Travelling Hopefully

I just had a bona fide cultural experience.  It's a pity it happened to me really, I'm sure almost anyone else would have got more out of it than I did.  My hosts were visiting the cemetery to clean the family graves and suchlike.  I was invited along to check out the cemetery.  My intention was to take a few quick photos and leave them to it but on arrival I was invited to join them for the whole proceeding.

My hostess put on a head scarf she normally doesn't bother with and as her extended family arrived I noticed she was greeted with marks of respect by some of the younger women while she gave the same greeting to an older lady who joined us.

For someone used to European (or possibly Christian) graveyards it was rather confusing as we tend to have a reasonably clear separation between the living and the dead which wasn't the case here.  We  walked around and sometimes over grave markers to reach the graves of my hostesses family including that of the man who built the house I'm currently staying in.  None of us actually trod on any grave markers although I'm the only one who had to watch their feet to make sure.

There was actually a path we could have followed but a burial was taking place nearby and we would have had to jostle the mourners to get past.  So we climbed a small hill, threading our way through the graves and approached the required spot from the rear.  Once there we sat on convenient graves which didn't seem to bother anyone too much while, I can't think of a better word than "libations" were poured on the relevant graves and sat in silence while the names of the dead were recited.  The children were given small gifts of money for helping to brush the tombs.  I was told this was partly a form of Islamic charity and partly to create a positive impression in the children's minds so they will tend their parents graves in due course which seems a nice blend of piety and pragmatism.

Dotted about the graveyard were mausoleums containing various previous Sultans of Brunei.  I expressed surprise that they were buried cheek by jowl with the common folk but was swiftly corrected.  The sultans had been here first in splendid isolation and sometime later it was decided it would be nice if they had some of their subjects around them.  Speaking of which my hostess tells me she is descended from the 16th Sultan of Brunei, I looked but I didn't see his mausoleum.

I'm sure many people would have taken away a lot more from this experience than I did.  For my part I decided not to pester them with questions while they were honouring their dead.