DEATH IN AFRICA

Daniela Tovar

Melissa Parra

DEATH AND ANCESTORS

Funerals represent the formality a dead passing from the living to the spirit
world.
Living and the dead worlds are equally existent, both exist in perpetual
balance and rebalance . Actions made in one world can damage or
benefit the other.
Body and soul are part of the person. When the spirit separates from the
body, its role is to protect and guard living descendants, and also oversee
for lineage members.

In return, the living show hospitality and kindness towards the dead by
keeping the traditions they were passed on.

IN SOME CULTURES
Every person who dies must be given a proper funeral, supported by a
number of religious ceremonies. If this is not done, the dead person may
become a wandering ghost.

It is believed that the physical person is buried and the nonphysical person
continues living.
If a person misbehaves, steals, kills, or breaks the communities rules, they are
believed to become ghosts and expelled by the ancestors, submitted to
torture for a period of time. (It is a similar concept to a purgatory).

OTHER BELIEFS
Among the Africans, to be cut off from the community of the ancestors in
death is the nearest equivalent of hell.
The ceremony starts asking the deceased no to bring trouble to living
relatives

They bury some special personal

belongings.

It is also common to kill an ox.

 Preform traditional dances to help the deceased leave in peace.

They wash and clean the deceased belongings
Widows mourn for a year and children for 3 months,
they dress in black, they do not socialize.

REFERENCES
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/exhibit/african-ceremoniespassages/QQJgfgg2?hl=en&position=67%2C30
http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/African-Religions.html