Confronting Mortality: Exploring funeral traditions in western Georgia
Death is the final social experience we undergo as human beings. Yet, confronting death remains one of the greatest taboos across numerous cultures. We often attempt to conceal it at all costs, averting our gaze when life confronts us with its presence.
I distinctly recall the moment I realised my relationship with death differed from that of others. It was while sitting in a Southeast London pub after finishing my lectures, when one of my English friends recounted his trauma from witnessing the slaughter of chickens during his travels to West Africa. As he spoke, memories flooded my mind of holding chicken heads as a child during my summer holidays in Sighnaghi, while my grandmother peacefully prepared dinner. It dawned on me then that death, as a concept, was a familiar companion to me, unlike my English peers.
Following my grandmother's passing, I embarked on a journey through the photo albums and notebooks she left behind. Tucked away in the back of a thick family album, I discovered a black envelope. Black envelopes often hold secrets, so I promptly opened it, revealing a photograph of a deceased girl lying in a coffin adorned with flowers, with three women standing beside it. Among them, I recognized my great-grandmother, Mariam. The back of the photo bore a note: “Our third sister, Ira.” This image began to haunt me. Clearly taken by a professional photographer hired by the family for the funeral, I pondered why they chose to capture this moment and why my grandmother had kept the photo for over 70 years. It struck me that my grandmother's family was not alone in their practice of preserving memories of death. Numerous post-mortem pictures are archived at the National Archive of Georgia, illustrating that death is a communal event, not merely a private ordeal endured by individual families.
A photo from the National Archive of Georgia shows family and neighbors gathering around the deceased in Khoni, a town in the western Georgian region of Imereti. The exact year is unknown. As a sign of grief, all women have their hair down, while the men are wearing traditional Georgian clothing known as a chokha.
The funeral of a young child in Chiatura, 1918.
A funeral in Chiatura, 1918. Chiatura, located in the Imereti region in western Georgia. In the photo, a man is being buried while wearing a traditional hat common in the South Caucasus.
Funeral in Darkveti, Chiatura, western Georgia, 1918. As the burial procedures commence, attendees are requested to leave the cemetery. It is customary to depart before the conclusion of the burial as remaining until the end is regarded as unlucky.
Death rituals in Georgia bring the deceased into the public eye, allowing everyone to share the existential burden collectively. Most death-related rituals to this day are conducted in people’s homes, where the body remains in the living room for up to five days. Funerals take place only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In smaller villages, neighbours even refrain from turning on the TV as a sign of respect to the grieving family. Samegrelo, a region in western Georgia, has its unique approach to death. Among all parts of Georgia, Samegrelo stands out for its extensive use of visual tools to represent death and honor the deceased. During my week in Samegrelo, I encountered two families grieving in the village of Lia. Older generations in Samegrelo are accustomed to cameras during death rituals, as in the 1990s, they often hired videographers to document wakes and funerals. While explaining my interest in capturing these moments to the villagers, they expressed sadness over the globalization of death customs. Fewer people adhere to traditional funeral practices, opting instead to hire companies to manage the rituals.
