Savanna Features
THE MORTUARY, A NEW TREND OR CULTURE CHANGE?
The whole place was crowded and looked very much like a market. Ambulances and pick-ups trucks of different brands were ready to convey dead bodies. Oh yes! Such is the inevitable reality of life! People who have walked to the end path of life are ready to be carried home from the mortuary . I
The whole place was crowded and looked very much like a market. Ambulances and pick-ups trucks of different brands were ready to convey dead bodies. Oh yes! Such is the inevitable reality of life! People who have walked to the end path of life are ready to be carried home from the mortuary . In effect, time to return to the Maker. Black and red colors of different attires and all sorts of fashion designs have decorated the place nicely but, in the hearts of those who put on these apparel are dark. They shed endless tears. What makes people grieve more at the mortuary is the moment the door of the mortuary is opened . The mortuary has suddenly become a very big market; endless people pouring in from different locations and paying huge sums of money to retrieve the deceased relatives. In a keen observation, I have realised that within our locality most deaths are sent to the mortuary and usually retrieved during weekends. This makes the regional mortuary very busy on weekends.
Is our culture gradually fading? I ask because when someone dies, frafra custom and tradition demand that the person is made to lie in the room while relatives across all places are informed of the deceased person’s funeral arrangements. Within two to four days, they proceed to bury the person.This body can be embalmed for preservation even in the house.Why should this dead body be kept in the mortuary for months just in the name of preservation?Hence, the burial date depends on the day he/she dies.
Everything has suddenly changed. Does this new development have an effect on our culture? Can we win the fight against culture invasion? Just like how frytol has swiftly defeated the shear butter during the preparation of our indigenous ” Suma la Kinkira”
What is portentously alarming in relation to this development is risk of losing our cultural practices and values in the not distant future.Even as I write, I can’t tell how a frafra funeral starts and where it ends. How much more those who will come after me?
It is getting pathetic to say the least.I sigh as I watch my culture dissipate into thin air.It behoves every well-meaning frafra particularly the chiefs and others in the traditional authority to rise up before things get out of hand.
*LET’S PRESERVE OUR CULTURE
GODWIN ABONGO
September 25, 2025 at 12:51 pm
I have really enjoyed your write up but I have an opposing opinion with regards to the preservation of the dead bodies and how it changes/changed our culture.
When someone dies and the body is embedded for a particular number of days locally,it poses a higher risk to our personal health and to those around us.The local preservation in my opinion shouldn’t be encouraged all in the name of culture preservation.Perserving the dead body doesn’t necessarily preserve our culture but rather it endangers our lives.
I would rather wished we go back to early days of burying the dead body as quickly as possible and performing the other rituals and announcements later (Kum-Suka).
That in my opinion will still preserve our culture and perserve our lives as well.
Thank you very much and God bless you for that piece of education.