Death Rites and Dance Performance among the Saoras of Odisha: a Funeral March at the Festival of Indigenous Cultures?

This article documents the choreutic ritual tradition among the Lanjia Saoras, an indigenous community of Odisha. The funeral dance, a kind of itinerant procession covering the sacred sites of the village and its surroundings, consecrates the renewal of the alliance between the living and the dead. The arrival of modernity has, however, overwhelmed many of the old customs and this performance, once reconnecting the community with the ancestral land, is rapidly transforming. The article highlights the contrast between the traditional ritual gestures and the contemporary performances held in occasion of the capital's tribal festival (Ādivāsī Melā), where these dances are repeated ad infinitum devoid of their original religious meaning. The funeral dance, proudly displayed in traditional costumes by indigenous delegations that come to the metropolis (Bhubaneswar), it is almost a cry of despair, a yearning for identity of an indigenous culture that is now rapidly disappearing.