No One Cries for the Dead Tamil Dirges, Rody Songs, and Graveyard Petitions [Paperback]

At South Indian village funerals, women cry and lament, men drink and laugh, and untouchables sing and joke to the beat of their drums.No One Cries for the Deadoffers an original interpretation of these behaviors, which seem almost unrelated to the dead and to the funeral event. Isabelle Clark-Dec?s demonstrates that rather than mourn the dead, these Tamil funeral songs first and foremost give meaning to the caste, gender, and personal experiences of the performers.

Isabelle Clark-Dec?sis Associate Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and the author ofReligion against the Self: An Ethnography of Tamil Rituals(2000).

Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. A Different Grief
2. Songs of Experience
3. Why Should We Cry?
4. Life as a Record of Failure
5. Between Performance and Experience

Appendix A: Four Abridged Versions of the Virajampuhan Story
Appendix B: The Story of Virajampuhan in Tamil
Glossary
References

A vivid, well-written, and deeply insightful ethnography. Kirin Narayan, author ofStorytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

This is a book of true creative insight, originality, and extraordinarily rich materials. Clark-Deces shows a gift for finding and articulating very central, evocative cultural issues in her study of Tamil laments. She writes with sensitivity and care, and with a certain daring and boldness that repay close attention. David Shulman, author ofClassical Telugu Poetry

A stunning ethnographic essay. Alan Dundes, author ofTwo Tales of Crow and Sparrow

In this book, Isabelle Clark-Deces gives us a clear-eyed view of the bond between the state of untouchability in India, and the pain of death and irretrievable loss. This is not a distanced work: the reader is always right there with the people Clark-Deces writes about; one can see them and hear their voices as one readsl£‡