Oral laments represent a form of folk literature that accompanies funerals and mourning rituals as a rite of passage. The aim of this paper is to show to what extent and in what way the elements of rites of passage from the funeral rite itself are reflected in the laments as ritual songs that accompany these rites. In addition to the theoretical positions of Van Gennep (Rites of Passage), the theoretical concepts of Gilbert Durand (Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary) will be of great help to us. The corpus consists of the selected Serbian folk laments recorded during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Since they exist in almost all the communities of the world, laments are perceived as the ideal material for cultural studies, because they point out to relevant mythological and imaginative analogies and intercultural intertwinings.