ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the emotional geography of the Tiwi death rites, the dialogues with the deceased in wailing and laments, and the ways in which the ritual drama gives consolation. The Tiwi Aborigines of North Australia have a cycle of mortuary rites in which territorial passage, wailing and consolation are interlinked. The rites start in the localities of the living and with intervals go on in space and time until the beginning of the final rite at the burial place, an area reserved for the spirits of the dead. In the ritual drama, given its purpose to direct the spirit of the dead from the world of the living to the world of the dead, the people of different bereavement status all play a role in the remembrance and dissolution of a particular metaphorical relationship with the deceased. Ritual calls and gestures direct the spirit on a journey along places of totemic significance to its final destination.
