FIELDNOTES FROM A FUNERAL: GRIEF, LOSS AND LEARNING

As research seeks scientific methods and demands a check on bias, affect is personal and political. A recent incident of my uncle’s passing has left me conflicted on ways to research and, more importantly, navigate personal loss and grief while doing research. A funeral might be an unusual place to begin speaking on ways to do research or ethics in research, but it is in difficult situations where one may find answers. Life moved quickly when I was away from home, until a death in the family forced me to pause. In that moment of grief, I came to realise what culture and community at home meant, the rituals, the shared sorrow and the unspoken bonds, something I was insulated from for a long time. During this time, when I tried to assimilate where I truly belong, I understood more the researcher in me, not just as a role, but as a way of being. Knowledge itself, then, became an inquiry not of an object of study but the studying of self and where one draws the line. This life episode has made a significant impact on the way that I was doing research, by understanding the unaddressed challenges that lie tucked away between the personal and professional, between what affects you and what should not. 

But, psychological insights are subjective, and inferences reflect power equations between the people being studied and the people studying them.

While traditional ethnography pioneered by white men, has by default been a colonial-male lens. Still, qualitative research advocates for in-depth analysis of communities who are affected by externalities directly. But how may we judge, or classify, people now who would do the same within their own community? What would be a method that could negotiate and navigate research that is ethically bound in a way that does not exoticize what or whom we study? Malinowski (1984), says that he only considers ‘ethnographic sources are of unquestionable scientific value, in which we can clearly draw the line between, on the one hand, the results of direct observation and of native statements and interpretations, and on the other, the inferences of the author, based on his common sense and psychological insight’ (Malinowski, 1984: 3). But, psychological insights are subjective, and inferences reflect power equations between the people being studied and the people studying them. He emphasizes, ‘As sociologists, we are not interested in what A or B may feel qua individuals, in the accidental course of their own personal experiences—we are interested only in what they feel and think qua members of a given community’ (Malinowski, 1984: 23). 

There is a line, to be drawn, between personal experiences and in recording the experiences of the communities we study. Impersonality is scientific, where the attempt has always been ‘to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world’ (Malinowski, 1984: 25). But, all these ‘scientific data’ ‘are really our own constructions, of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to’ (Geertz, 1973: 314). Therefore, a more compelling way to make an inquiry is by questioning ‘what their import is: what it is, ridicule or challenge, irony or anger, snobbery or pride, that, in their occurrence and through their agency, is getting said’ (Geertz, 1973: 315). Here is where I come in. A woman of the Limboo tribe, writing about the funeral of my uncle and a series of events that conspired, leaving me fractured in their wake; researcher and a niece, writing of remembrance, memory and the lived way of life of the Limboos in Sikkim. But, where do I hide my grief that came with loss while learning is a continuous process? Is my agency truly empowering me, or am I unconsciously internalising the very framework I seek to dismantle?

When we reached Tshalumthang, in the darkness of the night, and what I thought might engulf us in the absence of Tumba, it turned out to be flooded by the bustling of neighbours, well-wishers and the village community. This was new to me, there was no time for grief.

May 2025 was unforgiving. Amid the sunny-humid weather of Singtam, one evening my father received a call—it was an emergency. My Tumba (uncle) had just been admitted to the District Hospital. Semi-conscious, he was admitted with a case of gastroenteritis, however, even after a night of staying there, his diagnosis was far from complete, and his consciousness was slowly giving way. With his health deteriorating, he was rushed to Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial (STNM) Hospital at Gangtok. Unconscious in his bed for more than 24 hours now, it was time to take the next course of action as family members of the patient. His daughters, with their toddlers and husbands and his sons, were all trying to do what they could do best to help with the situation. By the second day, we moved him to a private hospital in Siliguri. He was admitted late in the night with multiple organ failures and the next morning was declared dead. I was experienced in hospital runs; it was something I had done before, but death was different. We arranged a hearse and took him home—his home, my father’s paternal home, our grandparents’ home. 

When we reached Tshalumthang, in the darkness of the night, and what I thought might engulf us in the absence of Tumba, it turned out to be flooded by the bustling of neighbours, well-wishers and the village community. This was new to me, there was no time for grief. Friends of my cousins and the people from the community had made a gendered division of labour and taken up housework and outdoor work with men arranging the place for keeping the dead, making of the altar for the si (death) tongsing (worship/ritual) that would follow and finally anything that required cutting, building, lifting and shifting. The women were gathered in the kitchen, guests themselves, were already feeding, cooking and cleaning for all. And there I was in the kitchen, again. Housework and household labour took its course and I was, at once, made a woman. 

People near death, often tell signs of their passing and refer to how they would want to go. Some would have shared their wish to have a lot of people see them off, others would have spoken of being buried or cremated, and some have even shown an interest in the menu of food at the funeral. Tumba was cremated according to his wish. In the Limboo community the dead are either buried or cremated, seemingly according to their wish. Or according to the forms of organised religion, they belong to. After hosting about 3000-4000 people of all ages, socio-economic backgrounds and political affiliations over the course of 15 days, I realised the extent of goodwill Tumba had earned, something my parents always talked about, while he lived. I had never experienced this sense of community before; help was flowing in from everywhere effortlessly. He was a good man, the only brother who supported my father’s education. My father is a first-generation college graduate, which means, without him studying, my sister and I would have probably not have been able to earn our respective degrees. Tumba had supported our future by supporting our father’s education. Amidst the ceaseless challenges confronting humanity today, his passing signified the departure of yet another good from the world. 

The funeral ceremony or Barkhi consists of three stages: 1. Samdakhong, 2. Faraklo and 3. Si tongsing. Samdakhong is a practice where the spirit of the deceased is fed for the last time by all family members. A wide variety of food, relished by the deceased is laid out for all to offer. The offerings ranged between yams, meat and vegetables to packet chips and snacks, leaving me wondering how processed food has made its way deep into our society and culture. This is followed by Faraklo, where the deceased’s spirit is shown their way out of the family home and made aware of the break from the living world. The mundhum (Limboo traditional oral knowledge) reads a story that reiterates leading the soul away from home and thus separating the living members of the family from the dead. Both, samdakhong and faraklo are performed during the day. These are mostly intimate affairs and do not necessarily require an audience. 

Finally, Si tongsing gathers many people, increasing as the night advances to witness the ritual. This death ritual/worship is a practice of the Limboo tribe, in which the soul of the dead is guided by the Samba Phedangma or shaman to Sangram Pendang or heaven. As a form of ancestral veneration, this rite incorporates the recitation of the deceased’s final words alongside messages channeled from ancestors, reinforcing kinship bonds beyond temporal boundaries. All three activities are performed in the presence of overwhelmingly male elders or Tumyanghang as witnesses. While people mostly gather to see the Phedangma perform his dance and hear the prophecies, many are frightened and thrilled to see the dance of the dead. 

While professionalism may bring scientific inquiry, the personal lens is inescapable. Once we accept this, knowledge can traverse the unknown with sensitivity and respect, something worth considering the next time we do research.  

The altar is made from bamboo, branches and leaves of Machillus odaritissima or Fragrant Bay Tree, Neyraudia reynaudiana or cane grass and Castanopsis hystrix trees. It represents the eight steps out of nine (the ninth one being the earth) going towards heaven in the Yuma Samyo (faith of the Limboo tribe). The Phedangma has to direct the soul through these steps, each representing a separate world going into the beyond. Each ritual worship is done with a different mundhum. Abstention of salt and meat (Yum-sa) by family members, since the third or fourth day of the death, concludes with Si tongsing. There are people observing the wake throughout the night until the morning when the ritual ends. I don’t think we were ever left alone at any point in time, during the entire journey of laying Tumba to rest. It was paradoxical how living in the community during the long days of mourning, there are some fleeting moments of joy and complicated normative expectations of grief. For these, I am extremely grateful. Funerals are not for the dead, it is the living who need last messages, reinforcing their will to live with a loved one’s absence. At the end of Si tongsing, a thread symbolic of the connection of the spirits of the living from the dead is disconnected by cutting it. After the ceremony and days of mourning, the altar and all ritual artefacts are taken to a secluded place, forbidden to the living and all biodegradable elements are left to decay and return to the earth. 

So, what can I do in such a situation, where I want to memorialise someone dear and record cultural markers that are undergoing minute changes every time? This work and life dynamic seems inseparable. The quest of finding a better way to do research may never end, I  however, think affect brings forth sensitivity in research. While professionalism may bring scientific inquiry, the personal lens is inescapable. Once we accept this, knowledge can traverse the unknown with sensitivity and respect, something worth considering the next time we do research.  

References

Malinowski, B. (1984). Argonauts of the western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Waveland Press, Inc.

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books.