Slovenski etnografski muzej

Številka revije 
Etnolog 9/1 (1999)
Strani 
205-215
Članek v pdf obliki 
Prenesi pdf datoteko (239.88 KB)

The Earthly Loci of Death: the Coffin, the Grave, the Cemetery

Many folk beliefs and rituals linked with coffin, grave and cemetery are considered in the given paper. Typical archaic Slavic apprehension of life after death is the division in two worlds. People’s ideas about death include the conviction that a dead person “goes away” into the “other world” where he/she finds out his/her own place: “home”, “village of the deceased”. The embodiment of such images are the locations connected with the dead: a coffin, a grave, and a cemetery which are characterised by the features of the individual or collective home of the deceased. Burial customs, funeral rituals, folk beliefs and vocabulary connected with death confirm the thesis that coffin, grave and cemetery are Slavic symbols of home in the other world. They correspond to the dwelling in life.
Coffin (in Russian dialects – dom, domovina, domovišče, horomina) may be arranged as a house: it has holes or windows, there is an icon with embroidered towel in the corner of it. Grave is also often made as a house (Russian hatka), garden or yard. The definite etiquette at cemetery is conditioned by the risk of staying in the area of the dead where everything belongs to the deceased: ground, flowers, trees, fruits and so on. People believe that the deceased at certain time walk and visit each other in the bounds of a cemetery. A cemetery as an area of dead is in opposition to the village - settlements of alive. Complicated relations between the places of life and death, as well as the way in which they are connected, are particularly indicated in the paper.