funeral rite

English

Noun

funeral rite (plural funeral rites)

1. A custom or ceremony pertaining to the recently dead, such as a funeral, public burial, or the Greek custom of breaking clayen vessels on the grave or in front of the deceased's house.
   • 1981, Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society - the Soviet Case, →ISBN:

     Although a secular funeral rite has been performed for public figures from the time of the Revolution, efforts to establish it for ordinary Soviet citizens have begun relatively late, that is from the middle sixties to the early seventies onwards. Up to then ritual specialists had shied away from its institution because they realized the great philosophical and organizational problems involved in creating and conducting a secular funeral rite.

   • 1990, Norma Williams, The Mexican American Family: Tradition and Change, →ISBN, page 37:

     Members of the family and friends completed the funeral rite by walking past the grave and, as they made the sign of the cross, sprinkling a handful of dirt on top of the coffin.

   • 2007, Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, →ISBN, page 223:

     Kallirhoe's spectacular testimonial from within the burial chamber gives a unique perspective of the "deceased" woman experiencing her own funeral rites.

   • 2015, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Daryll Forde, African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, →ISBN:

     During their funeral rite they perform a special dance (called wundr) which is said to stop lions from attacking the herds.