The article draws on neo-Kantian themes in a study of the Jamaican nine night – the wake following a death. Using Bakhtin`s notion of ‘sympathetic co-experiencing’, and Simmel's ideas concerning the existential basis of religious belief, I investigate the nine night from multiple ethnographic perspectives. For its participants the nine night presents a vehicle in which understandings concerning the self can be explored aesthetically. Key cultural motifs are put in play, in particular ‘burlesque’ versus ‘seriousness’: actors use these to express subjective meanings within shared frameworks. By focusing of existential concerns, the nine night localises much wider social networks.