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Mortuary Rite Among the Mishing Tribe in a Rural Context of Assam






Author(s)

Arifur Zaman

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2015.04.001

Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, India

Death is one of the urgent crises event in human society that occur during the lifecycle of each individual. It has an integral relation with religion, especially with rites and rituals, through which the deceased person is appeased with the intervention of supernatural. Furthermore, the death rites, popularly known as funeral rites, which incorporate the deceased into the world of the dead are more extensively elaborated and assigned the greatest importance. Mourning is integral element related with the death and during the event social life is suspended for all those affected by it and length of the period increases with the closeness of social ties with the deceased. In every society, there are certain customs related to death, as well as disposal of the corpse which reflect the parochial belief system associated with the event. In this paper, an attempt has been made to evaluate the customs associated with disposal of the death, integral parochial religious rites and rituals among the Mishings of Upper Assam, India.

Mishing, death, oblation, Assamese Hindu, Vaishnavism