The Psychopompic Journey in Nanai Funerary Ritual: A Reworking of Evdokiya A. Gayer's Ethnography

Based on the ethnographic materials of Yevdokiya A. Gayer this article presents a reworked analytical study of the Nanai funerary rite kasa tavori (“the send-off of the soul”). She conducted fieldwork in Nanai settlements of Khabarovsk Krai between 1971 and 1987, and synthesized descriptions of shamanic séances recorded from practicing ritual specialists at a moment of profound cultural transformation. Rather than reproducing the original text, the article reorganizes Gayer’s data to foreground the internal logic, sequence, and ritual functions of the kasa (funerary ritual) as a continuous three-day process. Nanai conceptions of death involve an extended liminal phase in which the soul remains socially embedded, morally accountable, and materially dependent prior to departure. The kasa resolves this condition through a structured sequence of identification, lamentation, moral settlement (leusu), psychopompic transport to the world of the dead (buni), and ritual restoration of domestic order. Particular attention is given to the shaman’s role as mediator, guide, and enforcer of ritual transition, as well as to the integration of cosmological movement with familiar landscape features and clan-specific pathways. By treating kasa as a psychopompic complex rather than a discrete funerary event, the article highlights the analytical value of Gayer’s work for contemporary studies of ritual process, post-mortem personhood, and Indigenous shamanic traditions.