Hanoi funeral, 1994. The two men in the center of the photograph are sons. John Kleinen

Funerals and mourning rituals exist to allow the public expression of private grief. These rites also accomplish the essential spiritual work of sending the dead to the netherworld. For Vietnamese of the Kinh majority, death ends a life, but not a relationship. Ancestors continue to help and protect the family, and families sustain the ancestors with offerings at the household altar.

The procession that carries the deceased from the family home to the grave begins the transition from living family member to ancestor. The immediate family, in full mourning dress and accompanied by other relations in cloth headbands, follows behind the bier or wheeled trolley bearing the casket. In some communities sons walk beside the head of the father’s coffin but backward in front of the mother’s coffin. Daughters may be expected to lie on the ground in the path of the casket, but some reject this as an antiquated custom.