This award-winning social history of death and funeral rites during
the early decades of Brazil's independence from Portugal focuses on
the Cemiterada movement in Salvador, capital of the province of
Bahia. The book opens with a lively account of the popular riot
that ensued when, in 1836, the government condemned the traditional
burial of bodies inside Catholic church buildings and granted a
private company a monopoly over burials.
This episode is used by Reis to examine the customs of death and
burial in Bahian society, explore the economic and religious
conflicts behind the move for funerary reforms and the maintenance
of traditional rituals of dying, and understand how people dealt
with new concerns sparked by modernization and science. Viewing
culture within its social context, he illuminates the commonalities
and differences that shaped death and its rituals for rich and
poor, men and women, slaves and masters, adults and children,
foreigners and Brazilians.
This translation makes the book, originally published in Brazil in
1993, available in English for the first time.