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Rituals of Death in Mongolia: Their Implications for Understanding the Mutual Constitution of Persons and Objects and Certain Concepts of Property

Rituals of Death in Mongolia: Their Implications for Understanding the Mutual Constitution of... <jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This article provides an ethnographic description of burial rituals in Ulaanbaatar in the 1980s. The ceremonies surrounding death indicate the presence of an amalgam of Buddhist, folk-religious and socialist ideas, and they notably make use of material objects as representations of such ideas. The article discusses what such rituals might tell us about Mongolian concepts of the person, fate and character. The further aim of the paper is to explore the wider significance of relations between persons and material objects as revealed in the funerary rituals, especially as regards ideas of ‘property’. It is argued that Mongolians in this period gave little prominence to the idea of ‘private property’, but retained a strong notion of joint, familial property; at the same time, the burial rituals reveal a significant concern with personal property. Socialist regimes, which emphasise communal forms of property, may often be associated with the parallel counter-significance of intimate and personal relations between persons and things.</jats:p> </jats:sec> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Inner Asia Brill

Rituals of Death in Mongolia: Their Implications for Understanding the Mutual Constitution of Persons and Objects and Certain Concepts of Property

Inner Asia , Volume 1 (1): 59 – Jan 1, 1999

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1464-8172
eISSN
2210-5018
DOI
10.1163/146481709793646429
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This article provides an ethnographic description of burial rituals in Ulaanbaatar in the 1980s. The ceremonies surrounding death indicate the presence of an amalgam of Buddhist, folk-religious and socialist ideas, and they notably make use of material objects as representations of such ideas. The article discusses what such rituals might tell us about Mongolian concepts of the person, fate and character. The further aim of the paper is to explore the wider significance of relations between persons and material objects as revealed in the funerary rituals, especially as regards ideas of ‘property’. It is argued that Mongolians in this period gave little prominence to the idea of ‘private property’, but retained a strong notion of joint, familial property; at the same time, the burial rituals reveal a significant concern with personal property. Socialist regimes, which emphasise communal forms of property, may often be associated with the parallel counter-significance of intimate and personal relations between persons and things.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Journal

Inner AsiaBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1999

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