Africa Burial And Mourning Customs

     Hye readers! We meet again at the eleventh entry for this blog. So, for this entry, I will share to you about the burial and mourning customs which is famous in Africa. There are numerous of burial tradition in Africa but I will only be focusing to its burial and mourning customs. The ritual of the burial and mourning customs starts with the dead body removal the home. A hole is created in the side of home. During the body removal, it is first taken the feet out of the house through the hole instead of door. This is to help the spirit in finding the easiest way back into the home. Thorns and sticks are placed during the journey of transporting the body to the place of burial and zigzag pattern is used to make the spirit confuse. These precautions steps are practiced in their society to avoid the spirit from bothering the living creatures. 

     

     It is very common to sacrifice some animals as the part of death ritual in Africa. Ox is always chosen to be sacrificed during the ritual as it is believed that this animal will be a companion to the deceased to the land of their ancestors. Besides that, this animal will be served to the mourners. Some families will choose to sacrifice the animals in several months or even longer after the person has met his or her death. According to the African custom, somebody is never truly died until there is no one left among the living people seem to remember them. Before the funeral is done, an animal will be killed as a sign of ritual bloodletting. The Africans trust that blood needs to be shed in order to avoid the bad luck in the family soon.

An animal needs to be sacrificed right before the funeral ritual is done - courtesy of Google

     Family members of the dead person must attend the burial except for children and unmarried individuals. The family will be given the priority to stand on the side of the graveyard and the other people will stand on the other graveyard side. Nobody is allowed to speak even a word during the burial. In order to help the journey of the spirit easier to meet their ancestors, personal items are buried altogether with the deceased. After the burial has ended, the mourners will return to the family's home. They will wipe the dust of the graveyard from their feet and some other mourners will place the pieces of aloe plant in water to ultimately remove misfortune. Besides that, Christians will also sprinkle the mourners with holy water because it is believed can be a purification process to them.

The mourners at the burial site are mourning for the deceased - courtesy of Google

Such a long post of the entry, isn't it? I want to provide the additional information of this type of burial which is some families in Africa will follow a strict mourning. The men will shave their hair from head and face, as a sign of death and new life. Family members are expected to wear black clothing on their backs for weeks or a year period of time. Furthermore, I also found out that widows are supposedly to mourn for a year and children who experienced the loss of parents will mourn for about three months. So I guess that's all for this entry. Happy reading!