ABSTRACT
INSTITUTIONS IN WHICH COLLECTIVE REPRE SENTATIONS GOVERNED B Y THE LAW OF PARTICIPATION ARE INVOLVED (III)
T h e r e are certain practices which I have reserved for con sideration by themselves, as much on account of the important place they occupy in the life of primitives as of the light they throw upon their mentality. These are the practices relating to the dead, or rather, to the connection between the living and the dead. They are found everywhere : there is hardly any social group, of whatever type it may be, in which observers have not noted customs, taboos, rites which are obligatory at the moment of death, and for a shorter or longer period afterwards.
