"With our own hands": Romani funerals are a profound act of love

Or why the Roma don't use funeral agencies

Marie-Louise von Franz, a Swiss psychologist who worked with Carl Jung, has shared infinite wisdom in her books and lectures, but one quote is particularly striking.

“The instinct to die is the same as the instinct to live.”

She continues to explain that every living being is as connected to life as it is to death. And our modern culture’s denial of death, refusal to face and accept it, is a symptom of sapped instincts.

The Roma have suffered many sorrows in their history, but sapped instincts are not among them. Like all surviving indigenous tribes, they are still connected with ancient wisdom which “civilized,” mainstream societies need books, therapy, and years of effort to recover.

One way this instinctual wisdom shows up in Romani culture is in the approach to death. And this is most evident in the beauty of Romani funeral rites.

What most people are scared to handle, the Roma embrace with a full heart: the very last chance to show love and care on this earthly plane.

---

---

“We bury our people”

In mainstream cultures, people use the help of funeral agencies when a loved one passes away. It’s seen as a relief, an invaluable form of support in a moment when you’re so grief-stricken that you are unable also to organize the countless, heartbreaking, unbearable logistics of a funeral.

So much goes into preparing this final departure. Preparing the body, preparing the ceremony, preparing food for the attendees, preparing the grave, lowering the coffin, burying it.

When Martina’s father died a few short years ago, the circumstances were such that she had to deal with all the arrangements alone. The funeral agency experience was surreal - flipping through a menu to choose a coffin, the size of the coffin, the color of the coffin, flowers, food, timeslot for the cremation, and so many countless, endless other choices. She remembered how her father did the same for his own father when he passed away over 20 years ago. “They offered this, they offered that,” he complained then, “they almost offered throwing confetti in the air.”

The irritation here is not about the funeral agency being disrespectful. It’s about the impersonal element. How should they know how to bury your loved one if they don’t ask you a million questions? Because, in the end, you know this person. And they don’t.

The Roma have a deep aversion to this entire concept. It is unthinkable to them. “It’s an abandonment,” Pepi says. When a loved one passes away, Romani tribes pull together and they handle every single thing themselves.