37-2 The Analysis of Mourning Experiences in Traditional Funeral Rituals: From Death to Encoffining Ceremony
The researcher applied the emic approach to examine social and cultural processes of traditional funeral rituals and mourning experiences of a family living in the central Taiwanese rural area. Ethnography was adopted in this research. Participant observation was the major method and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. The result showed that traditional funeral rituals contain functions of mourning and cultural healing. The concrete connotations of these functions were addressed as follows: (1) these rituals and procedure help bereaved family confirm and accept the fact of death; (2) rituals suppress the family members' individual emotion and facilitate the expressing of collective emotions; (3) traditional funeral rituals establish a space for grief healing; (4) these rituals enable the bereaved family to obtain substantial care and psychological support from family relatives; (5) the bereaved family experiences the transition and reconnection of relationship with the dead family member; and (6) the bereaved family reflects the attitude of reluctance of discussing death and fear of death.
Keywords
bereaved families ； ethnography ； mourning ； traditional funeral rituals
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