A Brazilian man reportedly shocked his family by turning up at his own funeral.

Friends of 59-year-old bricklayer Ademir Jorge Goncalves had wrongly identified him as the victim of a car accident in southern Parana, The AP reports.

Goncalves had in fact spent the night with friends drinking the sugarcane liquor cachaca and did not find out about his funeral until it was already under way.

His niece Rosa Sampaio told O Globo: "My two uncles and I had doubts about the identification.

"But an aunt and four of his friends identified the body, so what were we to do? We went ahead with the funeral."

A police spokesman added: "The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing. People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case.

"His mum looked at the body in the casket and thought something was strange. She looked and looked and couldn't believe it was her son. Before long, the walking dead appeared at the funeral. It was a relief."

The body was later properly identified and buried in another state.