Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Introduction: death and the regeneration of life
- 2 The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi
- 3 Sacrificial death and the necrophagous ascetic
- 4 Witchcraft, greed, cannibalism and death: some related themes from the New Guinea Highlands
- 5 Lugbara death
- 6 Of flesh and bones: the management of death pollution in Cantonese society
- 7 Social dimensions of death in four African hunting and gathering societies
- 8 Death, women and power
- Index
2 - The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Introduction: death and the regeneration of life
- 2 The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi
- 3 Sacrificial death and the necrophagous ascetic
- 4 Witchcraft, greed, cannibalism and death: some related themes from the New Guinea Highlands
- 5 Lugbara death
- 6 Of flesh and bones: the management of death pollution in Cantonese society
- 7 Social dimensions of death in four African hunting and gathering societies
- 8 Death, women and power
- Index
Summary
Introduction
… the dead go directly to Puquinapampa and Corapona. There they meet together and it is said that there they enjoy much feasting and conversation between the dead men and the dead women; and that whenn they leave there they go to another place where they endure much work, hunger, thirst and cold, and when it is hot the heat is too great; and thus they bury them with their food and drink. And they always take care to send them provisions to eat and drink; and after six months they make another similar feast for the dead, and after a year another; but they do not take out the said deceased in a procession as they do in Chinchaysuyu, they leave him inside his cave and underground chamber and they call the town of the dead amayan marcapa (town of the ghosts).
(Waman Puma, 1613 (1936:294)Waman Puma here relates the burial customs of Qullasuyu, which included what is today highland Bolivia, and formed the Southeastern quarter of the fourfold Inka state. His description, though separated by 350 years from the present day, offers illumination for the account that follows of mortuary rites in the Laymi ethnic group of northern Potosí, Bolivia. The Andean writer expresses a poignant contrast between the time of feasting and ‘conversation’ and the subsequent hard labour and suffering experienced by the dead.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Death and the Regeneration of Life , pp. 45 - 73Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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