Documenting Funeral Rituals – The Funeral – Pre-cremation, cremation and/or burial

Name of Ritual

Pre-cremation, cremation and/or burial

Description of Ritual/Practice

  • Pre-cremation – A niche is chosen before the cremation date. It is uncommon in Singapore for family members to choose an auspicious date for cremation even as many would choose auspicious dates for land burials in the past.
  • Minus the last rituals performed by the ritual specialists, the cremation process is pretty standard and performed according to NEA guidelines and these regulations apply to private crematoriums.
    • Cremation – Undertaker and staff will “invite” the coffin from the hearse onto the trolley. Offerings are placed before the coffin. The ritual specialist will perform the last of the rites and sutras before leading the family to go round the coffin for luck. A sutra is chanted to inform the fire god 火神 that a cremation is about to take place. Mourners are given final chance to bid the deceased goodbye before the automated trolley leads the coffin to the burner.
    • Burial – The hearse makes it way to the burial ground followed by the procession. In the past, family and friends from the village will help with the funeral, and even help to pull the hearse to the burial ground tua leng sou [in Teochew] 拖灵绳. Final sutras or chanted to notify the mountain guardian 后山/后土 and the earth god 五方土地公that a burial is taking place.

Who practices it? Who conducts the ritual?

Family members, funeral staff, ritual specialists such as the nam mo lo

Is it still practiced now?

  • While burials are still practiced in Singapore, cremations are becoming the default remains management method due to land scarcity and state regulations around burial plots, which stipulate a 15-year lease on any new burials. When the lease expires, the deceased will be exhumed, cremated and interred in a columbarium. In recent years, the state has been working to encourage alternative forms of burial, like ash-scattering in designated spaces or at sea.
  • Columbaria, and especially private enterprises stipulate lease on niches too in order to meet the demand for space.
  • Many columbaria have chosen to use stick-ons to label the niche instead of the more traditional engraved slabs.