Mortuary ritual: women, their faces and bodies smeared with clay as sign or mourning, carry corpse wrapped for burial

• 1962

• Cook, Edwin A.

This digital image is a surrogate of an item from the Edwin Cook Papers (Archive negative 2, Roll 17, Envelope 5-15, Frame 7)

"This is a dead woman all trussed up being carried to her grave, semi-interment (too many rocks to dig a really big hole) with legs etc. on top and a fence around to keep out pigs. The body was 2 days old, already bloated and skin starting to break, the stench is despised by everyone except those who are believed to come and eat corpses after interrment for which reason a double watch of men is maintained until the vody [sic] quits stinking. Women are in charge of all burial details. This trip was pretty tricky going because it had just rained the trail is solid red clay and extremely slippery. Tried to get some pictures of the actual interment, seeing as how I was standing right by the thing, but it was too dark in the closed jungle, no contrast at all, everything black or dark brown." MSS187, Box 44, Folder 9.

• Melanesia
• Oceania
• Pacific Islands
• Papua New Guinea
• Western Highlands Province (Papua New Guinea)

• Funeral rites and ceremonies
• Mourning customs
• Narak (Papua New Guinean people)

• image

Online finding aid

• Edwin Cook Papers

• UC Regents

[Title, Date]. Edwin Cook Papers. MSS 187. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Digital Object URL]

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2021-11-17