The Mosuo Funeral: When the Sun Sets, the Soul Returns to the Ancestors

The Mosuo (摩梭) practise cremation, and a funeral usually lasts three days. The whole ritual revolves around one core belief: the soul does not die, and life turns. After death, the Daba (达巴) must guide the soul back to the ancestral paradise of Sibuanawa (斯布阿纳瓦), while the lama performs the salvation rite to send the spirit into heaven; the two beliefs run side by side. On this land with no graveyards, only the body is burned — the soul stays home.

Announcing the Death: Three Musket Shots, a New Head of the Household

The moment a person breathes their last, three dull musket shots ring out across the mountain village — the announcement of death. Members of the same clan, hearing the shots, hurry over and crowd into the courtyard to face this calamity.

The deceased's daughter (or niece) comes out of the room, eyes swollen from weeping, puts on coarse linen mourning clothes, removes her headscarf, and carries a bundle of white mourning cloth cut into strips to distribute to the clan. Before she died, the mother had handed over a bunch of the household's keys to her — meaning she is about to take up her post as the new head of the household (called "dabu" in Mosuo), and the burden of the matrilineal family falls on her shoulders.

People take the mourning cloth from her and tie it around their heads, the whole courtyard looking like a flock of white cranes flown in from afar. The new dabu shows herself capable and decisive: she asks the village chief to be ritual master ("range" in Mosuo) and assign the work — sending young men up the hill to cut firewood for cremation, sending men to summon the Daba priest and the salvation lama, asking the young women to fetch "holy water" from the point where three rivers meet to wash the body, and asking elderly men to wash and bind the deceased.

Washing and Binding the Body: The Shape of the Fetus

Two elders seat the deceased on a chair and wash the body with water drawn from the confluence of three rivers, pouring out exactly seven dippers from head to toe so the person leaves this life clean and at ease.

Then a little gold or silver is placed in the mouth. One elder takes white butter and anoints the mouth, nose and eyes — the seven orifices — while the other lays a "soul-path picture," drawn by a lama, over the face, so the deceased may follow the route on it and reach the land of the ancestors. While dressing the body, the elders cut open the heel of each shoe — the dead must pass through a desert, the story goes; sand would enter the heels, and cutting them open lets it fall out naturally.

Once dressed, the deceased is bound with linen strips into a seated fetal position: legs bent and knees together, arms crossed on the chest, the right hand resting on the left, the right leg folded over the left; a linen cord goes around the toes and over the neck, with seven turns at the waist, before the body is placed in a large linen sack. Binding the body into the shape of a fetus symbolises the way a person is carried in the mother's womb, signifying that the soul will be reborn into the world.

The Daba's Dream Song and the Soul-Guiding Scripture

Hardly has the weeping in the room died down when the men in the courtyard have slaughtered a pig — this pig leads the way for the deceased; where the road is rough, the pig will root it flat. As the saying goes, "the black pig at the head never loses the way, and the black pig's tracks never run out." The Daba divides the roasted meat among every member of the clan so all may share it.

As the people eat the roasted meat, the Daba stands beside the deceased, eyes half closed, shaking his hand bell, and sings the "dream song." At first hearing it is unsettling, its lyrics topsy-turvy and strange: "I dreamed of the ancestors nine generations back; I dreamed that day was turned to night in broad daylight; I dreamed the rivers ran dry; I dreamed the bridges broke; I dreamed the green mountains fell; I dreamed of riding a swan in flight; I dreamed of riding a fox along the edge of the sky…" In truth, it uses unnatural images to speak of death's incomprehensibility.

After the dream song, the Daba changes his tune and sings the song that names the generations. After death the soul leaves the body and searches for its way; without guidance it would lose the road. He recites, as familiarly as if listing his own household, each mountain pass, each village, each river valley, naming the distinctive rivers, mountains and bridges. This is in effect the Mosuo's oral history — the ancient migration route memorised heart to heart across the generations.

The Daba's deep, resonant singing seems to call to a single soul, to pour out into the vast, empty universe beyond.

The Uncle in the Blanket: A Tragic Legend

On the second day of the funeral, three gunshots roll across the ridge opposite. "The grieving uncle has arrived." People lift their heads from their sorrow.

A strange procession comes over the ridge: at its head walks the maternal uncle, draped in a black woollen blanket that trails to his heels, a crossbow on his back, a quiver at his waist, a bull's leg stuck with a short spear on his left shoulder and a gleaming long knife on his right. Fierce and majestic, glaring into the distance, he ignores the nephews and nieces kneeling along the road, and leads the crowd — men with oxen and horses, suona horns and bells — straight through the gate.

At the threshold the uncle raises his knife and says: "My sister was well only two days ago, no illness was ever spoken of; a knife leaves a scar, a strangling leaves a mark — how could she suddenly die? Did you mistreat her?" With that he hacks the knife three times into the lintel, venting his "indignation" and "anger." The nephews and nieces beg his pardon, the new dabu kowtows in apology, and then they sing the lament "Siqie Yadake": "The high nose bridge was the uncle's gift; the bright eyes were polished by the uncle… we could not cure Mother; please, Uncle, put away your wrath and forgive us."

Behind this rite lies a tragic legend. Long ago, the Mosuo man Dada Aru had a son and a daughter. The sister, 18 years old, married far away; the brother was only 5. After the parents died, the brother and sister were separated. The younger brother, Abo Waruo, missed his sister day and night, and at 18 grew into a stalwart hunter. One day, chasing a wild bull with his hound, he came to a mountain village just as a coming-of-age rite was being held for the daughter of the house — he did not know this was his sister's home. He was left neglected in a corner, offered only three beef ribs and a bowl of weak wine; the hound recognised its master but was kicked by the sister. The hunter could bear no more, sang out his identity, and stormed out. The sister ran after him begging forgiveness; the brother drew his knife and cut off a corner of her blanket and left — and from then on the Mosuo shortened the right lapel of their clothing. The sister died nursing her grievance; at her cremation, no matter how many bundles of firewood were heaped on, her heart would not burn, until the grieving uncle came draped in a blanket, and her heart found rest. From that time on, brothers and sisters all lived beside their mother in the same mother house, never setting up separate households.

Ritual Dance and the Washed Horse: Clearing the Way for the Soul

The third day of the funeral is the climax. Several young men in full dress emerge from the room, all powerfully built, wearing leather armour-like jerkins, gleaming swords and knives, triangular linen caps into which long kalij pheasant tail feathers are stuck, great strings of bells at the waist and smaller bells at the hips. Facing the spirit hall, they kneel on the right knee with the left leg half bent; as the Daba sings the sacrificial song, they dance, miming strikes and struggles.

At the height of the dance they fall suddenly silent, knives held before the brow in a gesture of offering. The movements are rough and bold — like locked horns, like a tiger pouncing, sometimes like a black panther leaping, fully imitating the motions of animals. These dancers are clearing the road for the deceased's soul; once the soul leaves the body it fears evil, and the dancers embolden it.

The lead dancer's clothing is the most distinctive: his jacket is made of small arrowhead-shaped pieces of wild ox leather laced together, strung with sections of bone that knock and clink as he walks.

After the ritual dance comes the horse-washing rite. The new dabu leads a white steed from the pen, its head fitted with a bridle set with silver plaques and jade beads, its back draped with a saddle pad embroidered with sun and moon motifs. The Daba leads the young men to the source where three streams divide, sings of the origin of rivers, praises the kindness of the water gods, and then praises the horse: "The river water flowing here is the water the snow-mountain gods drink, the water no flying bird has tasted… this horse has never been seized by the eagle of the sky; it runs like a gust of wind, it neighs like rolling thunder — mount it and fly."

The young men wash the horse against the current. When it is done, the horse is led once around the village, its head turned toward the direction of the deceased to show this is her mount; then it is led around the cremation ground seven times, and finally released up the mountain. This horse will never be lost, for any passer-by seeing the saddle placed upside-down knows it is the horse escorting a soul. Within 49 days after death the horse may not be used; for that time it belongs to the deceased — for, as the Daba says, the deceased is bound for the far northwest, a journey so long that only horseback will get her there.

Cremation: A Land Without Graveyards

There are no graveyards on Mosuo land. Each clan has its own cremation ground. On the final day, the lama first "buys a plot" for the deceased at the ground — the senior lama flips through his scriptures back and forth, as if bargaining with the officials of the underworld. Once the plot is levelled, they draw a square paradise pattern in 12 colours such as red, black and white, divided proportionally into 12 sections, with a circle drawn in the upper-right corner. The senior lama smiles and explains: this is the official seal used by your public servants when they travel; it is checked at every place and proves she is on her way home — without it she cannot return.

When the drawing is done, the pattern is covered, and a cup of clear oil, a handful of rice and a cup of wine are poured out — the travelling expenses for the road — held down at the four corners by four small stones. The senior lama takes a thorny sprig and brushes each person lightly, saying that evil spirits cling to them. Then a winnowing tray is placed over the drawing, for no sunlight must reach it, or it would be inauspicious.

In the afternoon the young men bring standing dead wood from the hills and pile it, as if building a log house, into a small neat hut — in the past it had to be 13 layers for a man and 9 for a woman; today people are less strict about the numbers.

At dawn the cannons fire, conch horns fill the valley, and suona horns sound urgently. The funeral procession sets out: first those carrying torches, then the flag-bearers, the horse-leaders, the coffin-bearers, the drummers, and behind them the mourners. At the cremation ground the deceased's children line up below the pyre and bow together to their mother in farewell, then wipe their tears and return — once home they may not weep; they clean the house, the Daba chants by the fire hearth, and life, after all, must go on.

Fire is set to the pyre, and a thin thread of smoke curls upward. The old people say: if the smoke rises straight, the deceased has gone home smoothly and no longer clings to the mortal world; if it drifts and scatters, the deceased still lingers over this world of the living.

The Idea of the Soul: Two Directions, One Resting Place

In the Mosuo language the soul is called "wali," meaning something that follows a person like a shadow. When a person is frightened — a child especially — it is the soul that has been startled, and it can be lured back through a soul-calling rite. But after death the soul leaves the borrowed body and must return to the ancestors.

Daba religion holds that after death one may return to Sibuanawa — the ancestral paradise, where flowers bloom all year round, there are no mosquitoes or disease, one washes and combs with milk, and lies on the clouds in love. The Dabas praise that place in poetic language and then recite aloud the migration route, hoping the deceased's soul will return there.

After the lamas came, many people were also influenced by their worldview: that there are three worlds — hell, the human world, and paradise — and that life on earth is but a passing sojourn, and that doing good accumulates merit for rebirth. So when someone dies, lamas are invited to perform the salvation rite, hoping the spirit will not enter hell but be sent to paradise and reborn into the human world — though, in truth, the human world is the real paradise.

And so a Mosuo funeral often unfolds like this: the Daba is sending the soul to the ancestral paradise, while the lama is performing the rite to lift it into heaven, each following their own canon. If a soul truly exists, it would hardly know which voice to obey — left or right, to heaven or to the ancestors?

But ordinary people believe both. After all, no one has ever seen either. This is a worldly culture, and over-explaining it is beside the point.