“The wound-healing group”
Type de matériel :
9
During research on the benefits and limitations of post-genocide mourning rituals in survivors’ psychic reconstruction, we worked with a group of widow survivors who referred to themselves as: “the wound-healing group.” One wound they have tried to treat is the disappearance of their loved ones and their “burial in the stomach,” in the absence of the body and in the wait to carry out funeral rites. Their testimonies have led us to the hypothesis that funeral rites in post-genocide Rwanda represent an attempt to repair the community space and the bond between the living and the dead, so that the dead don’t wander among the living and so that the living don’t become living dead. The group appears to have played the traditional intermediary and regulatory role of the stomach ( inda) for the widow survivors in their living and regenerative relationship to their culture. The work the group carried out thus contributed to allowing the dead, “buried in the stomach” while their families waited for them to be found and recognized, to be taken care of and buried with dignity.
Réseaux sociaux