Tradition Vs Nukil Funeral

The two rituals I picked are the western practice known as a funeral and the traditional practice known as the Nukil, or Hemmukuwin that is a mourning ceremony practiced by the Cahuilla, a Californian Native American tribe. In my culture, an experience of a funeral consists of first a wake the night before the service where close family and friends can look at the body and tell stories about experiences with the deceased. Then the next morning is the service that is pretty similar to a Christian church service where we praise God and sing while honoring the deceased. After that we go to the cemetery and proceed with the actual burial which is the sort of climax of the funeral process where all final emotions are being let out. After this is
the reception where the life of the deceased is being celebrated and rejoiced with music, food and dancing. The Nukil of the Cahuilla people is a yearly event designed to honor their dead.
This practice originated from Mukat who told the Cahuilla that they should have one year to honor their dead. In fact the first one was to honor the death of Mukat. This practice is always held in the winter or fall because of the amount of leisure time the Cahuilla people have. The Nukil usually begins on Monday night and just goes on for six nights. The first three nights, the old people sit around the fire in the kishumnawat and sing and tell stories about creation. As well as the medicine men dance at this time. On these nights the young men dance for the first time and perform similar acts as to what their elders were doing. On the next three nights it is the guests turn to sing their own songs. Many of them go to sleep before morning, but a handful of them sing nonstop. The main ones singing are usually men. During the last night there is another dance that is conducted called the dance of the effigies. Effigies are a sort of sculpture or model that is made exactly the size of the deceased. They are made by the immediate family members of the deceased behind the scenes over the course of the week. One is made for each person that has died over the past
year. The ceremony is held the final morning and the effigies of all the deceased are carried in the style of procession. More dancing and singing occurs and when that is done the effigies are carried out to the graveyard and burned. Nobody is allowed to witness this. I would say these two rituals fall under Wallace’s Technological rituals because both different rituals are used as a coping mechanism bad occurrences such as death. Both of these rituals are religiously based.
My culture's version of a funeral is religious because we celebrate because we know that the deceased is going to be with God. Throughout the service we stress this idea that the deceased has been called up by God to come home and serve him. The Cahuilla mourning ceremony is religious because it originated from Mukat who is their form of God (the creator). They believed that the very first ceremony was in fact for his death. In my culture we practice this tradition the way we do because we believe that God is the foundation of life. Consequently when someone's life ends, we feel it is important to be mindful about how God was an important part of that person’s life so he should be celebrated as well. The Cahuilla practice these rituals because Mukat tells them they must set aside a time of the year to celebrate the lives of the fallen and honor them in his name. The rituals of my culture are not tied to any myth however the Cahuilla mourning ritual derives from the very first about Mukat and his death as well as how that was the very first time the ritual was
performed. These two rituals are similar in many ways. For example they both are used to cope with death. They also both have a certain process to it in the the way that it is just not a one and done type of occasion. Some differences are that in my culture the ritual is a series of events in one day however in the Cahuilla ritual they are a series of events over the course of a week. Another difference is that in my ritual the body of the deceased is directly involved with the ceremony. In the Cahuilla ritual the bodies of the deceased are not involved at all. Rather than the body they make replacements for them called effigies. In both cultures particularly everyone participates in the ritual because it is intended to honor the fallen and the higher power.