Resumen

TORRES, Delci. Ritos de paso: Ritos funerarios (La búsqueda de la vida eterna). Paradìgma [online]. 2006, vol.27, n.1, pp.349-363. ISSN 1011-2251.

From a bibliographic check, we will explain, on the one hand, some considerations about the making of diverse step rites that put in evidence the relevance of the myths and rites as a universal topic of great interest for all the communities mean as while they have a specific meaning for social consciousness. On the other hand, we will advance that from the main events that stimulate celebration of step rites, it is death one which have greater significance for the individual, constituting a paradigmatic case that what is used to be called a social fact, which has a deeply marked social importance, that defines the nature of a social organisation. Results allow us to conclude that, death event becomes an mourning occasion that marks transition from a life to another, on account of which is necessary the execution of funerary rites, because they are linked to religious beliefs about nature of death and the existence of other life after it, that involves important psychological, sociologic and symbiotic functions for the members of a community.

Palabras clave : step rites; funerary rites; religious beliefs; symbiotic functions.