As if the pain and loss for the kin of the 157 Ethiopian plane crash victims was not enough, the shock that there are no bodies to bring home to bury will only aggravate their grief.
For many people, this would throw them into limbo, the uncertainty about the missing link to their loved ones.
Death rituals in Africa are deeply rooted in age-old traditions and systems. The concept of death varies from one community to the other, but the most common perception is that the deceased transforms into an ancestor, meaning that they exist in the after life.
Such beliefs are what make it important for communities to give the dead a proper burial, complete with ceremony befitting their status in society. These rituals are set in each culture, and even leave room for cases where a body is not available for burial.
About two years ago, Brian Khahulia lost his brother to drowning at River Nzoia. This was devastating for the family members for they didn’t know how they would help in the funeral arrangements.
After searching for the body for three weeks, they decided to bury him the traditional way. “We didn’t know how exactly to go about it, so we decided to do it the traditional way. Although it proved to be confusing, we managed to pull through,” said Khahulia.
During the funeral arrangements, one of the elders said that one of the banana stems from the farm would be required. Khahulia didn’t know what exactly it would be for, so he ignore the request. The elders continued insisting on having it chopped early for prior preparations, and that is when it dawned on him that it was to be buried in place of his brother.
“My brother was everyone’s favourite, so he needed to be laid to rest with respect. And since our elders felt that this was the right way to do it, we had to respect the decision,” says Khahulia.
He explains that the funeral was quite normal and nothing seemed to be different. Just like every other, his brother’s grave was dug six feet deep and he was laid to rest in their home at Khwisero.
Prayers and a ceremony were performed for his send-off and everything turned out well.
The only thing that got Khahulia confused was the fact that the banana stem had to be covered in a bull’s hide to signify the gender of his dead brother. “The moment a bull was slaughtered, they covered the banana stem with its hide. They later on educated us that this was the only reason everyone would have known that the deceased is male,” he says.
Steve Obanda, an elder, says the Luhya considered the burial of the deceased as an important step towards letting them rest in peace. “Most times, they would need a reference point and since the banana stem fits well, it could be used if the deceased is absent,” he says.
Additionally, depending on the gender of the deceased, a bull or cow would be slaughtered during the ceremony and its hide used to cover the stem. This also signifies the respect accorded to the deceased. Obanda adds that the time of the burial differs with the nature of death. “If the deceased died through natural calamities, they will be laid to rest at night. According to traditions, this will make the dead rest in peace,” Obanda adds.
The Kikuyu and the Luo also bury a banana stem in place of the body.
“For the Kikuyu, the banana stem is significant as it symbolises the continuity of the person it has replaced,” says Michael Mungecha, who adds that some Kikuyu clans used an edible tuber known as gikwa for the burial.
The Luo selection of the banana stem is informed by the plant’s ability to continually produce even in times of scarcity.
“We also use the fig fruit for the same reasons, and because both plants were highly valued in the community,” says Hesbon Ochieng’. These traditions also apply to the Akamba, only that sometimes, they would bury the intestines of sheep depending on the nature of death.
“The use of the animal skin symbolises the absence of the body of the deceased. It also marks the completion of a life here on earth in the same way to that of a human being,” says Peter Wambua, an elder.
The Maasai community, long known for not burying their dead either because of the lack of coffins or their desire to not be associated with the dead, has an established ritual for such cases.
“The main ritual is to shave the hair of all family members who shared a homestead with the deceased. This is a cleansing ritual to get rid of the association to the deceased and to show that they are now a brand new people,” says James Lekishon, adding that the hair-shaving ritual is also carried out at initiations to show that boys have now turned into men. For the Keiyo, also long known to frown upon dead bodies, there is no elaborate activity that happens in such a case. “The only difference is when the family has already dug a grave. In this case, we bury a banana stem in place of the body,” says Joseph Limo, an elder.
The same is the case with the Mijikenda and the Taita communities, where open graves in the absence of bodies are filled with a banana stem.
“The banana tree was easily available in the region. It is rare to find a compound in which there are no banana trees,” says Mzee Charo Khamis, adding that the plant was selected because it had the same properties as the human body: it rots and releases fluids as it decomposes. Mzee Khamis also adds that these communities perform different rituals depending on circumstances of death. In the case of the Ethiopian Airline tragedy, a group of elders or someone who is well-versed in the community’s cultures would go to the site of the crash to carry out a specific ritual.
“They will speak some words to the deceased, indicating that the community is here to take him or her home to a safer place, through a decent burial. They also appeal to the deceased not to cause any problems to the family or the community in the future,” Mzee Khamis explains.
In a case where a person dies and is buried overseas, some soil from the grave is picked and brought home for a second burial. “However, when someone completely disappears, the family waits between 30 and 50 years before performing any burial ritual. In this situation, we do not dig a grave, but we create a mound from the ground and then conduct a normal ceremony,” Mzee Khamis adds.
Ken Ouko, a sociologist at the University of Nairobi (UoN), says the universal reality of human society is that only three rites of passage define human life namely birth, marriage and death.
“African society treats death with a retinue of somber rituals deemed to be culturally befitting of an honourable send-off. Burials in Africa are elaborate and intricate procedures guided by unquestionable traditional and customary rigidities that have withstood the onslaught of modernity or innovation,” he says.
Ouko adds that one of the curious funeral ceremonies is the practice of burying a symbolic representative of the deceased person whose body is missing for whatever reason. For those who die at sea, the community would bury a stem of a tree believed to represent a floatation raft that carried the body to the afterlife.
While for those who died in the wilderness, an animal skin would be buried to symbolise both the presumed manner of death and also the purposed reincarnation of the deceased as an animal roaming around within the community.
For those who were burnt to ashes, bones of edible animals such as cattle or livestock would be buried in place of the body to denote indestructibility of the human torso. For those that died at war and whose bodies were never recovered, items of clothing, especially of the combat type, if available, would be meticulously laid out in the coffin and buried as an honor to service.
All these rituals and observations point to one thing: closure.
Ouko strongly believes that the idea behind symbolic funeralism is, however, not strictly restricted to the customary dictates. It was also to grant the family of the deceased some closure and emotional passivity in the face of loss. This is so because loss without a burial comes with the residual and lingering trauma of expectation or hope that is as bleak as the unseemliness of the manner of death itself.
Dr Geoffrey Wango, a counselling psychologist and Psychology lecturer at UoN, says the responsibility of disposing off human remains is a topic of critical importance to any family facing death.
He notes that burial for many societies is seen as indicating respect for the dead and to give family members closure. Therefore, when a family does not have a body to bury, they become devastated and empty.
“Although psychologically, one cannot close the chapter in death, burying something such as a banana stem as a symbol of their kin’s body is psychologically fulfilling or satisfying to family members,” he says, adding, “It is like fulfilling a moral obligation, a way of coping and accepting the loss and it works positively.”
Another way to cope, according to Dr Wango, is visiting the scene or site where their kin met their death in order to help them with the journey of acceptance, recovery and adjustment. “For example, relatives of the Ethiopian airline crash victims visited the site of the crash to allow them come to terms with the reality,” he explains.