ABSTRACT
Menstruation is considered an 'unclean' time and explains why male participation is the sine qua non in the Hindu funerary tradition. On the subject of death, the south has special meaning in the Hindu religion as it signifies the direction in which Yama, the god of death, resides. The yajmaan, who are fully smeared with sandal wood paste for purificatory purposes, are then required to declare their willingness to perform the last rites by presenting the gods with an offering '. While several elements of the antyeshti samskaara, as performed in India, have been maintained among the Indian diaspora in Trinidad, Hindu funerary rites suffered from cultural erasure due to the transmigration. Religion is a profound force in constructing and reconstructing identities among the Indian Diaspora. Religious practices such as the antyeshti samskaara, or Hindu funeral, constitute important boundary-reducing, boundary-maintaining and boundary-fusing rituals that affect the interplay of agency within diasporic communities, where immigrant groups were normally marginalized.
