The Buguias Funeral
Funerals, except for those of suicides, replicated the essential structure of the pedit ceremony. Both centered around communion with the dead, and both reflected the status of the honored individual.
On the first day of a wake, the survivors would lash the corpse to a death chair, where it would remain throughout the ceremony. A smokey fire and watchful fly-shooer at its side fought off the worst effects of putrefaction. On the initial day a male and a female pig were butchered, and, if necessary to feed the guests, a cow or steer also. The second day would pass with little ritual, simpler food being prepared for the guests. On the third day, the deceased's children huddled together under a blanket holding a single fiber, signifying the continuity of generations. Now the most sacred rituals began. Sacrifices ensued, always in male and female pairs, until
a number commensurate with the deceased's stature—and with the wealth of his or her survivors—was reached. Duality was a constant theme; guests brought paired presents (designated male and female), and were required to attend for an even number of days. Buguias wakes were often rather festive; food and drink were plentiful, and the participants commonly remained awake through the night, drinking, telling stories, and singing to the corpse.
Poorer individuals were buried at the end of the third day, but most were interred on day five. On the fifth day, three pigs, the first odd-numbered offering, usually signified the funeral's conclusion. But such an abbreviated wake would not suffice for a baknang, and the wealthiest remained in the death chair for one month or longer. (One story tells of a funeral beginning on the day a particular dog gave birth, and ending after the pups were as large as the mother.) The higher a person had progressed in the pedit series, the longer his or her corpse was expected to remain unburied. A baknang's entire cattle herd could be consumed in the process, although half of it would usually be saved if there were a surviving spouse.
At the close of the public sacrifices the corpse was placed in a coffin carved from a single unblemished pine log. But the ceremony had not yet ended. On the following night, close relatives and ritualists would retrieve the coffin and again expose the body, offering one last hog and chanting again through the night. Thirty-six hours later came the final burial. The next day, barring bad omens, each married child of the deceased would offer two hogs in their own homes. A final ceremony, also incumbent upon the married children, took place three months to a year later. During this rite the deceased, now a full-fledged amed, or ancestor, returned for the first time to socialize with the living.
But the initial burial site was not necessarily the final resting place. Not uncommonly, an ancestor would visit one of his or her descendants in a dream, pleading that his or her bones be transferred to a new gravesite. This entailed a new round of ceremonies and sacrifices. In the Spanish period, the movement of the coffin had been easily accomplished, as most were put to rest in natural caves and crevices. In that era entire families were sometimes interred in a single carved, zoomorphic casket. In a still earlier period, secondary burials were made in ceramic jars. Evidently, it was
only in the American period that coffins were buried under earth; after the war, above-ground concrete-block crypts were adopted, facilitating once again the periodic transfer of bones.