Terje Oestigaard

The Deceased's Life Cycle Rituals in Nepal Terje Oestigaard

This study forms `an ethnoarchaeological analysis of the life cycle rituals from the funeral practice and its manifestation in the mortuary remains of Brahmans and Magars in Central Dhaulagiri zone of Nepal'. It is largely based on first-hand experience of funerals and explores the religious and cosmological ideas surrounding death and the afterlife, what death represents for the living and the rites and rituals performed to the deceased. In the final chapter, Oestigaard considers how this evidence can help us interpret the burials of the past and re-appraise our Christianised views of death.