THE ravaging effects of civilisation and modernisation on traditional beliefs and practices in the country can never be over emphasised. Over the years, many communities have had to jettison their traditional beliefs and practices to embrace foreign ideas and lifestyles for fear of being perceived or described as primitive people not in tune with modern realities. From urban areas to rural communities that are expected to be the bastion of culture, various traditional practices like ways of greeting, dressing, worship among others have in no small measure been watered down by the tsunami of modernisation and civilisation.
In spite of this challenge, a number of the practices have, however, weathered the storm. One of these is the myriad of burial rites observed in some parts of the country.
Findings showed that the people have remained resolute and committed to their traditional burial rites without minding whose ox is gored. Not even the demeaning description of such practices as inferior and barbaric by the west would stop the people from observing their cherished tradition.
The depth of the attachment of the people Ebonyi State to the burial rites stipulated by their tradition played out recently when a family of a deceased woman suspended her burial rites until her ‘husband’ who she was cohabiting with performs her wedding rites.
The woman, Chinyere Mbam, was bitten to death by a snake while returning from the wake-keep of her friend, Oge Ogashi.
The deceased’s family mandated the ‘husband,’ Stephen Mbam, of Enyi Igwe village Ezzainyimagu community in Izzi Local Government Area of the state to carry out her traditional marriage rites before she could be buried.
This obviously sounds like a scene in Nollywood movie but Chief Okoro Albert, a native, of the state, said: “It is our culture. It is the prescription of our tradition especially where the man in question did not formally marry the dead woman. If a woman is properly married to her husband and dies, the husband would not go through all that ritual. The reason for the action is to discourage young men from keeping somebody’s else’s child as wife without going to see the parents. The act is tantamount to kidnapping which today is a criminal offence in our country.”
Among the Urhobo people of Delta State, The Nation investigation revealed that it is forbidden for a dead person to be buried in an open place. A bereaved family is mandated to build a house where the deceased must be buried. Even when the family has no house of its own, it was gathered that the culture makes it compulsory for them to build a house where the deceased must be buried.
A native of the area, who identified herself as Paulyn, said: “Where the family does not immediately have the wherewithal to build a house, the burial would have to be suspended and the deceased kept in the mortuary until the house is built. It doesn’t matter if the house is just a room. What matters is for the deceased to be buried in a house. If you get to my father’s house, the sitting room is like a cemetery because we buried people all over the whole place. We don’t see it as a bad thing. It is just part of our culture.
‘When my mum died, we built a mini-flat before we buried her. We built a new house for her because her remains were taken back to her family home. In our place, women are not buried in the husband’s home. She must be taken back home. After burying the dead person, the house is always rented out later. In fact, the house we built to bury my mum was rented out. Because the building was beautiful, tenants scrambled to rent it.
The tenant that eventually got it was aware that the house is a dead person’s own. It is even on top of the grave that he placed his bed. You don’t have anything to fear as a tenant if you are living in such house. It is also not true that you will be having nightmares living in such house. It is not true.”
The reason for the practice, according to her, is because “Our people believe that a dead person is still a member of the family and should be catered for. They are only seen and believed to have only transited.”
Johnny, a native of the area and journalist with a leading newspaper in Lagos State, also shared his experience of how he and his siblings hustled to raise money to build a house where the father was buried.
“It is out of place for us to bury our dead family members, especially the elderly ones in an open place. Our belief is that death is not enough to bring a division between us and the dead ones. Even in death, they remain integral part of the family. When my father died recently, we ran around to build a house where he was buried. This often happens where the deceased did not build a house before his demise. That was what happened in the case of my father. He didn’t have a house, so we had to keep him in a morgue till we raised money to build a house to bury him.”
Another native, who gave his name as Governor, gave an account of how his brother’s failure to build a house in the community has hampered his (brother’s) burial.
He said: “My late brother lived all his life in Port Harcourt and built houses there. When he died and his remains were brought home, our people disagreed that he should be buried outside. They were angry that he built many houses in Port Harcourt and did not deem it fit to build a house in the village. Because of this, they insisted that we must build a house before he could be buried. His remains are still in the morgue since then because the family have not got the resources to do so. We are only pleading that they should allow us to go ahead and bury him outside because he died at a tender age of 40. Our people wouldn’t have insisted that we should build a house for him if he had not built houses in Port Harcourt.”
Despite the growing acceptance of the Christian faith in Imo State, most communities still hold on to their unusual and ancient burial rites.
For instance in Mbaise community, when a man dies, the first son in a ritual called iwa nkita anya, will kill a life dog with one machete blow before his death can be announced. The belief is that the dead man during reincarnation will be a wise man, but if not done, the man may come back to life as a coward.
Another unusual rite, which is still in practice, is the feeding of the dead, which is common in Umuohiagu community in Ngor-Okpala Council Area of the state. There, when a man dies, the eldest child will be mandated to be feeding the spirit of the person with pounded yam every morning, which is often thrown outside after certain incantations. This is done for seven days believed by the people that it will take the dead to get to the spirit world, without starving on the way.
Also in Nekede community, Owerri West Council Area, women are forced to shave their hair when their husbands die. Failure to do this will imply that the woman may have had a hand in the death of her husband.
In Otulu, a suburb of Oru West Local Government Area of Imo State, some burial rites forbid certain relations from attending the burial of the loved ones on the ground of having a common ancestral link. A leading member of the community, who identified himself as Obi, said any relation who obstinately attends such burial risks losing his life.
“The rite is not a subject of debate. It is a core aspect of our culture and we don’t joke with it. Members of the community are very much aware of it and always respect it. If you and a dead member of the community have the same ancestral bond, you must neither attend his funeral nor see his remains. If you do, you will pay dearly for it. It is not a fairy tale at all. We have evidence for such occurrence and that is why conscious efforts are made to inform people that share the same ancestral bond with a dead member of the community.
“Our women also do have their hairs shaved when their husbands die. They always have their heads shaved by a group of women in the community. It is a mark of respect for the late husband and nothing more.”
Explaining why the practices are still prevalent among the people in the state, Mr. Richard Onyejiuwa, a retired civil servant, said: “Most of the people are no longer comfortable with these practices but they still manage to indulge in them because of pressure from a few kinsmen who are still ardent followers of the traditional religion.
“In most cases, if these rites of passage are not observed, it will be termed that the deceased was not properly buried and the stigma will stay with the children. So in order to avoid such embarrassment, the people still observe the burial rites to fulfill all obligations.”
Onyejiuwa added: “Most times too, some adamant kinsmen could go as far as going to the Church to disrupt the burial of their relatives and insist that they should be buried according to tradition.”
Anambra, the state that prides itself as the light of the Nation, is not left out of this attachment to traditional burial observances. Our correspondent reported that the practices are most pronounced in communities such as Alor in Idemili South Local Government Area and Awka in Awka South Council Area.
In Akwa, a woman as part of the traditional burial rites, is forbidden from performing the dust to dust ritual. The practice is said to be vehemently opposed by the people who see it as a taboo.
The development was reported to have been the cause of the lingering controversy between the Catholic Church and the people. But the Catholic Church, it was learnt, wants to break such jinx, as it continues to argue that it is barbaric and unchristian not to allow a woman to perform the dust to dust rite for her husband.
Recently, the elders of the Umudioka village dragged the church to court for allegedly trying to ‘rubbish’ their custom and tradition. The former governor, Mr Peter Obi, waded into the matter without success.
When The Nation spoke with Obi Ochije (Ochije-Awka), he stated that the Awka community has ruled that any woman or man that does dust to dust in the area would be seen as having committed a taboo.
Chief Chukwuemeka Ikegwuogu, a native of Alor, told The Nation that some of these rights are inevitable, adding: “When a woman dies before the husband without the traditional marriage rites performed, the husband or the children must do it before her burial anywhere. The implication of abandoning such rites in our community could lead to the denial of some certain rights like sharing of community lands, among others, to the children in the area.”
Burial rites in parts of Idemili Local Government Area of Anambra State, it was learnt, prescribe that women should be buried beside the kitchen. Mazi Okoro, a native of the area, said: “Our burial practice makes it so because it is believed that, that is the place of women. The males are, however, buried at the entrance of the compound to depict his headship of the house.”
Unusual burial rites may not be common among the people of Cross Rivers State but it is a regular practice when monarchs die.
In an Obubra local government community: “A dead chief is buried perpendicularly and his head left above the ground. It is left in that manner until it dries and cuts of by itself and later buried separately. There is a special grave for such,” a native who did not want his name in print said.
The source added: “In Efik communities, monarchs are always buried with some of their slaves so they could continue to serve them in the world beyond. One thing that is common is that when a chief dies, nobody announces it. No chief is put in a mortuary. It is a taboo to do so.”
At Rumuchinda Community, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Chief Anthony Alikor said when there is a critical issue of knowing who killed the man, the onus is on the family to find out traditionally before taking any action against the wife. “It is not necessary because it is not the wife that killed the man, so nobody should accuse the wife of killing her husband, it is very wrong. If you want to know what killed the man, you should find out from the gods. It is only the gods that know what happened to the person, why he died and not human beings; so suffering the woman is meaningless.
“In my own community; for instance, when my father died, although we have not shared the property, but he gave some rights to my mother which nobody can take away from her. We borrowed money to bury my father, so after paying that debt, I will now summon my brothers and share the properties of our late father. I will take my own share and give the rest to my brothers. That is our own burial rite.
He continued: “If you are staying with a woman you are not married to and she dies without any children, she does not have any right in the family because she is not legally married. But if she has children, you have to visit the family of the woman and perform a rite called knocking of the door as the tradition permits, because of the children. She has rights in the family. But if she has no children and the man she is staying with dies, the man’s brothers or relations will take over all the properties of the man.”
In Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State, our correspondent reported that the people have special ways of testing the innocence or otherwise of women, when they are suspected to be responsible for their husbands’ death.
Elder Adolphus Ichemati of Rebisi community said: “Before now, subjecting a woman to some rites to show her innocence was in practice but it is no longer done here. What we still do is that when a woman is accused of killing her husband, she will be brought before her husband’s corpse and made to jump over him to prove her innocence.”
On the other hand, he said that the burial of women in particular in the area is said to be determined by the extent to which marriage rite is performed.
“Assuming I am getting married, I have to finish what the tradition requires- like carrying of drinks for four days to my in-laws. These four-day drinks signify that I have come to marry. Because here, we don’t pay dowry but there are little things we do that are more important than the dowry. But the climax is that the two families will come together and exchange drinks to show that they have married fully. If that one is not done, then it means that the woman is not officially your wife except you do those things. If she happens to die, her family will reclaim the body of their daughter or require you to complete the remaining part of the traditional rites. And if you have not done that, the body does not belong to you.
“Even if we take it from the viewpoint of the bible, there is a tradition about marriage where somebody was asked to do some jobs before he was given a wife. The same thing happens in our community. Here, there are some traditions we must observe.
“Before, we used to borrow money to bury the dead but it is no longer done that way. What we do now is to give out our land and get some amount of money. After some time, we will pay the money and reclaim our land. Although, it is not common but people still borrow, if you borrow, there are still people that will assist you in gifts and other donations or cash. During the burial, the children will be cautioned not to mismanage the property of the dead so that they can sort things out before sharing the property.”
Chief Harrison Anunam from Eberi Community in Omuma Local Government Area of the state noted that a lot of deviations have come into how burial cultures and traditions were observed in the past. He however said that these are not without their consequences. He said: “In the past, if a man should marry a wife and she happens to die before the husband or after the husband, the norm at that time was that you will take her corpse back to her paternal home to bury. That was the norm until around 1980s. But because of civilisation, the youths have decided that their mothers cannot be taken from their own compound to be buried in her paternal home. So there has been a change in the norm and that is what is going on now. Disobedience to these norms then came with consequences; one has to do a lot of rituals for such disobedience.
“Take, for instance, when Stella, the wife of former President Olusegun Obasanjo died, there was a lot of lobbying because Obasanjo said she was his wife and should be buried in his own village. But they told him that the tradition doesn’t work that way. For the sake of tradition, they had to follow the rites of the people before she was finally buried in Ota. These are the norms that existed before now. But these days, things have changed. They believe now that a woman that has children should not be taken away from her family to be buried elsewhere.”
