Jero Tapakan is ‘entered’ by deities and spirits who converse with her clients. Unbeknown to her, they wish to contact the spirit of their dead son to learn the cause of his death and his wishes

A last request of a Tiwi man on Melville Island was that a film be made of the pukumani (bereavment) ceremony to follow his death. The film follows his family, from the days of preparation to their

When Geraldine Kawanka’s husband died, she and her children left their house at Aurukun on Cape York Peninsula. In earlier times a bark house would have been burnt, but today a ‘house-opening’

In 1993, Anthony Forge filmed the cremation of an older woman from an affluent ‘commoner’ family. As her body was moved from her family compound to the cremation tower, men of the ward seized the

In 1978, as part of the preparations for the island-wide ceremony eka dasa rudra, religious officials urged all Balinese to cleanse the island by cremating their dead. Many were forced to pool

Although the events around which this film was planned were the final mortuary rites for Les Angabarraparra, the subject of the film became interaction. Interaction between the anthropologist Les