By
Obododimma Oha
I would have liked to attend my own funeral, to dance a spirit firedance to the special number of the band, to drink the chilled lager, to chew the fried meat. Oh, I will miss all! It is just very painful and unfair that there is this big thing going on in one’s honour and one cannot witness it! I do not like a disadvantaged absence and I know you would advise me to endure it.
A background to this: first, human beings do not like talking about death or about anything in that neighbourhood, yet they prepare extensively to celebrate death and fabricate narratives to justify the rituals and preparations. In some cases, there are groups to be served food and drinks; there is cow or horse to be offered or slaughtered; there are uniforms to be worn to identify those in some groups; etc. Death is a tragedy but we have to find a euphemism, in words or acts, to hold a big party when it happens. Not many among the “sympathisers” would agree to contribute a sum to the dead person’s treatment when that person is still alive but ailing. So, behind every funeral, there is a loss counted as “gain.”
However, I should think that a person who goes to market must return home afterwards or we report a loss to the police. Last seen wearing this or that. Destination indicated: the Earth, a market. Date and time of departure: so and so. Birthdays minus death days.
But even more than this, the date of departure, marked somewhere as a birthday, means somebody’s expectation of a return or anxiety of a return. More ironically, a birthday somewhere is a deathday somewhere. Somebody is born in that house and there is great rejoicing but that means departing from a house, which is also called death, somewhere. A great sadness but a party!
Having stayed long in this lifeworld, I am interested in its signs or signification in all these. The rituals? Full of signs. Ambulance? Signs. Lying-in-state? Signs. Uniforms? Signs. The preaching reference to a holy book? Signs. Grave and Tombstone? Signs. Bouquets of flowers? Signs. Etc.
Let me select only one of these significations that could interest us: dressing in uniforms. This, for the avoidance of doubts, is a social identity, which, in excluding non-wearers, amounts to a shibboleth.
The Yoruba call this uniform, which could feature at weddings, naming ceremony, opening of a new house, etc, “aso ebi.” People try to make sure they have theirs and are, therefore, identified as insiders. If they are not able to sow the piece of cloth, they could just tie it in a way that it is visible to help identification.
So, even in funeral, identification that amounts to discrimination features. The dead is also dressed in a nice frock, a Christmas best, as if we have forgotten that the fine frock is as doomed to decay some days later and narrate our orientation to waste in this world.
Soon, the uniforms are fully at work. In distributing the fried meat and the chilled lager to “sympathizers,” those not in uniforms are skipped and are complaining bitterly. Oh, they are even dead and absent as outsiders. How can the dead partake? They have been buried and forgotten. Now, they want to resurrect and eat fried meat and drink chilled beer. No way!
My advice to the aggrieved: look for the chief celebrant in stuffed nostrils to complain. Maybe he or she will intervene, even preferring that take his or her place as chief celebrant.
Absence and the way it is treated could be painful. You are here but not here. By the way, where is your “here”? Is your “here” not “there”?
It appears that this lifeworld likes cheating absence: sometimes one can be constructed as being absent, even though one is present. Somebody who is deployed to the land-of-no-return and traveling alone needs company but none is provided. Instead, a big feast is held in his or her honour, to mark the solemn departure. Nothing is reserved for him and guests would soon wipe their eyes and forget that this is about the journey.
The journey? Yes, the journey. The journey started long ago. And now the traveler is making it "home."
Comments