Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the interplay of three concepts: religion, citizenship and afterlife among devotees of Orisha. The ethnographic research focuses on how these concepts are addressed by different sub-groups of Orisha devotees through their repertoires of funeral rituals.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on how afterlife is conceived and addressed by devotees of Orisha in Trinidad. Rich ethnographic data are utilized on funeral rituals among different sub-groups of Orisha practitioners who have, over the years, emerged with emphasis on different theological preferences. Funeral rites have turn out to show how these sub-groups engage one another on their theological arguments and also close ranks to engage the larger society as a minority group. My analysis of funeral rites and rituals attempts a better understanding of the interplay of race, interpretation of history by different groups in post-colonial states. Although Orisha is broadly grouped together within the national space, I argue that such a generalization needs to be peeled off to reveal the individualistic and sub-group specifics that agency is constructed to address. I present the challenge that post-colonial states present to existing theories on mortuary rituals. Although funeral rites are generally regarded as a rites of passage that traditional groups engage in, in order to make sense of their existence in relation to the experience of the death of a member (van Gennep, Binford, and Turner), funeral rites among Orisha devotees in Trinidad address more than this: fragmented Orisha groups have a rather more overlapping subjectivity in sight which their rites address, rather than fashion, as Kroeber once observed. Grief, a central focus of mortuary rites (Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Radcliffe-Brown) and power structure that regulates grief (Fowlkes) play out differently among Orisha groups and add to our theoretical understanding of the subject.

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