INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES

Death is biologically universal, but the social work of death is culturally organized. This narrative review examines funerary rituals as collective responses to mortality, drawing on classical anthropological theory and contemporary scholarship on grief, ritual, and continuing bonds. Rather than treating funerary practices as fixed reflections of belief, the review argues that mortuary rituals repeatedly perform four interconnected functions: marking separation and liminality; reclassifying the dead and reorganizing social relationships; transforming grief through memory, meaning, and continuing bonds; and restoring collective order after the disruption created by death. Comparative cases from European Neandertal archaeology, ancient Egypt, and contemporary Toraja communities illustrate how radically different practices can address related social problems without implying that all cultures share the same beliefs or ritual meanings. The paper proposes a cross-cultural framework for understanding funerary ritual as a form of social repair: death changes biological status immediately, whereas ritual helps communities negotiate the slower transformation of identity, relationship, and belonging.

Keywords: funerary rituals; mortuary practices; grief; liminality; rites of passage; continuing bonds; cultural anthropology; death rituals