American Folklore And American Studies

American Studie

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 44, No. 3

• Conservation and Mediation in the Folk and Traditional Arts of Pennsylvania • Isaac and Thomas Stahl, the Revival Potters of Powder Valley • The Folk Art of Decorated Eggs • Jim Popso and His Coal Country Folk Art • Leaving the Old World for the New: Rules Governing Emigration from Landau in the Palatinatehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1143/thumbnail.jp

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 43, No. 2

• The America\u27s Industrial Heritage Project: A Model for Cultural Tourism • The Harmonists are Waiting for You • The Quest for Authenticity in Tourism and Folklife Studies • Tourism and the Old Order Amish • The Log Cabin: Notes on its Structure and Dissemination • On the Making of Die Union Choral Harmonie (1833): Evidence from Henry C. Eyer\u27s Working Papers • In Memoriam: Paul R. Wieand, a True Artisthttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1139/thumbnail.jp

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 44, No. 2

• Fortune\u27s Stepchildren: Slovaks in Pennsylvania • Slovak Churches: Religious Diversity and Ethnic Communities • Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in Pennsylvania • Early Fraktur Referring to Birth and Baptism in Pennsylvania: A Taufpatenbrief from Berks County for a Child Born in 1751 • The Solitary Sisters of Saronhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1142/thumbnail.jp

A Funeral as a Festival: Celebrations of Life in the Mosuo Tribe in China

This article attempts to provoke a discussion concerning the definition and nature of festivals by considering the process of Mosuo funerals in Southwest China as a festival event. The role of women and men in daily life and within the funeral ceremony is discussed – the Mosuo is a matriarchal society – as are the vernacular architectural settings which have evolved for both ritual and everyday activities. The article looks at the religious perception of death in Mosuo culture, which considers funerals as celebrations of a life cycle including birth, growing up and death; through onsite observations, it documents the process of a Mosuo funeral in relation to its physical space. Even though, unlike most other festivals, funerals occur at unpredictable times, it is argued that for the Mosuo the funeral event is also a festival