Mourning (Palai)

Mourning is a time of grief (niligur) over the passing of a relative, a loved one, a friend, or a colleague. The time of grief, pakana bung na niligur, may take a week or more before it ends with a ceremony. The period of mourning is known as palai and the ending ceremony is known as kutupalai.  Kutupalai is made up of two words kutu and palai. The prefix kutu means cut. Others call the ending ceremony as umawoko. The prefix  U (oo) means wipe and mawoko is the word for dew. Umawoko means wiping off dew. In other dialects of Kuanua tunkubin is used. Similarly, tunkubin is made up of two words: tun and kubin. The prefix tun means burn and kubin means mat and in English that is "burning off mats". There are other terms depending on the dilaect but these are just a few.

Ending of mourning ceremony is usually a ceremony of gratitude to relatives and friends who come and stay with the grieving family. It involves the distribution of food, nian, and shell money. tabu, to the mourners.

In some cases the kutupalai is the initial mortuary ceremony and a big one or two (warwakai ba balaguan) usually follows some months or years later.

Late Tevita of Rakotop Village

All of us have attended a kutupalai and i have lost count of the number of times. However, i remember one that I attended of a dear friend and fellow villager. He passed on at a very very old age in his nap one evening in 1996.

The kutupalai for late Tevita was conducted by the late Conrard ToBung after about two weeks of mourning. Food including rice, bananas, pork, tinned fish as well as tabu were distributed during the kutupalai.