professional mourning

Professional mourning or paid mourning is a type of public performance in which actors pretend to grieve for the recently deceased, with the goal of being indistinguishable from real mourners. As an occupation it originates from Egyptian, Chinese, Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures. Professional mourners, also called wailers, moirologists, or mutes, are compensated to lament or deliver a eulogy and help comfort and entertain the grieving family, or to improve the public spectacle of the funeral. Mentioned in the Bible and other religious texts, the occupation is widely invoked and explored in literature, from the Ugaritic epics of early centuries BC to modern poetry.