ABSTRACT
In the Mexican Northwest among Amerindian societies, the death of a person produces an equivocal and an improper link between the deceased and his or her group of origin; the misunderstanding must be resolved, and the link dissolved. Dying implies the beginning of a "Great voyage" by the deceased person and their relatives and friends must work together to help them transmigrate to their new plane of existence. The objective of this article is to describe aspects of these rituals to establish connections and transformations with two passages treated in the Mythologiques of Lévi-Strauss: I will evoke the reference myth and its associated ritual, as well as the theme of the brief life dealt with in The Raw and the Cooked. We will see how the rituals -with their own plasticities- manage an impossible arbitration that allows to build the good distance between improper relationships, creating connections and disconnections on different planes of existence.
KEYWORDS
Mexican Amerindians; Mythologiques; bird-nester; mortuary rituals; equivocal