本文探討在特定的歷史脈絡之下，霧鹿與古古安兩個聚落的布農人如何理解和處理死亡。透過對當代死亡發生的過程與喪葬儀式的分析，本文檢視布農人如何面對生命的無常和規範生者與死者之間的關係。筆者主張喪葬儀式不應被視為封閉的象徵系統來研究，而是多重的社會與歷史過程交錯的場域；並探討殖民政策和基督宗教的引進如何影響了布農人處理死亡的方式，甚至在某種程度上也改變了他們對死亡的情緒反應。死亡所引起的情緒和其表現方式並非靜態的、固定的社會文化建構，它們可能會隨著歷史過程而改變，而呈現出動態的與時間的特性。布農人面對死亡時所經歷的失落、不確定與脆弱無助，也提供了他們一種理解自己在當代世界中位置的方式，而構成其回應變遷的獨特情感結構（structures of feeling）。

This article is concerned with how the Bunun, an Austronesian-speaking indigenous people of Taiwan, conceptualize and deal with death in particular historical contexts. It focuses on the analysis of mortuary rites to explore how the Bunun confront the transience of life and construct the relationship between the living and the dead. I suggest that death rituals should not be treated as closed symbolic systems but as busy intersections of multiple social processes, and examine how colonial policies and the introduction of Christianity have transformed the ways in which death is dealt with among the Bunun, and to some extent, their emotional responses to death. It is emphasized that the emotions aroused by death and their orchestration are not static and timeless socio-cultural constructions but processes which could undergo changes over time. As the dynamic and temporal characters of emotion are highlighted, we can understand how mourning and the experience of loss generate the structures of feeling specific to Bunun indigeneity.