Ánimas, fantasmas y capillas. Representaciones de la muerte en Venezuela y Latinoamérica (exploración etnológica e histórica)

Abstract

In this article we will show the relevance the death issue has, in its different variants, experimented in anthropological and historical research; in the general discipline as well as for Latin America. Then, we will explore the death issue from a series of cultural manifestations that show a constant, close and familiar relationship between the living and the dead in Venezuela and Latin America from an ethnological and historical perspective. Such manifestations do not necessarily concur with the catholic conception which stresses the possibility of reaching a superior continuity in heaven or paradise; they are actually a part of a heterogenic cultural reality and of a peculiar conception of death among Venezuelans and Latin-Americans, different from the catholic-orthodox one. For example, the day of the dead, spirits of purgatory, the Lone Spirit (Anima Sola), the existence of ghosts' tales, and the tombs or chapels on highways, commemorating a death as a consequence of a car accident. These are not the only aspects that can be mentioned about death in Venezuela, we are only indicating those that have gotten our attention, considered marginal phenomena or Folk stories, even though they are a central part of the conscience and attitude about death in Venezuela.