It probably seems a bit strange and morbid to include a chapter about death in this part of my website which celebrates life in the village. Not as strange as it sounds as death is accepted as an adjunct to life in rural Thailand as it is in the rest of the country. It further emphasises that  whilst life is to be celebrated there is more to it than just simple enjoyment.

In the west death and funerals are often seen as failure - death has won whereas Thais see it as just part of the rich pattern of life (how's that for an opening cliché). For an outsider like myself, the first experience of a Thai funeral was a little perplexing. Walk into a Thai funeral half way and your not sure if you are at a wedding instead. Sometimes its only the presence of the coffin and the black clothes that give it away.

When we arrived in the village on our last trip we were advised that the husband of one of Mali's cousins had died of cancer. I remembered him from previous trips and was saddened by his death. Funerals in the village tend to be  leisurely affairs and can last up to  several days. You always know when somebody has died simply by the music. When a person dies their family will normally borrow the sound system from the temple and from that point everybody in the village will hear  music played extremely loudly for the next 48 to 72 hours.

Interspersed amongst this the village monks invited to the dead persons house chant and offer prayers for a better incarnation and again this is  broadcast right across the village. The music that is played is wonderfully eclectic - after the first few hours funereal music gives way to love songs and a variety of other styles. Many years ago I remember "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson being played. The main effect of the loudspeakers and the music appears to be that it subtly includes everybody into this important chapter of life.

The dead body normally lies in state at home or in the temple. The simple wooden coffin is in turn placed in an elaborate carved "outer" coffin. It is usually surrounded with flowers, a framed photograph of the deceased beside it and to finish it off the coffin has a string of "fairy lights" wrapped around it. Many years ago a villager had died and his body was lying in state under a marquee erected beside the house. This was right beside a village road and for two nights as I rode past on my motor-bike the blinking lights reminded me more of a nightclub than a funeral.

One of the social obligations of the family of the deceased is to offer alms to the village monks and to feed all the people attending the funeral. As at Thai weddings most of the people attending will give money to the family in envelopes which helps offset the cost of the funeral. Unlike Western funerals which tend to be very regimented and follow a pattern (church/funeral and then to cemetery/crematorium and finally back home for coffee and sandwiches and hushed conversation) a Thai funeral tends to be a series of events that can take several days.

On our last trip as mentioned above a village friend had died and over the course of a few days Mali and I and the rest of the family had taken part in several of the inter related events that made up the funeral. On the night before the cremation we joined other friends and villagers in the Temple Sala where the deceased lay in his coffin. The simple timber coffin had been taken out out of the elaborate "outer" coffin and lay open with the right arm of the deceased  outstretched from the coffin. The people attending (including myself) lined up and in turn poured holy water over the hand of the deceased. After each person had poured the water they turned to the dead mans family, raised their hands and waiied.

The next day the temple grounds filled with villagers as preparations were made to cremate the body. The Monks chanted and people lined up at the entrance of the temple crematorium. They then passed by the open coffin to offer final prayers and each person placed incense sticks on the body. After this the coffin was closed and then man handled into the oven and then burnt. Standing back I found it a bit disconcerting to see the village undertaker open the oven door and  from time to time stoke the fire with a steel rod.

The funeral concluded when three large firework "crackers" were let off. The boom of the crackers symbolised the pushing of the dead mans spirit to a new incarnation. After this the villagers dispersed back to their homes and that was that.

As related above I have attended many funerals in Ban Phutsa over the past 24 years. During these funerals I have  at various times been bored,  drunk, convulsed with laughter and at times have had to fight off tears . If I have learnt anything from the Thai funeral experience is that whilst death is inevitable, life  in turn should be celebrated.