ZAKONE E RITE MORTORE NË ZONËN E TIRANËS DHE RRETHINAT E SAJ
MORTUARY CUSTOMS AND RITES IN THE TIRANA DISTRICT AND ITS SUBARBS

Summary/Abstract: If the marriage and the birth of child are the happiest events in one’s life, the separation of a man from life, the death, is the most tragic event which brings sorrow, tears and mourns. To separate from a family member, a friend or acquaintance is painful for anyone, but different provinces have their accompanying rites to the last housing. Funeral rite in the District of Tirana, described by several informants during 1970-'74, is found documented in numerous manuscripts of Ethnographic Archive in AEIAKSA. In Tirana at the beginning of 1900s, Old Bazaar was the epicenter where the announcements of death were first spread. Tirana in those times was inhabited mainly by Muslim population, while orthodox Christians could be numbered on fingers. Vlachs (Llaciface, according to citizens of Tirana), were placed near the stream of Gogas (artificial lace in present times) very far from the center of the city. Death as a phenomenon is quite gruesome so no words of condolence can be effective; however people try to appease it through rituals. I will give a description of the death ceremonial in Tirana and its suburbs, even though in present time based on life circumstances new customs have in general replaced the old ones. However, “ancestor cult” even in present times continues to be found alive among Albanians, and there are not excluded citizens of Tirana, since also by the number of scholars is defended the theses of existence that in the amount of the ancestor cult, thus in the fact that living people as a result of following fanatically traditions and customs of their ancestors, see among the death a symbolic of advising and believe in their influence upon a living world, inherited mentality from the pagan world but which was excepted also by organized religions.

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