The Last Journey with no Return and Resurrection: Different Ways of Body and Soul in Slavic Funeral Rite. Part One: The Route of the Body

10.33876/2311-0546/2024-4/132-142

Abstract

According to folk beliefs, rites, taboos and corresponding mythological explanations, the death destroys the unity of body and soul, after that different parts of that union claim diverse fates and roads, proceeding either side by side or completely apart. The soul remains some time near the forsaken body, accompanies it on the way of the funeral procession to the grave, and eventually becomes one of the ancestors. First part of the paper deals with the mythological semantics and ritual symbolics of funeral processions route to the cemetery which is very different from the ordinary human ways as it has only one final destination and no return; it locks the boundaries of the space of the living by ritual transgressing all the liminal loci on its way (threshold, crossroads, water limit etc.), provides the deceased with his or her share of common goods, disposes of the dead person items and so on. This ensures successful conclusion of a funeral rite, which has to transfer the body of the deceased to the graveyard, the soul to the otherworld and prevents it from turning into an unrestful vengeful walking dead.