Funerals in Socialist Cuba 273
may result in the father coming to haunt them in their dreams later as
a spirit.
Despite the fact that everyone who knows the deceased is expected
to participate, wakes do not tend to be very large-scale events in Cuba
(with the exception of significant state funerals). The closest family
members and friends usually attend both the wake and the actual
burial, but most people come to pay their respects in one or the other.
Normally more people come to the wake than to the burial at the
cemetery, and more people usually participate in the funerals of chil-
dren and young people than to those of the elderly.
Since funerals take place on such a short notice in Cuba, all those
who would want to participate do not always make it in time. Two
male informants stated that they had missed a wake since they had
been notified too late. In the first case the deceased was the infor-
mant’s father’s brother, and he managed to arrive at the cemetery in
time for the burial. In the second case the deceased was the infor-
mant’s sister’s daughter’s husband’s sister, and he made it to the
funeral home when the coffin was about to be transported to another
province for the burial. These are both kinship connections that are in
normal contexts fairly marginal in Caribbean matrifocal kinship sys-
tems (patrilateral and affinal bonds), and the fact that both these
informants missed the wake possibly reflects this.^10 However, at the
same time, given that both of these informants wanted to participate
in the funeral, were greatly affected by it, and at the end had been noti-
fied of it, shows that in funerals, all types of kinship connections
become significant. All those who played a part in the life of the
deceased are expected to participate regardless of whether they are- I follow Raymond T. Smith’s definition of Caribbean matrifocality as “a form of
family life” (1988: 7) and “a social process in which there is a salience of women—in
their role as mothers—within the domestic domain” (ibid: 8). According to Smith, matri-
focality is a structural principle that has to do with the weakness of the conjugal rela-
tionship and with the dual marriage system whereby legal marriage tends to be a middle
and higher income union type while the lower income groups prefer consensual unions.
A prominent feature of Caribbean matrifocality is the strong relationship between a
mother and her children, whilst men tend to be relatively marginal as fathers. (Smith,
1996a, 1996b).