22. Colours of Africa: Funerals in Ghana

Imagine yourself driving down an isolated road and dusk is falling fast. You are trying to drink in the beautiful scenery and intently peeping out the slightly tinted windows of your vehicle and suddenly you pass a cemetery and see a man sitting on a high chair atop a grave!! You do a double take and realise it’s a very life like statue! Well that grave got us talking and researching about the whole concept of death and funerals in Ghana. 

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Funerals are the most unique things we saw in Ghana, especially in the Ashanti Region. Funerals (pronounced ‘funeraals’ by Ghanaians) are to Ghanaians what weddings are to Indians! They are obsessed with them! As the weekend approached we would be looking forward to seeing funerals organised along every road in town. Every Saturday people can be seen celebrating funerals!! Yes celebrating! On Saturdays and Sundays the whole of Ashanti Region appears to be dressed in their funeral colours – black, red and white. You can see the men dressed in the traditional Akan cloths and the ladies in their long dresses with fancy headdresses. It is an amazing sight for an outsider! Red and black are the official colours – red for close relatives. White is also worn in case the deceased was an elderly person, having lived a full life.

Typical Adinkra mourning cloth

Adinkra cloth dress worn on occasions including funerals

Burial : When a person dies his/her body can be  preserved anywhere from a few days to a few months sometimes stretching to a year or more before finally being buried. Nowadays a lot of Ghanaians have migrated to foreign countries therefore the time of burial is becoming longer - to accommodate non-resident relatives. The corpse is buried along with some money and things of personal use like a mat, a pillow and blanket etc. One person in Arvind’s employ remembered that as a child his grandmother had hidden all the children in the house when the local chief died in case one of them was buried along with him! But I am not sure if he belonged to the Ashanti clan. The funeral procession goes to the grave site singing songs (asafo) and pounding gongs. The idea is to keep the spirit contented so it has no reason to return. When a person dies his spirit is given the status of an ancestor and should therefore be treated with utmost respect and care. It is believed that in case the spirit is not appeased while it is making the transition from being a living person to an ancestor it may return to the village as a ghost. Therefore the relatives of the deceased will go to great lengths to satisfy the spirit during the burial. 

Similarities with other traditions: In the Indian tradition the Hindus also perform rituals to keep the spirit of the departed appeased. I notice many similarities in the spirit (no pun intended) of the rituals if not the letter. For example – the Hindus too do not attach much importance to the body – they cremate it at the earliest, and all the rituals are aimed at appeasing the spirit and sending it to another realm.

The ancient Celts too buried their dead along with food and other items of daily use as they believed in life after death. They too celebrated death. After an initial period of mourning there would be feasting and games in honour of the deceased.

 Majority of the Ghanaians being Christians, a mix of traditional and Christian practices have come to be followed. The Ashanti’s traditionally did not attach much importance to the body, which is meant to perish; therefore it was put in unmarked graves. Now following Christian traditions they are put in graves which are simple enough with at most the departed person’s picture engraved on the headstone except for the one aberration observed which I narrated above. We learnt that the making of that statue on the grave was not received well by the community and in fact somebody had knocked off the head creating a lot of bad blood between people. The head had to be reaffixed.

 Funeral: The public funeral will begin anytime after eight days after the death; the burial may or may not have taken place, which may sometimes take place after more than a year! Public notices are given by way of posters about when the funeral is going to be held. The date is fixed taking into consideration the availability of all relatives and the time it takes to make preparations for the funeral. 

On the day of the funeral the family members wearing traditional clothes, sit in a row to greet the visitors and collect the donations. The visitors also join them as they come and are greeted, individually, by the family members. During this time there is drum beats and funeral dances (adowa) performed. 

The guests and the funeral dance

                                    

On the first anniversary of the death a similar function is held and may entail similar preparations.

A social evil: Families try to fulfill the deceased’s last wishes, incurring great expenses which they can ill-afford. People incur debts for funerals. Banks in Ghana lend for funerals at very high rates of interest! In recent times funerals seem to be becoming a social evil because it is being used for commercial reasons – people are expected to attend and contribute to a funeral so that the action is reciprocated. We learnt that especially if a deceased has children staying abroad each one may hold a separate funeral for their deceased parent to collect money from the local community. The funerals have become social occasions of great pomp and show where people show off their wealth, trying to outdo each other. It is becoming more and more sophisticated every day. Services of professional event managers, criers, even DJs are hired for organising funerals and entertaining guests. It inevitably ends with a party with eating and much drinking. On Saturdays we would be extra careful while driving avoiding vehicles with a black or red scarf tied to their side mirror as an indication of carrying funeral attendees.   

Coffin Carving: has become big business for Kane Kwei Carpentry,(named after Seth Kane Kwei, inventer of this style of coffin making), coffin makers in Teshie/Nungua, a suburb of Accra. They have become collectors’ items in the west because of coverage in National Geographic etc. Coffins can be got made in any shape imaginable from aeroplanes to cars to ships, animal, fruit or you name it to reflect the profession of the deceased or his last wish.

Well that says a lot about what they thought of the dead guy!

Links:

1) Adinkra symbols of Ghana, West Africa

2) Bosumchwe or Bosumchwi Lake , Ghana

3) El Mina Castle/ Fort , Cape Coast Ghana

4) Mole National Park Ghana

5) History of coinage and Currency in Ghana

6)  Larabanga Mosque and the Mystic Stone

7) Food, Culture and Music of Ghana

8) A visit to Ghana  

9) Oware: The ancient National Game of Ghana