Tongan Burial Customs.

[robby]

I just got an account of a recent Tongan funeral in Hawaii. The women go to church and wail for a long time, the men retire to a special house, start drinking a stimulant called kava, change into rice mat things they tie around their middle, and take the body out of the coffin.

The men take turns holding, and rocking the body, and talk to the body, for days, while under the constant influence of kava. In this particular funeral three people had died together in a car accident, and one of the bodies was too torn up, and was kept in a closed coffin. No one rocked or talked to that body at all.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

Do you suppose the mangled body was sad? Perhaps it's spirit will never rest. That person had been partially ejected, and then the minivan rolled and slid while resting on the body. Flesh and bone became goo.

interesting

[simonsayssuckit.livejournal.com]

i studied burial customs for about a year
i think i may start up again
thank you

Re: interesting

[robby.livejournal.com]

When you think about it, it's not so different from a drunken Irish wake. I studied cultural anthropology once upon a time, but gravitated more toward physical anthro and archeology. I like your poetry. How did you find me? Do you know me from somewhere else? Are you perhaps another facet of the enigmatic ann_heche?

Re: interesting

[simonsayssuckit.livejournal.com]

actually
i was doing a bit of random travelling
i stumbled on yer journal and thought it was interesting

Re: interesting

[robby.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone responded to that post. The Tongan guy I know is named Cliff. The king of Tonga personally named Cliff after Cliff Richard (http://www.cliffrichard.org/life_and_times/index.html), his favorite singer. Cliff's dad is old school, and actually has pointy, sharpened "cannibal" teeth.

Re: interesting

[simonsayssuckit.livejournal.com]

hmm
cool
that was random
do you tangent much?

Re: interesting

[robby.livejournal.com]

It's pertinent background information, so you know I'm laying down the real shanizille.

Re: interesting

[simonsayssuckit.livejournal.com]

i see
bravo to you then

Re: interesting

[creepykirk.livejournal.com]

This odd and strange patient of mine must sit on his hands when speaking to you on line or else he will jerk himself.

[melaniebknyc.livejournal.com]

You are so fucking boring.