article
Rituals of death as a context for understanding personal property in socialist Mongolia
journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute • 8 (1) • Published In 2002 • Pages: 65-87
By: Humphrey, Caroline.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Humphrey explores Mongolian ideas about personal property and personhood by examining what happens to the deceased's possessions at funerals. Humphrey distinguishes between two kinds of personal property, valuables and what she calls, 'refuge things.' All valuables are given away when a person is dying as part of their final detachment from the world. However, 'refuge things,' which are most closely identified with the dying person, must be destroyed or buried with the corpse, because the dying person's soul is thought to remain attached to such objects. An excising ritual can also be performed to separate the soul from the object, if it is to be given away to somebody. The identification of persons with particular things persisted under socialism. Humphrey discusses the different notions of personhood based on beliefs in reincarnation and cosmology. She then describes the funeral rite in more detail. In her conclusion, she argues for a more complex way to imagine person-object relations than the simplified Western notions of 'private' and 'collective' property. The personalization of property is not simply an expression of ownership, but an extension of the self, including all its complex relations to the world, others, and personal experience.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Property in movables
- Burial practices and funerals
- Ideas about nature and people
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Mongolia
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2006
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Central Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2005
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1980
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1980-1989
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Ulaanbaatar and environs, Mongolia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Caroline Humphrey
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-87)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 95660943
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Mongolia