Fundraising Management in Death Rituals in Indonesian Society

This paper presents an analysis of death rituals in West Sumatra, Indonesia. The death rituals become social events as a family and society members help each other to organize a funeral, hold Koran recital, and manage fundraising for the events. In addition, such rituals are also part of religious and cultural teaching that should be conducted by its followers. The rituals change from time to time in terms of fundraising management and holding the ceremonies. This paper, therefore, observes the changes of the death rituals from being sacred to profane involving social parties in the events and views the events as socially formed rituals. There are also economic practices in celebrating the rituals, where people have to gather funds and manage manpower in the event.