The Sound of Death: Sonic Hierarchies, Liminality, and Ritualized Memory in New Orleans

In 1843, Thérèse Delveaux, a free woman of color in New Orleans, received a première classe enterrement—the most sonically elaborate Catholic funeral available. She was the only non-white individual that year to receive this highest-tier funeral. This paper examines classe enterrement as a sonic hierarchy of death, in which ritual sound—chants, bells, preaching, and liturgical singing—functioned as both a marker of social status and a form of religious capital. Engaging Victor Turner’s conception of liminality alongside sound studies, I argue that ritual sound functioned as a mechanism of posthumous transition, complicating Turner’s view that liminality is characterized by dispossession. Drawing on contemporary critiques of Turner's work, I propose that Delveaux’s case aligns more closely with what one scholar calls "abundant betweenness," where liminality is not a fixed threshold but a continuous process of negotiation. This study reveals how Catholic funerary practice mediated racial and economic distinctions in death.