A Sheep Herder's Rage: Silence and Grief in Contemporary Mongolia

This paper explores the role of silence in contemporary rural Mongolia's mourning practices. It shows how silence may come as a response to the expression of extreme grief, when the mourner's behaviour goes beyond the frame of conventional mourning practices. Analysing the collective responses to a man's expression of extreme grief, this paper argues that mourning practices might not always be intended to make death meaningful: faced with the rage provoked by some particularly unbearable losses, there might be nothing else to do than to say nothing, do nothing, and give up on meaning.