, basically derived from semiotics, visual anthropology and cognitive archaeology, to the analysis of visual symbolic codes, holding our attention on the graphic signifier (the material object) and avoiding the interpretation of specific meanings over the form (guessing signified concepts deriving from iconic resemblances between forms and \"real things\" in the non- Indian archaeologist\'s cosmology). By material signifier in rock art we comprehend those material aspects such like technique, morphology, thematic, syntactical combinations and compositions, taphonomy and other geo-environmental variables. The second approach, informed method, is devoted here to a tentative interpretation of one of the stylistic profiles identified; comparing some of its distinctive iconic patterns to the Upper Negro River Myth- Ritual Complex of Jurupari, devised as a multi-ethnic religious complex that hypothetically pervaded the entire basin during pre-colonial times. We are suggesting by the present evidence that these cultural manifestations (Jurupari and this specific rock art corpus), separated in time-space, could be related to a same system of expressive, ideological and cognitive phenomena in the past, with a specific locational insertion in the surveyed area. So, if identifying forms (formal disambiguation), and classification (ordering of graphic-spatial patterns) of observed differences among forms are converted into the spinal cord of this research, the second part is, nevertheless, equally important in the way it provides a rudimentary tentative of looking to rock art through Amerindian eyes and test the potential of ethnographic meta-representations to illuminate archaeological reasoning about rock art phenomena in the Negro\'s basin. That is, an interpretive approach targeting some sort of explanation beyond the non-indigenous formal stylistic constructs (but, what remains to be tested in the area is the rock art analysis directly through Amerindian prefrontal cortex, a kind of neural-cognitive otherness experiential approach, which would imply, for future experiments, in direct participative observations, possibly involving an Indian specialist and archaeologist\'s Caapi - B. caapi - consumption for perceptual and ontological purification and subsequent observation of petroglyphs and dialogue among them and the rocks).

O objeto de estudo é a reforma do sistema de justiça no Brasil, abordada por uma etnografia da criação e implantação dos Centros de Integração e Cidadania – CIC, um programa implantado pelo governo do estado de São Paulo desde 1996, visando melhorar o acesso à justiça para a população pobre e a articulação das instituições de justiça (Polícia Civil, Ministério Público, Poder Judiciário, entre outros). A pesquisa reconstruiu o idéario de criação do CIC como um movimento de reforma da justiça, animado por magistrados e outros operadores jurídicos, no contexto dos movimentos por democracia política e social e universalização dos direitos humanos dos anos 1980. A história do CIC, de suas apropriações, mudanças de rumo, adaptações, deslocamentos e resultados, é uma história de lutas em torno do significado da expansão do Estado de direito – conseqüentemente sobre o que e como reformar ou conservar nos serviços de justiça. A pesquisa interrogou o campo da gestão estatal de conflitos, a partir do que se pode observar no seu alcance capilar, em suas extremidades: para o discurso de criação do CIC, o funcionamento da justiça na periferia transformaria todo o sistema; para a pesquisa tratou-se de uma oportunidade de observar um conjunto de instituições operando no mesmo campo, de observar o sistema de justiça pelas suas franjas, pelos postos de trabalho de pouco prestígio, procurando a microfísica do poder em suas extremidades, interrogando os efeitos concretos do funcionamento dos serviços de justiça. A análise sobre a mediação de conflitos nos diversos serviços de justiça disponíveis nos postos do CIC, sob a perspectiva da interpretação dos rituais de resolução de conflitos, preparou as conclusões da pesquisa sobre a oferta dos serviços de justiça para a população pobre e as dificuldades em democratizá-los. A fragmentação e a pluralidade de rituais de resolução empregados por agentes públicos não reflete a expansão do Estado de direito, pretendida pelo movimento de reforma; reflete antes a concorrência de juridicidades mobilizadas nas relações de poder entre as partes em conflito e delas com os agentes estatais. A liberdade de mobilização de diversos rituais de resolução de conflitos, com diversos resultados, corresponde à pluralidade de relações de poder estabelecidas e visões circulantes sobre o direito; contudo não estabelece garantias jurídicas ou simbólicas de eficácia, minando a eficácia do primado do direito estatal. A tese encerra-se com análise da corporificação dos operadores jurídicos e os rituais de distinção do campo jurídico, buscando demonstrar como eles se inscrevem no corpo, no tempo e no espaço. / The object of this thesis is the justice system reform in Brazil, analyzed by an ethnographical approach on the creation and implementation of the Citizenship Integration Centres – CIC, a program developed by São Paulo State government since 1996 and designed for enlarging poor population access to justice and improving the articulation among justice system institutions (Police, Prosecution Office and Judiciary). The research reconstructed the CIC creation frame as a justice system reform movement, sustained by magistrates and other legal operators, in a context of movements for political and social democracy and universalization of human rights in the 1980’s. The history of the CIC, its appropriations, route changes, adaptations, dislocations and outcomes, is a history of disputes surrounding the meaning of the rule of law expansion and, therefore, disputes on what and how to reform or conserve in justice services. The research interrogated the field of state management of conflicts, from what one can observe in its capillarity, in its extremities: for the CIC creation discourse, the functioning of justice in poor neighborhoods was a mean to transform all justice system; for the research, this was a chance to observe a set of institutions operating in the same field, to observe the justice system by its fringes, by the ranks of word of lower prestige, to look for the power microphysics in its extremities and to interrogate the real effects of justice services functioning. The analysis of conflict mediation in the different justice services available in CIC, under the perspective of the conflict resolution rituals interpretation, prepared the research conclusions about the offers of justice services for the poor and the difficulties in democratizing them. The fragmentation and plurality of conflict resolution rituals undertaken by public agents do not reflect the expansion of the rule of law intended by the justice reform movement; it reflects the competition of laws mobilized in power relations between the conflict parts and between them and state agents. The freedom to mobilize different conflict resolution rituals, with different outcomes, corresponds to the plurality of law perspectives and power relations established. However, it does not establish legal or symbolic guarantees of effectiveness, mining the effectiveness of the state law primate. The last part of the thesis analyses the legal operators’ embodiment and the rituals of distinction on legal field, aiming to demonstrate how they are inscribed in the body, time and space.

O objeto de estudo é a reforma do sistema de justiça no Brasil, abordada por uma etnografia da criação e implantação dos Centros de Integração e Cidadania – CIC, um programa implantado pelo governo do estado de São Paulo desde 1996, visando melhorar o acesso à justiça para a população pobre e a articulação das instituições de justiça (Polícia Civil, Ministério Público, Poder Judiciário, entre outros). A pesquisa reconstruiu o idéario de criação do CIC como um movimento de reforma da justiça, animado por magistrados e outros operadores jurídicos, no contexto dos movimentos por democracia política e social e universalização dos direitos humanos dos anos 1980. A história do CIC, de suas apropriações, mudanças de rumo, adaptações, deslocamentos e resultados, é uma história de lutas em torno do significado da expansão do Estado de direito – conseqüentemente sobre o que e como reformar ou conservar nos serviços de justiça. A pesquisa interrogou o campo da gestão estatal de conflitos, a partir do que se pode observar no seu alcance capilar, em suas extremidades: para o discurso de criação do CIC, o funcionamento da justiça na periferia transformaria todo o sistema; para a pesquisa tratou-se de uma oportunidade de observar um conjunto de instituições operando no mesmo campo, de observar o sistema de justiça pelas suas franjas, pelos postos de trabalho de pouco prestígio, procurando a microfísica do poder em suas extremidades, interrogando os efeitos concretos do funcionamento dos serviços de justiça. A análise sobre a mediação de conflitos nos diversos serviços de justiça disponíveis nos postos do CIC, sob a perspectiva da interpretação dos rituais de resolução de conflitos, preparou as conclusões da pesquisa sobre a oferta dos serviços de justiça para a população pobre e as dificuldades em democratizá-los. A fragmentação e a pluralidade de rituais de resolução empregados por agentes públicos não reflete a expansão do Estado de direito, pretendida pelo movimento de reforma; reflete antes a concorrência de juridicidades mobilizadas nas relações de poder entre as partes em conflito e delas com os agentes estatais. A liberdade de mobilização de diversos rituais de resolução de conflitos, com diversos resultados, corresponde à pluralidade de relações de poder estabelecidas e visões circulantes sobre o direito; contudo não estabelece garantias jurídicas ou simbólicas de eficácia, minando a eficácia do primado do direito estatal. A tese encerra-se com análise da corporificação dos operadores jurídicos e os rituais de distinção do campo jurídico, buscando demonstrar como eles se inscrevem no corpo, no tempo e no espaço. / The object of this thesis is the justice system reform in Brazil, analyzed by an ethnographical approach on the creation and implementation of the Citizenship Integration Centres – CIC, a program developed by São Paulo State government since 1996 and designed for enlarging poor population access to justice and improving the articulation among justice system institutions (Police, Prosecution Office and Judiciary). The research reconstructed the CIC creation frame as a justice system reform movement, sustained by magistrates and other legal operators, in a context of movements for political and social democracy and universalization of human rights in the 1980’s. The history of the CIC, its appropriations, route changes, adaptations, dislocations and outcomes, is a history of disputes surrounding the meaning of the rule of law expansion and, therefore, disputes on what and how to reform or conserve in justice services. The research interrogated the field of state management of conflicts, from what one can observe in its capillarity, in its extremities: for the CIC creation discourse, the functioning of justice in poor neighborhoods was a mean to transform all justice system; for the research, this was a chance to observe a set of institutions operating in the same field, to observe the justice system by its fringes, by the ranks of word of lower prestige, to look for the power microphysics in its extremities and to interrogate the real effects of justice services functioning. The analysis of conflict mediation in the different justice services available in CIC, under the perspective of the conflict resolution rituals interpretation, prepared the research conclusions about the offers of justice services for the poor and the difficulties in democratizing them. The fragmentation and plurality of conflict resolution rituals undertaken by public agents do not reflect the expansion of the rule of law intended by the justice reform movement; it reflects the competition of laws mobilized in power relations between the conflict parts and between them and state agents. The freedom to mobilize different conflict resolution rituals, with different outcomes, corresponds to the plurality of law perspectives and power relations established. However, it does not establish legal or symbolic guarantees of effectiveness, mining the effectiveness of the state law primate. The last part of the thesis analyses the legal operators’ embodiment and the rituals of distinction on legal field, aiming to demonstrate how they are inscribed in the body, time and space.

本論文為結合政治史、外交史及禮儀史的著作。以學界對晚清外交的研究為基礎，聚焦於「外國公使覲見禮」的制訂，並利用晚近整理出版的多國檔案、日記、回憶錄，及藏於中央研究院近代史研究所的總理各國事務衙門檔案、外務部檔案等資料，重新討論清代賓禮體制的原型、變體及其過渡到西式外交禮儀的過程，分析中、西禮制的衝突根源，進而探討「天下秩序」與中國近代政治文化的關聯。經本論文的考察，研究成果有四。 本論文先概論清代「賓禮體制」的運作過程，並說明康熙、雍正年間的「賓禮體制」具有相當大的彈性空間，其制禮原則不只是「朝貢禮」，還有用於不稱臣納貢者的「客禮」，作為「朝貢禮」的補充。 其次，說明咸豐君臣在《天津條約》的約束下，不得不允許公使駐京等條款。但總理各國事務衙門的設立，不完全是清政府因應對外交涉的新局面，更多是出於維護「賓禮體制」的考量，並延續過去「督撫外交」的成例，由三口通商大臣、五口通商大臣作為對外交涉的第一線。 再者，總理各國事務衙門援引康熙、雍正年間款待俄國使節團之事，重新提出「客禮」，讓「鞠躬禮」與「跪拜禮」不再是絕對的對立，反而有變通的空間，讓外國公使得行「鞠躬禮」。清政府利用「客禮」概念，以「天下秩序」包容歐美各國與中國的政治關係，再將外國公使定位為皇帝的「客臣」，並將「外國公使覲見禮」解釋為皇帝優禮外使的恩典，遂得到中國官民的認同，維護皇帝作為「天子」的至尊地位。 第四，《辛丑和約》簽訂後，清政府雖透過擯者轉譯的方式，讓外國公使仍是皇帝的「客臣」，不致出現君臣逆位的狀況，但清政府只能在形式上維持皇帝的權威。外務部不能再像過去那樣用「名分秩序」，作為涉外禮儀的制禮原則，「西禮中用」已是不可避免的趨勢，表示清政府無法再以「天下秩序」包容歐美各國與中國的關係，只能藉由「國際法」的慣例，利用條約去約束外國官民的行動，以挽回中國的利權。 最後，經本論文對「外國公使覲見禮」的考察，得知「賓禮」到「禮賓」的改變，並非一蹴而成的，也不是全出於外國公使的逼迫。清政府面對外來刺激時，自有其內部轉換的機制，不僅有外在形式上的變革，更有內在觀念的調整，故清政府提出「客禮」概念，作為中禮與西禮的過渡禮儀，也是「天下秩序」與「國際法」的思想銜接。當「客禮」無法再解釋公使請覲，清政府廢除禮部，「賓禮體制」宣告結束，「天下秩序」也不再是清政府對外關係的中心思想。

Since its inception, the Internet has served as a powerful medium for the dissemination of religious information and the creation of religious communities. Cyberspace now represents an important global paradigm shift in the way religion is conducted. This research provides a sociological account of the affordances the Internet contributes to religious life by examining the ways in which it has influenced the conduct or practices associated with Buddhism. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the rituals constitutive of the Buddhist practice of meditation have been achieved by the Cybersangha, the term Buddhists use for the online Buddhist community. The thesis argues that the Internet is not well suited to the facilitation of particular types of religious understanding and that there are clear limitations to its ability to provide the shared ritualistic experience necessitated by meditation. This is due to the fact that current technology can enable ritual only to a limited degree, and to the ways in which the textual nature of the Internet poses problems for religious experience of an intuitive, non-mediated nature. For these reasons, despite the fact that many websites advertise ‘online meditation’ and despite the strong attempts of some communities to use the Internet as a meditational medium, online meditation cannot be fully facilitated by the Internet. Since a key method by which a Buddhist attains understanding of reality is the use of the body in a meditative act, the inability to provide for embodiment means that the Internet can never offer an experiential equivalent to that of an offline environment. The lack of this experiential aspect means that it cannot in turn provide for holistic, religious communion. As such, there needs to be a further philosophical and practical appraisal of the capabilities of the Internet in general, and as a medium by which a religious experience can be engendered.

<p>This essay describes the phases of funeral rituals between the Syrian/Assyrian, and compares the homeland with Sweden. It describes the stage of rituals according to Victor Turner schema of separation, margin or limin, and aggregation. The rituals religious significance agrees with Clifford Geertz’s theory about the importance of religious beliefs for the human being</p>

In the years since Mao Zedongs death, the people of China have been impelled to reevaluate the legacy and character of their still iconic leader. One of the more notable trends in this process of posthumous reevaluation is the tendency of some individuals and groups (most often, the rural peasantry) to interpret the deceased Chairman along theological lines, assuming that his still efficacious spirit will provide protection and good fortune to those who honour him.<p>In exploring the genesis (and continued salience) of these beliefs and practices, the present research delves into popular Chinese religiosity, exploring the porosity of the traditional cosmology, the centrality of perceived spiritual efficacy (ling) in determining the popularity of religious cults, and the theological and cosmological resonances extant within traditional understandings of political leadership. The body of metaphors, narratives, and tropes drawn from this historical overview are then applied to popular characterizations of Mao, with the resulting correspondences helping to explicate the salience of these modern religious interpretations. To further investigate the source of Maos persistent symbolic capital, the present research also explores the role of Cultural Revolution-era ritual in valorizing and reifying the power and efficacy then popularly ascribed to the Great Helmsmans person and teachings. This studys conclusion, in brief, is that participants in the posthumous cult of Mao are utilizing these cultural materials in both traditional and creative ways, and that such interpretations speak to the exigencies of life in the turbulent, ideologically ambiguous culture of modern China. <p>In performing this evaluation, the present research makes use of the standard phenomenological/historiographic approach of religious studies scholarship, though it is also informed by narrative methods, cognitive science, and current perspectives on the role and function of ritual. In particular, the analysis of Mao-era rituals (as a source of Maos continued symbolic potency) is performed using the cognivistic typology of ritual proposed by E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley, with additional materials drawn from the research of Catherine Bell, Roy Rappaport, Pascal Boyer and Adam Chau.

In the years since Mao Zedongs death, the people of China have been impelled to reevaluate the legacy and character of their still iconic leader. One of the more notable trends in this process of posthumous reevaluation is the tendency of some individuals and groups (most often, the rural peasantry) to interpret the deceased Chairman along theological lines, assuming that his still efficacious spirit will provide protection and good fortune to those who honour him.<p>In exploring the genesis (and continued salience) of these beliefs and practices, the present research delves into popular Chinese religiosity, exploring the porosity of the traditional cosmology, the centrality of perceived spiritual efficacy (ling) in determining the popularity of religious cults, and the theological and cosmological resonances extant within traditional understandings of political leadership. The body of metaphors, narratives, and tropes drawn from this historical overview are then applied to popular characterizations of Mao, with the resulting correspondences helping to explicate the salience of these modern religious interpretations. To further investigate the source of Maos persistent symbolic capital, the present research also explores the role of Cultural Revolution-era ritual in valorizing and reifying the power and efficacy then popularly ascribed to the Great Helmsmans person and teachings. This studys conclusion, in brief, is that participants in the posthumous cult of Mao are utilizing these cultural materials in both traditional and creative ways, and that such interpretations speak to the exigencies of life in the turbulent, ideologically ambiguous culture of modern China. <p>In performing this evaluation, the present research makes use of the standard phenomenological/historiographic approach of religious studies scholarship, though it is also informed by narrative methods, cognitive science, and current perspectives on the role and function of ritual. In particular, the analysis of Mao-era rituals (as a source of Maos continued symbolic potency) is performed using the cognivistic typology of ritual proposed by E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley, with additional materials drawn from the research of Catherine Bell, Roy Rappaport, Pascal Boyer and Adam Chau.

This essay describes the phases of funeral rituals between the Syrian/Assyrian, and compares the homeland with Sweden. It describes the stage of rituals according to Victor Turner schema of separation, margin or limin, and aggregation. The rituals religious significance agrees with Clifford Geertz’s theory about the importance of religious beliefs for the human being