Funeral ceremonies

Today a friend of mine will not be attending our class because one of his uncles passed yesterday. Our deepest condolences to you Chris and your family.
Let me explain a little bit about funeral ceremonies we have here on the Island. There is a way of attending a funeral and showing the family or friend that we are there to support them. There are roles and responsibilities given to both men and women. They cannot attend a funeral if they do not brought with them what they were supposed to be bring. Men will provide pig and sakau, and yam and breadfruit depend on what season it is. (The Island has a season of when to pick breadfruit and when to dig up yam).
There is a certain way of showing up to a funeral, a men have to wait for his family members because they have to show up to the funeral together along with the pwihk (pig) and sakau. Even if the pwihk or sakau was provided by only one men, he has to wait for his other relative men to join him. The larger in size of the  pwihk and sakau, the more people will recognize you as a man. And for the women, women were to provide food, nowadays they make tray of food and always carry a towel with them. In the past, I believe they show up early to clean and start cooking. The women also join the crowd showing up with the pwihk and the sakau. They take their food trays and give it to a relative and went straight into where the deceased lay to mourn.This is one of the responsibilities of a women, women has to go in and weep, this is to show the family that you are also sad and depressed about their loss even if you fake it.

The women who showed up at the funeral are responsible for cooking and serving. The women who's family member is deceased does not leave the body of the dead unless they are going to eat, shower, or bathroom. The men prepare the pwihk for roasting and prepare the sakau for the funeral ceremony. 

Edited: March 2022

**leave comments if you have questions or concerns. Thank you for reading. ** 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nan Madol Ruins

Image
Nan Madol Runs in located on Temwen Island in Madolenihmw.  Nan Madol Ruins is one of the beautiful sites here on Pohnpei. Let me tell you the history or story behind those rocks. If you have ever heard of the story about Nan Madol and it is different from the story I tell you, this is because our history as been told orally, from generation to generation. History has been told from elders or grandparents to grandchildren. So information regarding our history changes overtime. Because our forefathers belief history is erased if we talk about it, so they leave out somethings and let it die with them.  Long time ago, two brothers came to Pohnpei, nobody knew where they came from. Their duty was to build an altar, where they can perform their rituals. Their names were Olosihpa and Olosohpa and they were very strong. They came here to Pohnpei and landed on the island of Sokehs. They settled somewhere shoreside of Sokehs called Ipwal. There they stayed for a long period of time
Read more

Peace Corps Workshop

Today I will be blogging about something new. I will be talking about the workshop we did with the Teacher Corps at Nett School. So to give you a brief of how this started, I am taking four summer classes. And one of the classes are Solving Discipline class, supervised by Dr. Michelle Santos. So we prepared a power point on classroom management. There are three things we chose to talk about in classroom management. The first one is classroom rules and consequences, the second one is classroom routines and procedures, and the last one is tips and tricks for classroom management. We were divided into three groups to present on the three different types of classroom management. Our group was the last group to go. And I hate it, I really hate it. When the first one group started, the look on their faces when they got stuck on explaining something killed me. I stood up and sat back down. I often stood up and ran to the back to jump, shake my hands, and breath in and out. I was very nervou
Read more