Feeding the dead; Reformulating Sasak mortuary practices

Abstract

In Lombok, mortuary practices provide an apt vantage point from which to view the dynamics of socio-feligious developments - developments that are intimately bound up with new interpretations of Islam that have become increasingly prevalent among the Sasak since Indonesian independence, and particularly since the mid-1960s (Cederroth 1977,1981, 1996; Eck-lund 1977; Krulfeld 1974; McVey 1993). Challenging ritual sensibilities that insist on the inseparability of food and prayer for transactions with spiritual agents to be efficacious, reform-oriented Muslims object to long-standing practices of transacting with the dead through material media like food, betel and incense accompanied by prayer. Feeding the Dead 773 In this paper I consider the reformers' effort to change village mortuary practice in terms of the gender implications of the move to replace a concern with food with an emphasis on prayer, as well as of the contested conception of ancestors and their agency. [...]the living ought to help the dead by reciting prayers that alleviate their torments.