Passing on the Wedding Cloth: Consolidating Alliance Relations through Funeral Ceremonies among the Simalungun of North Sumatra

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This paper examines the funeral rituals that consolidate alliance relations among the Simalungun of North Sumatra in Indonesia. These rituals can only occur at the funeral of a woman of whom two generations of descendants are still living. At the funeral for such a woman, her maternal function within the alliance of clans is tranferred to the oldest in-marrying woman in the clan (marga) into which she married, while her mediating role within the alliance is conferred on her eldest grandson. In this process, the next two generations are acknowledged and the marriage alliance is extended from the original three clans to five clans. These rituals are symbolically marked by the bestowal of hiou parpudi, a cloth initially given to the woman on her departure to her husband’s house when she married. These rituals at a grandmother’s funeral consolidate and extend kinship ties and bind the loyalty of all relatives through the vows pronounced over the deceased.