Death in Beijing

Alma M. Karlin’s Description of Chinese Funerary Rituals and Mourning Practices

Authors

  • Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2019.191

Keywords:

Alma Karlin, Chinese funerary ritual, ancestor worship, spirit paper money, missionaries, newspaper Cillier Zeitung, travelogue Einsame Weltreise

Abstract

Alma Maximiliane Karlin (1889–1950) was a world traveller, writer, journalist, and collector from Slovenia. She embarked on an eight-year journey around the world in November 1919, in the course of which she published a series of travel sketches in the Cillier Zeitung, a local German-language newspaper. In one of these she reported on funerary rituals and mourning practices in China. After returning to Europe, she was to cover the same topic in her three‑volume travelogue, published between 1929 and 1933.

In this paper we analyse these two early accounts of Chinese funerary rituals by Alma Karlin. We also consider some material objects linked to mortuary rites and ancestor worship that she brought back from her voyage in order to gain a broader understanding of her views on Chinese attitudes towards the dead. Supported by a close reading of material and textual sources on Chinese funeral practices, we compare her treatment of the subject with other accounts written by Slovenian missionaries to China in the early twentieth century. In addition to discussing certain personal elements in these accounts, we attempt to place them in their socio‑historical context.

References

Blake, C. Fred. Burning Money: The Material Spirit of the Chinese Lifeworld. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011.

Hallerstein, Ferdinand Augustin. “Letter from Peking addressed to Brother Weichard, dated to 6 Oct 1743.” In A. Hallerstein–Liu Songling刘松龄: The Multicultural Legacy of Jesuit Wisdom and Piety at the Qing Dynasty Court, edited by Mitja Saje, 317–329. Maribor: Association for Culture and Education Kibla; Ljubljana: Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, 2009.

Karlin, Alma M. “Ein Trauerfall in China, I.” Cillier Zeitung 28 (6 April 1924): 2. Accessed August 31, 2019. www.dlib.si/details/URN:NBN:SI:DOCBRTUHNXU.

Karlin, Alma M.“Ein Trauerfall in China, II” Cillier Zeitung 30 (13 April 1924): 1–2. Accessed August 31, 2019. www.dlib.si/details/URN:NBN:SI:DOCK9R5H29Y.

Karlin, Alma M. Einsame Weltreise: Die Tragödie einer Frau. Minden, Berlin, Leipzig: Wilhelm Köhler Verlag, 1930.

Karlin, Alma M. Urok južnega morja [In the Spell of the South Sea]. Celje: Mohorjeva družba, 1996.

Karlin, Alma M. “Glaube und Aberglaube im Fernen Osten,” unpublished incomplete manuscript, manuscript collection of the National and University Library of Slovenia, n.d.

Keréc, Jožef. “Kitajski bogovi” (Chinese Deities). In Misijonarski koledar 1927, 61–65. Domžale: Misijonišče pri Domžalah, 1926.

Menegon, Eugenio. “European and Chinese Controversies over Rituals: A Seventeenth-Century Genealogy of Chinese Religion.” In Devising Order: Socio-religious Models, Rituals, and the Performativity of Practice, edited by Bruno Boute and Thomas Småberg, 193–223. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004240032_011

Naquin, Susan. “Funerals in North China: Uniformity and Variation.” In Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, edited by James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, 37–70. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.

Saje, Mitja. “The Importance of Ferdinand Augustin Hallerstein for Cultural and Political Relations with China and Korea.” Asian Studies 3/2 (June 2015): 13–32. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.2.13-32

Standaert, Nicolas. The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.

Šlibar, Vladimir. “Članki Alme M. Karlin v Cillier Zeitung 1920–1928” (Alma M. Karlin’s Articles in the ‘Cillier Zeitung’, 1920–1928). In Celjski zbornik (1988): 191–198.

Šmitek, Zmago. “Pogled Avguština Hallersteina na kitajska verstva” (Augustin Hallerstein’s View of Chinese Religions). In Mandarin: Hallerstein, Kranjec na kitajskem dvoru, edited by Viljem Marjan Hribar,149–158. Radovljica: Didakta, 2003.

Trnovec, Barbara. Kolumbova hči: Življenje in deloAlme M. Karlin (Columbus’s Daughter: The Life and Work of Alma M. Karlin). Celje: Pokrajinski muzej Celje, 2011.

Trnovec, Barbara. Kolumbova hči – Columbus’s Daughter: Alma M. Karlin [kulturna, zgodovinska in antropološka razstava, 21. 9. 2017 –14.1.2018]. Ljubljana: Cankarjev dom, kulturni in kongresni center; Celje: Pokrajinski muzej, 2017.

Turk, Peter Baptist. “S Kitajskega. Misijonska sporočila iz pisem p. Petra Baptista Turka” (From China. Missionary Messages from Letters by Padre Peter Baptist Turk). Cvetje z vertov sv. Frančiška (Flowers from the Garden of St. Francis) 23/7 (1906): 206–211.

Vampelj Suhadolnik, Nataša. “A Lonely Odyssey: The Life and Legacy of Alma M. Karlin.” Orientations 47/3 (April 2016): 50–55.

Vampelj Suhadolnik, Nataša. “Zbirateljska kultura in vzhodnoazijske zbirke v Sloveniji [Collecting Culture and East Asian Collections in Slovenia].” In Procesi in odnosi v Vzhodni Aziji: Zbornik EARL, edited by Andrej Bekeš, Jana S. Rošker and Zlatko Šabič, 93–137. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete and Raziskovalno središče za Vzhodno Azijo, 2019.

Watson, James L. “The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rites: Elementary Forms, Ritual Sequence, and the Primacy of Performance.” In Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, edited by James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, 3–19. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.

Yü, Ying-Shih. “‘O Soul, Come Back!’ A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47/2 (December 1987): 363–395. https://doi.org/10.2307/2719187

Downloads

Published

2019-12-12

How to Cite

Vampelj Suhadolnik, Nataša. 2019. “Death in Beijing: Alma M. Karlin’s Description of Chinese Funerary Rituals and Mourning Practices”. Poligrafi 24 (93/94):49-75. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2019.191.