Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning Nigerian writer, reports that she did not realise how black she was until she moved to America.
Unlike Chimamanda, I knew how Black I was before I travelled to these parts.
In England, I was quite impressionable; I thought the other colours around me did not notice that I was black.
It wasn’t until I moved to North America that I realised I have always been ‘blacker’ than I thought.
We had lived together as roommates in the same apartment for two years, making light jokes about the smells of our foods and fashion sense.
After sharing a few beers on a quiet evening, Sheldon asked: “Are you offended when they say you are black?” Does it sound offensive? I asked.
Incurable Africans
Beyond stereotypes and suspicions, there seem to be a lot of hidden truths, near truths, and many untruths about what it means to be black African.
One of those truths may be how we treat the dead in Ghana. Around here, the dead do not die; they merely travel to the other side, where they continue living to practise their trades and enjoy their favourite foods.
If you were a drunkard, your coffin is designed like a beer bottle. The coffin of a food vendor is masterfully crafted to look exactly like a cooking pot, so the dead can continue cooking and selling. The other day, a popular local prostitute died, and they designed the coffin accordingly.
Long before popular Kenyan scholar J. S. Mbiti described Africans as “incurably religious”–in relation to their rites of passage for the dead—the Western media had their own ideas.
The BBC recently reported on Ghana’s sensational pallbearers, ‘fantasy coffins’, and how somebody was buried in chili pepper.
They uncovered the many reasons why Ghanaians design coffins to reflect the life, dreams, passions and status of the dead.
It is a statement of culture and our reverence for the dead.
The BBC did not seem to have exhausted their research into how ‘incurable’ the African is, especially about their rituals for the dead. Fantasy coffins are a thing of the past.
The pallbearers who once delighted funeral patrons with themed dances, swinging along expensive coffins on their shoulders, are no more in demand.
Today, the best way to honour the dead is to build them a tastefully designed house in a cemetery.
The structure must come fully furnished and complete with air-conditioners, toilets, wool carpets, and other luxury comforts, to make the dead feel cosy in the land of those who are not quite dead.
They may need to smell good, so their favorite designer perfume is included in their luggage.
Real estate cemeteries
This week, my former roommate’s words jolted at me, and this time, I asked on his behalf: Is there anything offensive about being back?
I was ashamed when Sheldon sent me video clips of beautiful architectural designs erected at cemeteries to house the dead in Ghana.
He simply wanted to know if the stories were true.
He knew about the themed designer coffins and the exciting dances of the pallbearers, including the terrible incident where pallbearers mistakenly dropped the coffin when one of them missed a step.
He had come to accept that extravagant rite of passage as part of the excesses of a culture that can only be African.
This time, however, he found the new trend of fancy cemetery houses very revealing.
Most disturbingly, the video clips mentioned Chiraa as one of the places hosting these impressive cemetery architectural marvels.
I call Chiraa home because one of the most important women I call mum lives there.
Chiraa is only about 19 kilometers from Sunyani, some 25 minutes’ drive from the Bono regional capital, where I spent my formative years.
The last time I visited the Chiraa cemetery for the burial of a friend’s father who died at 100, I did not see these fancy buildings.
My checks, however, have confirmed that while some of the reports may be fanciful exaggerations, today, the cemeteries may be mistaken for a commercial real estate venture where developers outspend one another to build the latest designs.
Moree sparks change
Yet, the Chiraa cemeteries are not unlike cemeteries in other parts of Ghana.
They paint a picture of the black in Chimamanda, as they reveal the offensive blackman my roommate saw in me when he asked the question.
Elsewhere in Ghana, they have taken the designer coffins in Accra and the architectural marvels in Chiraa, a ghost higher.
They dress up the dead in fanciful clothing and practically eat with them, as flies from the stench of the near-decomposing corpse fly around.
The dead person was a lover of fufu, so they dish out an ocean of soup around layers of fufu in a huge earthenware pot.
In spiritual (perhaps culinary) communion, family members dip the fingers of the dead in the pot, as they enjoy the meal together.
We may just have sponsored an outbreak of a rare disease only the dead can cure.
We love to honor the dead. That is our culture. The more expensive the funeral, the kinder the judgment of patrons about how successful it was and how much we love the dead.
We serve better food at funerals than at weddings.
We borrow at high bank rates to fund funerals in hopes for big donations.
We cheer as patrons travel from far and near to ‘spray’ money on the bereaved.
Where donations have failed to match the investments, families live to service debts on account of the dead.
As in most cultures around the world, change can start from anywhere.
The people of Moree in the Central region may have sparked a decisive change in Ghanaian funeral rites.
The Chief of Moree, Nana Obokese Ampah I, has banned the erection of tombs in cemeteries.
He has banned expensive funerals where buffets are served. In Moree, the dead are allowed to rest in peace while they chill in Chiraa.
Tissues Of The Issues
Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
Canada
