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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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