Burial on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

This blog is an account of fieldwork Monika Winarnita and I have undertaken, with our kids, in 2011 (for two weeks), 2014 (for six months), and 2016 (for one month). Here are photos and notes from a burial in 2011.

Reading prayers graveside

My friend, Nek Su, is a repository of many Cocos Malay traditions. He instructed us and others in Cocos Malay dancing. He also catches fish to order--his wife, Ayesha--simply requests one kind of fish, and Nek Su goes out to the lagoon and catches. 

2011 was a time of deep bereavement for Nek Su as his father, aged in his 90s, passed away. As Monika and I were undertaking our first fieldwork visit, I took some photos and asked questions to learn about mourning in a Cocos Malay community. 

I was told that there is a committee which is responsible for washing the corpse at funerals and has duties at other festivities.

Prior to the burial, the corpse is washed. This is an Islamic cleansing ritual called "wudhu".

Then the men make a "payung" (shade, umbrella) This is sprayed with water. I asked one of the mourners why, he responded "I don't know, maybe our ancestors did it that way" ("tidak tahu kenapa mungkin nenek moyang begitu").

Before leaving for Pulu Gangsa

The corpse is then transported to the cemetery Pulu Gangsa("The Island of the Geese"). Actually, this is no longer an island, as the name "pulu" [island] would suggest. Pulu Gangsa now connects with Home Island. So the mourners used the local form of transport, 4 wheelers, and golf buggies, to take themselves and the corpse to the cemetery.

Men, dressed in white, and shaded from the heat with umbrellas, perform prayers graveside.

At the graveside, the mourners recite a prayer for the spirit of the dead ("bacakan doa arwah"). I observed that, like cemeteries in Indonesia, frangipani had also been planted, and a mourner explained that "Frangipanis are [used?] but that's not religion, it's tradition" ("Kembamg Cambodja dibawa bukan ugama, tapi adat").

A mourner takes some time out.

The corpse, wrapped in a white shroud, was placed in the grave and then covered with soil, in accordance with Islamic practice.

Mortuary rituals

Anthropologists call funerals and other ceremonies associated with the dead "mortuary rituals". In many cultures, the final disposing of the body can be delayed for days, weeks, months, or even years. The 'disposing' varies; the corpse can be burned, left to decompose, and parts of the corpse might be consumed. In other cultures (Jewish and Islamic) the body should buried as quickly as possible. Aside from 'disposing' of the body, there are usually attendant rituals both before (think of the Irish wake, which comes before the burial) and after (in Java people celebrate the 1000th day of bereavement with a ritual meal.

Mortuary rituals as rite of passage?

Generally, we understand mortuary rituals as a kind of rite of passage. Rites of passage, it will be recalled, change a person's ritual status from being, for example, unborn to born; or unmarried-married; or child-adult; or undergraduate-graduate. All of these relate to what most Westerners would equate with physical life, so it might seem strange that dying is also thought to be rite of passage. 

One way to understand this is to look at it from the perspective of those involved. They understand that there is a spirit that still survives. This spirit needs to be transformed from being in a living body to another kind of body (possibly, we could say, a dead or decomposing body) or leaving the body altogether. The mortuary rituals, including a funeral, are part of that. 

Even in a Western context, I am familiar with this. I have been to funerals with avowed atheists who say, "I think he [the dead person] is looking over us right now". 

Reasons for mortuary rituals

Even if we do not think of mortuary rituals as a rite of passage, there are obvious psychological functions (dealing with grief) and social functions (bonding the mourners together). 

First Haircut

A ritual haircut on a child's 40th day helps initiate them into the community.

On June 14, a local couple put on a ritual for their 1st child; Kalilah. Locals call it "Gunting Rambut" or "Marhaban". I'll just call it "First Haircut". It occurs 40 days after birth.

One of the cakes prepared for the First Haircut. It was made by Hajah Attie - a female relative.

Morning: females prepare food

The last preparations for the First Haircut began earlier in the day. In a similar manner to other nulung (helping out), wives help the family prepare dishes. Those who are closer to the family did this at the hosts' house. Others prepared dishes at their own homes. Following advice, my wife, Monika made mini-cakes to bring. I took a carton of drinks and a selawet ("prayer",  in the form of cash in an envelope). All this was before mid-afternoon prayers (Ashar).

Seven bowls of porridge and three plates of yellow rice with roast chicken

Mid-afternoon: men pray

After the Ashar prayers, a small ritual prayer session was held.  I missed this, but I have included footage from the same ritual held on June 5 for a child named Zahir at a house over the road (for footage, click here). In the middle of the room were three plates of roast chicken and yellow rice; and a plate with bowls of rice porridge.* Tradition/custom (adat) prescribes that there must be an odd number of bowls of porridge. According to the imam, from a religious perspective, you can do this but you don't have to (boleh buat, boleh tak ada).  The food offering used to be called rasul (messenger) and, I'm told, some older people still use this term.

Women waiting for the men to finish eating

Mid-afternoon: feast for men and women

Then a large ritual meal began. As is the practice, the men ate first, followed by the women. Then the men got up to eat the cakes, again followed by the women. This lasted a little over an hour. One of the special features of this ritual meal was the amount of cake, which exceeded that of other rituals I have attended. (But as I haven't attended a wedding yet, this might not be saying much.) After the eating was finished, this stage of the ritual was complete.  Most men went their separate ways for sunset prayers (Maghrib).

Prayers handed out

Nightfall: Chanting before cutting

After sunset prayers, the men gathered again at the Kalilah's parents' house for the next stage of the ritual, which lasted just over an hour. Copies of the prayers to be chanted were handed out to the men, who formed a 'circle' around the walls of the room. The imam explained the reason for the ritual--blessing the child (for footage, click here). Then began chanting that was to last throughout the ritual. Kalilah's dad brought her into the room at times.

Kalilah and her doting father

Cutting the hair

Next came the pinnacle of the ritual. A procession made its way around the room to every man present. At the front was Kalilah being held by her father. Men passed scissors around. Each took a turn at cutting the baby's hair. Behind the father was a man carrying a bowl with water on the plate. The water was dabbed on the baby's head so that the piece of hair stuck up making it easier to cut. This, the imam later told me, is a kind of selawat (prayer/invocation). The men did this very gently and carefully. Her cut hair was also placed in the water bowl. The last man in the procession carried a kind of scented confetti, which was given to the men after they cut baby Kalilah's hair. 

The procession

Some of the men whispered a prayer to the baby in addition to, or instead of, cutting the hair. 

Maz whispers to the baby 

Other men chose not to do either.

Presents for everyone

Presents for the guests

Towards the end of the ritual, bags were circulated to all the men. The bags contained presents for a little child. These presents are depicted in the image below.

Presents from the bag

In the middle, there are prayer beads. On the left of this is a little bottle of perfume. And to the left again a miniature prayer mat. Moving clockwise, there is a plastic coin bag with lollies and chocolates. Then a prayer book, Surat Yasin. Finally, there is an envelope inscribed with the words, "Thank You from Kalilah's family"-these envelopes are also called "selawat"  (prayers / invocation).

Afterwards

After this was complete, those present enjoyed another ritual meal out the back of the house.

The rest of the baby's hair was to be shaved off the next day I was told, but I'll need to find out more about that.

What does it all mean?

According to the speech by the imam, the ritual was to pray for God's blessing on the child. Of those who attended, one identified it as an Islamic ritual of initiation--"it's a kind of sign she's become a Muslim" ("macam tanda dia menjadi orang Islam"). Another also felt it came "from our ancestors" ("dari nenek moyang kita [sic.]"). Let's try to unpack this a little.

Cultural and religious context

The Home Island ritual can be placed in the context of other Malay cultures, where one can find ostensibly the same ritual. Another term is"Marhaban" [Welcoming???]. I also heard "Syukuran" (thanksgiving) used. In other parts of the Malay world, a similar hair-cutting ritual at 40 days is often called "Cukur Rambut" ("Hair Shaving"). It's popular also because it's believed to make the baby's hair grow thicker; an important aesthetic trait.

The ritual of this sort is usually thought to be prescribed in Islam. According to one of the Hadith (Stories about the Prophet): "A baby is being pledged for his Aquiqah [Akikah], sacrifice is made for him on the seventh day, his head is shaved, and a name is given him". Akikah is the name given to the sacrifice of the animal.

Anthropological approaches

40 days seems a significant number in a variety of cultures. Like Malays, Greeks have a special ritual 40 days after the funeral. It could be a coincidence, but if not, how do we understand it? Diffusionists, scholars who believe that we should first consider how ideas and practices spread, would say that these ideas spread from the Middle East and Mediterranean to Southeast Asia. Structuralists, scholars who believe that we should first consider ideas and practices as part of a meaningful system within a culture, would argue that the number "40" stands in particular relation to other numbers. This might include "28" (days = a lunar month); "9" (the number of lunar months in a pregnancy). A number of other similarly unique ways to understand the prevalence of 40 present themselves. However, in isolation, the persistence of "40" seems trifling compared with deeper issues in the ritual.

One way to approach the deeper issues is to focus on the social function. Durkheim pioneered the functional approach. He wrote:

rites are ways of acting that are born in the midst of assembled groups and whose sole purpose is to evoke, maintain or recreate certain mental states of those groups

His point, I think, is that we get into a kind of mood in which we are receptive to the ideas that are represented in the ritual. Call the ideas that are represented "religious representations". Now Durkheim writes, "religious representations are collective representations that express collective realities". The point here is that the community forms a group a collective. The ritual represents that collective to those participating. It reminds them of the importance of community and of perpetuating community; community is now passed on to its newest member, who will one day also be responsible for passing it down. Something like that, I guess, is what Durkheim might say. 

We can also analyse the events using terms like "ritual", "tonsure", "ablution", and "initiation". For example, hair cutting (often called "tonsure" by anthropologists) features in a variety of contexts (entering the army; finishing the haj pilgrimage; coming of age in Thailand). It is usually associated with the adoption of a stricter more ascetic lifestyle, but anthropologists debated the issue through the 1950s-1980s. Water as a form of cleansing (usually called "ritual ablution" by anthropologists) also occurs in different settings (baptism in Christian churches, Jewish preparation of the bride for marriage and for conversion, Islamic preparations for prayer). So tonsure and ablution feature in this ritual. But to what end? 

I guess the ritual transforms status and initiates the infant. This is the first life-cycle ritual in Cocos Malay culture. At some point, a baby must be accepted as a member of the community; with a name and a role. Some Catholics, for instance, believe baptism turns the child into a member of the community of Christendom;  an unbaptized child may not enter heaven.  Indeed, many cultures possess rituals that transform newborn babies into community members. Putting this another way, we can see that the function of the ritual is to transform ritual status. The infant's ritual status is transformed from an outsider to a member of the community.  Among the Cocos Malays, the ritual which achieves this is the "First Haircut". 

Thank you to Pak and Mak Kalilah for inviting my family to celebrate their first child's hair-cutting ceremony.

Notes

*In Java this porridge is called Red and White porridge and some Javanese attach symbolic significance to the colors.