In this article I analyze Bororo funerals as moments of defacement and refacement (Taussig, 1999). Death triggers a series of transformations that involve the dead person, the corpse itself, the soul, the making of the deceased's representative, and the relationships among the living. All these transformations which are the object of public secrecy take place along the various rituals that compose the funerary ritual cycle. The text is accompanied by a selection of photographs taken by myself during 30 years of field research among the Bororo Indians of Mato Grosso, Brazil, in order to illustrate Bororo funerals as moments of recreation of the world, following the theoretical perspectives of Taussig (1999) and Overing (1989, 1990).
Bororo funerals; processes of defacement and refacement; public secrecy; photographs of Bororo funerary rites
