Weird funeral customs in Africa
There are many forms of burial after death. Currently, cremation is the most common form in the world, but tombs are still the main form in Africa. As for the selection of tomb sites and the construction of tomb chambers, some are relatively simple in Africa, while others are very particular. Due to their different religious beliefs and living habits, people of all ethnic groups in Africa also have various funeral forms, some of which are quite unique. Funeral times vary from long to short, ranging from a few days to half a year.
A peculiar way to announce funeral In Africa, when someone dies, they must first report the funeral to the deceased's relatives and surrounding neighbors. The methods of reporting funeral have their own characteristics. Some sound the funeral drum, some blow the horns, some cry loudly, some shout, and some use a specific funeral reporting article. If someone unfortunately dies in the Shona family in Zimbabwe, the death will be conveyed to relatives and friends through rapid and low drums. People will come to mourn after hearing the drums. In Tanzania, if a relative dies, Qigu Albanians must hurry to report the funeral to the deceased's uncle with a special piece of bread mixed with tobacco powder. In recent years, this special bread has been replaced by ten cents. After the Haya people died of illness, the women first cried and announced that someone had passed away. People from neighbors and nearby villages, as long as they have some relationship with the deceased, must come to express their condolences when they hear the news.
Asking about the cause of death is the custom of some tribes in Africa. After the death of a person in Togo, in order to prove that the deceased's patrilineal and maternal relatives had nothing to do with his death, during the funeral, the deceased's family would raise the question of the deceased's cause of death in public, and then the men would carry the body on their shoulders. If the body rolls to the right when it is put down, it means "yes", and if it rolls to the left, it means "no". If relatives suspect that the deceased was murdered by someone, the Pylas in the mountains of western and northern Benin can ask the gravedigger to track down and punish the murderer. Under such circumstances, the grave-digging team leader convened a village meeting to kill a white rooster in public, and distributed a small piece to each person after roasting it. After chanting a charm, the grave-digging captain ordered everyone to eat the chicken on the spot. Because the charm said by the captain of the grave-digging team meant that the murderer would die immediately if he ate the chicken. The hidden murderer was afraid of death and did not dare to eat it. However, he exposed himself and was arrested on the spot. The murderer drank the poison wine prepared by the captain of the grave-digging team and died. During the funeral process, the Shona people in Zimbabwe send representatives to distant places to find a prestigious soothsayer they do not know and inquire about the death of the deceased. They didn't trust soothsayers who were familiar with the local situation. After receiving a satisfactory answer, he returned to his hometown and laid out sacrifices to his ancestors. If the soothsayer told them that the deceased was caused by the anger of the gods, people would offer beer, kill animals to worship the ancestors, appease the gods, express remorse, and beg the gods to stop hurting others. The Ingasana people in Sudan blamed their deaths on the sun god Ter, so when people died, they were buried regardless of the cause of death. At the time of burial, the old people shouted to the sun god,"Ah, deceiving sun god!..." At the same time, they also waved their swords and spears to challenge the sun god and order it to descend to the world to apologize for its guilt.
Giving the deceased the greatest comfort to crying in a joyful way is an uncontrollable expression of the grief of the relatives of the deceased. However, the crying of Africans is different and unique. In Congo, if someone dies in the family, relatives will cry and dance day and night at the door of the deceased until the deceased is buried. If the husband dies, the wife will not enter the water or rice, crying while jumping or rolling back and forth on the ground with her bare upper body in grief to show her feelings for her husband's death. When someone died in the village, almost all the women in the village had to run to the road outside the village, crying and jumping to bid farewell to the dead. When the hearse is moving, no other vehicle except the car in which the president is riding is allowed to block the hearse or overtake it to pay tribute. What is very interesting is the Pyla people in Benin. The families of the deceased had to suppress their grief at first and no one was allowed to cry. Only after the gravedigger wrapped the body, smoked it with herbs, and ordered the funeral drum to be sounded could they cry loudly. If you don't cry, you will stop crying. Once you start crying, you must continue crying at the original rhythm and volume until the sun rises the next day, without interruption. After the death of the Haya people in Tanzania, women took the lead in crying, and then women in the neighborhood also came forward to accompany them and cried loudly. Four days after the wake, all family members must shave their heads. The day after the Qigu Albanian deceased was buried, the deceased's mother had to shave her hair in public. That night, the deceased's brothers, sisters and close relatives gathered in the village and cried loudly. After the mourning ceremony, the deceased's friends shaved the heads of his brothers and sisters without missing a single one. After shaving, the mourning activities are over.
Africans who love singing and dancing not only use singing and dancing to express their joy, but also often sing and dance elegantly at funerals to praise the dead and express their grief for the dead. After bidding farewell to the body of the deceased, the Shona people in Zimbabwe went to the hut to sing and dance. The dance became more cheerful and the song became more passionate, sweeping away the sad and gloomy atmosphere at the beginning. After the dead were buried, people drank to their hearts 'content. As the drums sounded, men blew horns, and women stepped on drums, walked in brisk steps, shook foot bells, and sang while dancing. The audience was full of joy, singing and dancing all night long. The Tamberma people of Togo drank and danced during the memorial service after the funeral. The band used gongs, flutes and horns, and the musicians walked around the house several times. The leaders in front of them were two old men armed with wild boar tusks. They performed beating each other to show that the house was not harmed by evil spirits. The strangest thing is the funeral of the Merina people in Madagascar. After the death of the Merina people, the bones were usually moved from the temporary funeral place to the ancestral grave for a second burial. First, open the temporary tomb, dig out the remains, dress it in a new colored shroud, and wrap the remains layer by layer with precious gifts. When everything was ready, the relatives carried the wrapped remains on their shoulders and danced. The Merina people believe that this is severing the relationship between the living and the dead during their lifetime, which means that the living person has entered a stage of selflessness. Because in the eyes of the people of Merina, death is nothing to be afraid of. Death is the continuation of life and the final destination.
The main funeral method is tombs. There are many forms of burial after death. Currently, cremation is the most common in the world, but tombs are still the main burial method in Africa. As for the selection of tomb sites and the construction of tomb chambers, some are relatively simple in Africa, while others are very particular. After his death, the Bushmen, who lived by hunting and gathering, laid the body on its side, bent its knees, and placed it in a sleeping position, and buried it near his hut, along with its daily necessities. Stones were piled on the grave to prevent animal invasion, and the hunting party then moved to another location and did not return for two years. After the death of the tribal chief and head of the family, the Tswana people wrapped the body with freshly slaughtered cowhide and buried it with the belongings they belonged to before the livestock pen at the gate; after most people died, they wrapped it with mats or cloaks and buried it in or near a hut for living after death, and then burned or abandoned it. After the Shauna people in Zimbabwe died, their tombs were usually not far from the village. The cemetery was as high as the ground, and stones were piled on it or a large stone was placed next to the stones. The Anyanja people died and were buried in groves or bushes. The houses of the deceased were demolished and the foundations of the houses were dug out; the chief was sometimes buried in his own house, and the house was abandoned.
It is generally easier for Arabs to handle funerals regardless of rich and poor, but among many Arab countries, only Egypt is special. Egyptians were influenced by ancient Egyptian culture, and wealthy Muslims built a family tomb to create the same living environment for the deceased as when he was alive. A cemetery on the outskirts of the capital Cairo has now become the famous "City of the Dead" and a major tourist attraction in Egypt. Cairo's "City of the Dead" looks like a residential area from afar, but in fact the houses here are built for the dead. The door frame of each house reads "Tomb of XX". The number of tombstones in the room shows that several or even a dozen dead were buried. Family members or relatives are buried in the same room, and the cemetery is named after the first person buried. Some of the tombs were constructed very carefully, while others were very simple, reflecting the wealth or poverty of the deceased's family. Egyptians called this house "Hersh", which means courtyard. Between these rows of houses, there are crisscrossing streets, and there are house numbers in the courtyards. Although the cemetery is large, you can easily find someone's resting place as long as you remember the street name and yard number. Every major festival, relatives and friends of the deceased come to the cemetery for gatherings. This kind of gathering has evolved from the past to today's celebration of festivals and social activities. Egyptians believe that celebrating festivals in cemeteries allows the dead to share family happiness with them.
The emphasis on tombs is similar to Egyptian funeral customs also exists in Madagascar. The Merina people of Madagascar believe that whether a person has an ancestral grave and whether he has a place after death is a very important matter. If not, it will be regarded as a descendant of a slave, which may indicate that he committed illegal, illegal and immoral behaviors during his lifetime, and thus was disqualified from entering the grave. Therefore, Merina cemeteries are often several times higher than other houses, and many tombs are built very majestic and spectacular. On the tombstone of the deceased, horns are indispensable decorations. In Madagascar, the "kingdom of cattle", cattle are the embodiment of social wealth with high economic value, and the horns are the symbol of cattle. They can not only show the social status and wealth of the deceased during his lifetime, but also express respect for ancestors and gods. Respect and worship.
Burials are not the only way. In addition to tombs, there are customs similar to Indian "sky burial" in a few areas in Africa. After the Bakutu people in Zaire died, they usually put their bodies in a thick cloth bag, carried by two people on a pole, escorted by a crying funeral procession, and buried them in a termite nest, allowing the termites to decompose the bodies, so that the deceased "ascended to heaven" as soon as possible. The Nandi exposed the dead to broad daylight and allowed hyenas and other animals to devour their bodies. The method is that after a person dies, he is carried to the west side of the house at dusk and placed on the ground. The male body lies on the right side and the female body lies on the left side. At the same time, relatives shouted: "Manju, come and eat!" The next day, if the body had not been moved, a sheep was killed and some mutton was placed on or next to the body to attract wild animals. If it still does not move, it means that the deceased was killed by magic and other measures will be taken. The body of the leader of the Wachaga people who lived on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro was not buried in animal skin, but was placed in a hollow tree root with the root end blocked. If an ordinary person died, the body would be bent, the head and legs would be tied together, coated with grease and ochre powder, wrapped in sacrificial cowhide, and then placed in the tomb in a sitting posture, facing Mount Kilimanjaro. Mount Kibo Peak. Eighteen months later, the bones were exhumed and placed in the banana forest, and the skulls were sent to the trees where the ancestors were buried or stored in an earthen urn.