Abstract

                 The purposes of the study entitled “The Role of Undertaker towards Funeral Ritual: A Case Study of Luangtai Sub-district Municipality, Ngao District, Lampang Province” were  (1) to study the undertakers’ belief and (2) to investigate their role in funeral ceremony according to public view. This is a mixed method research, quantitative and qualitative form, employing a set of interview distributed to 5 morticians working for the community crematoriums, and the questionnaire distributed to the sampling numbering 334 living in the area of Luangtai sub-district, Ngao district, Lampang. The statistic used in this study was frequency, percentage, means and standard deviation.

                   The study found that the undertaker has been defined to perform the role as manager of the deceased at the community crematorium by the community’s resolution. The role is inherited from generation to generation in the lineage called "Undertaker Family" and learning from the teacher to focus on the role to continue the tradition of a ritual procedure, process of dead bodies management, restrictions and regulations, superstitious beliefs which is the identity of the undertaker together with the basic beliefs in the death of the Lanna traditional heritage handed down from the past to the present that is related to the feelings, attitudes and people’s ways.

                   The undertaker has a key role to manage a funeral business well and appropriately in accordance with local traditions. The mortician is a typical skilled person to public eyes and is recognized in the potential and role of the undertaker in terms of the important man who manage funeral to meet the expectations of the community. The undertaker’s identity can be revealed via the strict prohibition, regulation, the use of black magic rituals to indicate an individual's knowledge. This is important to support community’s conviction, faith and attitude towards the undertaker's role in the funeral ceremony of the community. The mortician’s vital role starts from giving advice and practices in bathing, dressing a corpse, tying shroud to the dead body, placing the deceased, preserving certain beliefs on carrying the dead body out of the house, cremating or funeral, belief about the dropping cowrie (money) to grandfather named Takalee and grandmother Kala, cleaning deceased with coconut water, transforming and ash collecting.

                   The development of the undertaker’s character to be revealed is to show the pattern of moral behavior. The costumes also convey the spiritual identity of the mortician. To develop a deeper knowledge, to be expertise in funeral service management as professional, to provide the morale teachings and riddle in the funeral together with local beliefs, traditions and way of life associated with living with reckless way, and to abide by the regulations and procedures of the local tradition inherited strictly lead to the creation of faith and trust to maintain the role of the undertaker who has contributed significantly to the existence of local culture.