Funeral tradition of the southern Komi

The paper, based on materials collected during field research in the Luza region of the Komi Republic, considers local features of the memorial rituals of the Letka Komi. The memorial cycle includes individual commemorations on the third, ninth, twentieth, fortieth days, half a year and anniversary, name day, the birthday of the deceased, and the day of death. Modern tradition also includes visits to the cemetery by family members of the deceased the next day and on the first Saturday after the burial. Special calendar memorial days include Maslenitsa (meat-free) Saturday Maslenich Suböt, Radonitsa Radulnich, Trinity Saturday Ströcha Suböt, Pokrovskaya Pökröv Suböt, and Dmitrievskaya Mithrey Suböt, parental Saturdays; the day of remembrance of the dead soldiers on May 9. The memorial rituals of the Letka Komi, despite the simplification of a number of ritual actions and the change in the composition of the participants in the memorial services, include such specific features as the custom of kylzysöm ‘listening’, commemoration of ancestors under a growing tree, covering a gravestone with a towel kodrasyan chyshköd ‘memorial towel’ during a memorial meal; ideas about special periods of time kyk suböt kost ‘between two memorial Saturdays’, between Radunitsa and Trinity Saturday, Pokrovskaya and Dmitrievskaya Saturdays, and the associated complex of household and ritual prohibitions.