Exchanges with the Dead

Abstract

The Ibaloy, an indigenous group of the Cordillera Central in the Philippines, perform complex burial rites. Often when someone falls ill, they also exhume human remains, a practice that has not received the attention it deserves in a cosmology where animism and analogism are intertwined. Here, we describe a variant of the késheng ja waray batbat ritual observed in 2017, the timeline of its sequences, and the many objects and acts it involves. This ritual is key to the exchanges that the living make with the dead. In it, pigs act more as ‘connectors’ than as sacrificial offerings, and their flesh, blood, and karashowa (soul) are used and shared. This three-day ritual questions death as the end of life, and sheds light on the extent to which Hertz’s ‘second funeral’ concept is useful in understanding the relationships between the living and the dead. It also illuminates how the dead need continuous help from the living and vice versa. Both groups strive to reach a state of diteng (well-being, healthiness) which can be reached only after the dead themselves experience it, thanks to the efforts of the living who take care of their remains and make offerings to them. Then, luck and prosperity can be expected from the dead. These exchanges appear to be necessary to live a good life, and they must be repeated and maintained at all cost.