The Meaning of Death and Afterlife: A Study among the Christian Melanau of Kampung Bungan Besar and Kampung Bungan Kecil

Robinson, Benedict Mugok (2019) The Meaning of Death and Afterlife: A Study among the Christian Melanau of Kampung Bungan Besar and Kampung Bungan Kecil. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

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Abstract

This research examines the changes in the Melanau death rituals post to religion conversion, especially Christianity. Robert Hertz proposition of looking at body and soul in explaining death in his classical essay is used and applied in encrypting Melanau traditional ways of looking at death before shifting to Christian ways of proclaiming death. Ethnographic research conducted among the Melanau communities in Kampung Bungan Besar and Kampung Bungan Kecil in assessing the changes in ritual of arranging death in the contemporary times. Informants were interviewed in search for the changing meaning and rituals and the data collected analysed using thematic analysis. The continuity-discontinuity discourse was used in examining the changes in the death ritual practices. The result turned out that Melanau conversion into Christianity has led to the weakening of some traditional practices and beliefs about death and the afterworld as Christianity introduced its very own ideas about death and afterlife. However, some practices are continuously survived as they are being accommodated into the Christian teachings to make them incompatible with the new perceived religion ways. Keywords: Melanau, Christianity, Melanau eschatology, religion conversion

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