Where there is birth, there is death, and death means return. Therefore, Sani people's funeral is solemn and tragic like going back.

If a Sani person is sick and hospitalized, relatives and friends should pay a visit; if on the edge of death, relatives living in the distant places should also pay a special trip to visit as well.

Once life ends, families should cry sadly to tell others. |Hearing that, neighbors will come right away to help wash the body, put on the shroud, and lay the body in the hall. The body will be covered with hemp cloth.

The death of an elder is regarded as "comedy", namely "comedy funeral", so the funeral must be lively and a little festive. First, a “funeral service team" should be form with one person elected to be responsible for coordinating or directing the funeral generally and the other members responsible for their part of work each.

Some reporting teams will be formed to inform the relatives about the date and scale of the funeral. Reporters  should hold  "dog stick” when going to receiver’s home, ask for water first before going in, gargle three times and spray the water to the direction of the deceased, and then start to talk.

On the day before funeral, the corpse should be placed in coffin, which should be moved outside to a temporarily shed made of wooden branches for other people’s condolence. For relatives with direct relation such as the uncle, aunt, married daughter, and daughter-in-law should must form a team of considerable scale, invite a Lion Dance team and a band to perform at the funeral. The uncle’s family should also invite two Bimo to chant “Scriptures for Direction" to guide the soul to the ancestral birthplace for get-together with ancestors.

At the funeral ceremony, the uncle's family is especially respected, and the uncle has supreme power throughout the funeral. The uncle's family is the first that enters the mourning ceremony site for the funeral, other families do not have such qualification to take the lead, and they have to follow the uncle's family only. A solemn “coffin nailing” ceremony will be held before the funeral, a "nail" ceremony will be held, and the uncle's family member(s) should nail the coffin with hammer. The other people all stand silently on the side.

When carrying a coffin to the cemetery, the process is very lively. All the Lion Dance team, musical band, firecracker team, and Bimo chanting team will start together. People carry the coffin and walk through the village very slowly so that the deceased can take a final and good look at the village, meaning that he or she felt reluctant to leave the world. All the women participating in the funeral, whether they are direct relatives or not, should cry. Finally, the coffin will be carried to the mountain to be buried. In ancient times, the ancestors of Yi people practiced cremation. After “bureaucratization of native officers”, the funeral customs of the Sani people also changed into inhumation.