Pogrzeby wtórne u ludu Konkomba z północnej Ghany na przykładzie plemienia Biczabob

Abstract

Robert Hertz introduced in ethnology a term „double funeral”, which comprises both burial ritual (first funeral) and secondary funeral among the nonliterate people. The rituals of the first and secondary funerals among the Konkomba of northern Ghana belong to the most extended of all the rituals of passage. The Konkomba, like other African peoples, do not treat the fact of death as immediate and final. They perceive death as a process of several years. The author participated in secondary funerals from the second half of February till the beginning of May, 1991 in six villages: Nalongni, Sobib, Kumwateek (Bichabob tribe), Puo Tindaando (Bigbem tribe), Lemo (Nakpantiib tribe), Sambul (Bimonkpom tribe). The present article describes and analyses the secondary funerals among the Bichabob tribe as illustrated by the inhabitants of three villages: Nalongni, Sobib and Kumwateek. They last from six to seven days and they constitute an important social and religious event. Significant events of secondary funerals include: dances; the widows’ visits to homesteads; divination rites on the third day, the purpose of which was to explain by the two diviners the circumstances and causes of the death of all people who had died in the villages of Nalongni, Sobib i Kumwateek since the previous secondary funeral; the visits of a large number of guests, who are treated with beer, in all the homesteads of the three villages on the fourth and fifth days; the visits of yam farms of the dead old men by the widows led by two leaders and other participants; shooting at a post (lipil) and a rooster in the case of the death of the oldest clan member; the farewell of the dead women from other clans with the inhabitants of villages where they had lived after getting married; dividing the property of the dead old men on the last day of the secondary funeral. The costly ritual of the secondary funeral, which requires large financial expenditures on food and beer, takes place in each village every few years and it is performed for all the people that have died since the last secondary funeral. It is only after the secondary funeral that a dead old man (or an old woman) reaches the dignity of an ancestor and his property (land, wives, sacred objects and power) is inherited and taken over through the mediation of the oldest member of the lineage by the dead person’s relatives who are his lineal descendants, that is brothers and sons, according to the principle of primogeniture. The performance of different rites and symbolic actions of the secondary funeral emphasizes that the dead person and the community change their roles and functions. The dead person is transformed from somebody who threatens the community to its protector as a member of the invisible community of the dead. Secondary funerals end mourning for the dead definitively, confirm triumph of the community over death, emphasize the value of life, which is of the highest worth for all the Africans. The rites expressing the belief in afterlife lead the communities through the hard time and crisis caused by the death of their members, giving consolation and solving existential problems for particular people and the whole communities. They reorganize and integrate the family, lineage, clan and superclan groups as well as they mean changing the social status. Besides, they help individuals in accepting the new state and introduce them into normal relations with clan community and other people. Only elderly people (both men and women) - thanks to their age, social status and offspring - can reach the dignity of ancestors after death. A necessary condition for the change of their status is the performance of rituals of the first and secondary funerals.