African funerals and sociocultural change

CHAPTER 1 African Funerals and Sociocultural Change A Review of Momentous Transformations across a Continent Michael Jindra and Joël Noret O ver the last centuries, sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed a series of broad and linked changes that have inescapably altered its funerary rites. hese include alterations of outlook and practice caused both by colonialism and by the large scale adoption of world religions, an overturning of the system of hierarchy in favor of new processes of creating status, increased mobility and pluralism, and the diferent kinds of associations this mobility produced in the colonial and postcolonial context. he introduction of new technologies such as mortuaries and photography have had major efects on funerary rites, as have social turmoil and disease in some areas. In this chapter, we detail how these interrelated changes have signiicantly and in some cases radically transformed funerary practice across the continent. Approximately the last twenty-ive years have seen increased scholarly attention to changes in mortuary rites, ater an earlier period that mostly examined unchanging “traditional” rites. Until now, however, no one has gone beyond regional case studies to examine the signiicant evolution of African funerals over the last century (and longer).1 With the help of our scholarly forebears, it is to this task we now turn. From colonial to postcolonial social change The remolding of hierarchies and urban-rural relations With the massive changes that have occurred in political economy, religion, and education over the last 150 years or so, social structures throughout Africa have been overturned and routes to higher social positions have been radically changed, resulting in social hierarchies that became progressively multifarious. When the traditional hierarchies (including chiefs, elders, and secret societies) who oten controlled or regulated public events such as funerary African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 17 rites lost power, and when new hierarchies based on connections with new institutions (whether colonial, religious, or nascent state institutions) and the modern economy began to rise, African death practices were signiicantly transformed, not only in form but in size. As mentioned above, signiicant changes in funerary practices can be found going back centuries in some areas, for example, due to the upheavals in social hierarchy caused by slave trading (Vansina 2005: 25). he changes became even more intense within the colonial regimes and resulted from deliberate policies as well as from unexpected consequences. In colonial Kenya, for instance, colonial authorities worked hand in hand with mission churches to obtain a radical change to the common practice of quickly disposing bodies, some elders excepted, in the bush (Droz, Lamont, this volume). Sanitation concerns here were explicit, as they were across the continent (for Rwanda, see Spijker 1990: 91f). In Accra, in the irst decades of the twentieth century, families were forced to abandon the practice of burying their dead inside the lineage compounds and instead to start building lineage cemeteries while missions and colonial authorities were establishing their own (Parker 2000). Besides these deliberate attempts (only partially successful) to change African mortuary practices, the colonial encounter had efects in virtually every sphere of social activity, which can hardly be underestimated. As colonization stimulated increased urbanization in many areas of the continent, the subsistence activities of elites changed, rural-urban relations progressively evolved, and new social strata developed within the cities as a new “formal” system of education arose and economic opportunities and job markets diversiied. he postcolonial regimes added still more to this “cultural complexity” (Hannerz 1992) with the end of colonial impediments on new African elites and the appearance of new African ruling castes. he conversion of many Africans to world religions, discussed further below, also involved “conversions to modernities” (van der Veer 1996). In many regions, to convert to Christianity was at the same time to embrace a new lifestyle. Many converts—from those in the mission churches who were well disposed to internalize new “civilized” habits and values to those Christian cultural nationalists who turned to various “independent” churches (see Ranger 2004 and this volume)—were concerned about establishing their status. Kwame Arhin, for instance, suggested approximately iteen years ago that Christianity had unexpected efects on the size of burials in southern Ghana by permitting the emergence of new elites who invested important sums in the burials they involved themselves in (Arhin 1994: 313). As these new elites emerged, particularly in urban contexts, rural-urban relationships were gradually remolded. For some decades now, they have been under pressure in diferent ways. Economic and identity issues in particular have oten been at the heart of the dense and vital relations between urbanites and villagers. Issues of cultural identity 18 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret also arose, as groups that did not have graves or that avoided them began to claim them as a part of their cultural heritage, as part of a process of increasing internal hierarchy, notably among some Khoisan groups (Widlok 1998), or as a part of ongoing land claims (Glazier 1984; Lamont, this volume). Diferences between rural and urban funerals still exist in many areas, but these contrasts may be minimal in other regions, and may vary depending on the mode of articulation between rural and urban areas (Geschiere and Gugler 1998). In his recent study of Igbo funerals in southeastern Nigeria, Daniel J. Smith mentioned the “continuing (and perhaps growing) strength of ties to place of origin” (Smith 2004: 569). his trend, however, is not found throughout the continent. In cities like Bulawayo since the colonial period (Ranger 2004) and in important cities of Central Africa like Brazzaville (Tonda 2000), Kinshasa (Grootaers 1998), or Lubumbashi (Noret and Petit 2011), the majority of corpses are no longer brought back to their region of origin, but buried in the quickly proliferating city cemeteries. he speciic colonial and postcolonial histories of these cities help us understand funerary practices. In HautKatanga Province, the massive long distance migrations of workers engineered by Belgian colonial authorities helped establish the local working class (Higginson 1989; Fetter 1976) to the extent that an important part of the urban population today has only loose ties with their rural origins in Kasaï or Katanga, and certainly weaker ones than in many other regions of the continent. he historical importance of Haut-Katanga’s large colonial and later national companies, which for much of the twentieth century followed a policy of “total” management of their employees’ lives and deaths (Rubbers 2006; Dibwe 2001), remains relevant in contemporary burials. In Lubumbashi, two of the main city’s mortuaries are the property of the national railway company and the formerly omnipotent national mining company, and big companies still regularly play a role in the organization of burials by providing a coin or contributing money for other funeral expenses (Noret and Petit 2011; Mwilambwe and Osako 2005). On the West African coast as well, in Cotonou for instance, more and more people are not brought back to their town or village of origin, but are simply buried in the city to which they migrated (Noret 2010). Such burial practices most oten involve a form of relocalization of the families, and the gradual emergence of new “places of origin” in African economic centers. New migrants of course still arrive and maintain strong ties with their places of origin, but there is also a growing number of urbanites in African cities whose ties with their rural places of origin are becoming weaker as the generation of those who migrated to the new colonial and postcolonial economic centers recedes. With the rise of African international migration in the last decades, the issue of rural-urban connections took on another dimension: the connection African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 19 between expatriates and people “at home,” be they in cities or villages. Expatriates make signiicant use of telephone and Internet to maintain contact with their hometowns, as well as with other expatriates from the same region or ethnic group, and these technologies are oten used to provide moral and inancial support when an expatriate African resident in the West dies and needs the body sent “home” (Petit 2005; Mazzucato et al. 2006). Africans who live in the West are oten expected to provide the required resources for large funerals or secondary rites, and thus new communications technologies also play an inluential role in organizing these. Africans who live in the West may time their visits back to the continent for these kinds of events. In areas where strong links between rural and urban contexts are maintained through burial events, the latter oten ofer key insights into crucial social dynamics of these societies. In many places, funeral rites, as well as succession rites ater funerals, still serve their longstanding function of drawing people closer together and reproducing society, as well as forming part of an intentional reaction against the social changes that threaten to weaken clan solidarities and moral orders (Karlström 2004). At the same time, issures erupt. Daniel J. Smith, for instance, has shown in his study of Igbo burials the “fundamental contradiction in the patron-client structure of Igbo society, highlighted and exacerbated in rural-urban relations, wherein people are both rewarded and resented for success, encouraged to show of their wealth, and jealously begrudged for their achievements” (Smith 2004: 571). In fact, while funerals are undoubtedly moments of expression of kin and group solidarities, they can also be moments when the failures and the deadlocks of kinship and family are experienced. Peter Geschiere, for instance, noted the profound ambivalence Cameroonian urban elites may have toward their place of origin. Being buried “at home” is still very important in southern Cameroon (as elsewhere), where autochthony is a dominant theme of national politics, but when returning home for funerals, urban elites oten feel such intense pressure to share and to spend money that such occasions are apprehended with anxiety or even fear (Geschiere 2005: 52–55). he rhetoric of kinship in these contexts covers and conceals the diferences between urbanites and villagers, but tensions and the limits of kin solidarities are of course experienced intensely and intimately by all participants in such occasions (Geschiere 2005).2 Genders and generations Alongside the evolution of the criteria of a successful funeral and the changes in urban-rural relations, the fundamental social and cultural changes of the last decades also saw the reconiguration of the relations between genders and generations, which inescapably afected funerals. While the social wars 20 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret of status-making and the family competitions for prestige have dominated the profusion of research on southern Ghanaian funerals (see notably Gott 2007; Mazzucato et al 2006; de Witte 2001 and 2003; van der Geest 2000 and 2006; Arhin 1994), the transformation of relations between genders and generations has been at the heart of research on funerals in Central Africa. In Brazzaville, women are especially involved in mourning practices, and consider the ceremonies that end mourning periods as moments when their social identity and honor is very much at stake. Some women explicitly assert that they then “prove” to the other women “that they exist” through the successful organization of this ceremony in which women invest important sums of money, equivalent to several months’ worth of their income (Tonda 2000: 11). Indeed, despite the persistence of practices that humiliate widows in both rural and urban settings in some areas of Africa (Strickland 2004; White 2002), some studies have also highlighted the agency of women (Ngwenya 2002; Tonda 2000).3 In Kinshasa, across the river from Brazzaville, for at least two decades funerals have been at the very heart of the remaking of relations between generations. Groups of young men of the neighborhood regularly take control of funerals and use the burial ceremony to put social relations on trial, especially when a child or young person dies and witchcrat accusations are most frequent (Vangu Ngimbi 1997), transforming the funeral into an “intergenerational battleield” (De Boeck 2009: 54). Physically halting the bereaved family, whose elders they oten hold responsible for the death, these groups of men block the street and extort money from people passing by, pretending that it will inance part of the cost of the wake. In fact, they buy alcohol and marijuana, shout at the family of the deceased, and sing obscene and politically subversive songs. As Vangu Ngimbi (1997) in particular shows in his vivid ethnography, funerals here turn into potentially violent protests especially directed against the social groups that these young men view as oppressive: the economic elites, but more broadly the older generation, whom they violently accuse of immoral, antisocial behavior (see also Dississa 2003 and 2009 on similar situations in Brazzaville). In Kinshasa’s context of an acute and general crisis of social reproduction, and in face of the subsequent remaking of the relations between genders and generations, it is of course worth noting that these subversions of funerals are organized by young men, whose social condition and masculinity is particularly put under pressure by the greater diiculties they have in inding the subsistence that would ensure them full recognition as adult men, able to support a family. In accusing economic elites and elders of killing the young people that they are about to bury, they undoubtedly express their own frustrations, and protest against their own social destitution as much as against the witch that, in their view, has killed the deceased. Not every funeral, however, gen- African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 21 erates this kind of social and political protest in Kinshasa, and even less so in other cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (see Noret and Petit 2011). Associations When urbanization rates increased in several parts of colonial Africa in the middle third of the century, diferent forms and kinds of associations developed in African towns and cities. hese difused to rural areas, as villages tightly connected to towns quickly experienced the same burgeoning of associations. In the early 1950s, Kenneth Little pointed out that the new urban “social organization” of colonial cities was “based on” professional and ethnic “associations” (Little 1953: 277). While his sketch was somewhat rough, it nevertheless pointed to the quick development in African colonial cities of the diverse kinds of groups that partially replicated functions, mostly kinship functions, that other groups performed in rural areas. From the last decades of the colonial period forward, a series of new “associations” thus began to organize formal practices of solidarity among their members, in cities as well as in the neighboring and more or less closely tied rural areas. From the beginning, mutual help for the organization of funerals between members was an essential practice in these new solidarities (on Ghana, see Little 1953: 277–278; 1962; on southeastern Nigeria, see Ottenberg 1955). In late colonial southern Ghana, preparing a itting funeral for oneself or ensuring support when one was faced with funeral expenses may have been at the heart of membership in some associations, in particular those based on professional activities (Little 1962). In contemporary Africa, membership in associations is still oten tightly associated with funerals and support for members facing death-related expenses. In urban contexts, the roles that associations of people from the same region play, notably in bringing corpses back “home” for burial, have been documented in various regions, including West, East and southern Africa.4 Associational life in African societies involves things other than funerals, but concern for the ability to arrange decent burials for one’s close relatives (or even for oneself) is a major part of many associational practices in African cities and villages, as numerous studies have now demonstrated. From trader associations in Ghana (Lyon 2003: 16), Malawian “home villagers’ associations” (Englund 2001) or Cameroonian mutuelles organized in Yaoundé between people who share a common village origin (Atim 1999) to speciic “funeral associations” or “group-based funeral insurances” in Ethiopia or Tanzania (Dercon et al. 2006; Mariam 2003), as well as in southern Africa (Dennie 2009; Bähre 2007; Verhoef 2002), the social and economic support for funerals that associations provide constitutes a key part of what social actors expect from their membership. Diferent associations exhibit diferent degrees of for- 22 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret malization, however, regarding the forms of mutual support their members can expect: from conventional contributions to the members’ funeral-related expenses to very precise and codiied payments in the case of burial societies or “group-based funeral insurances,” the forms of trust and obligation are not the same everywhere. Associations that ofer their members forms of insurance for funerals seem, however, to constitute popular inancial services—or an “insurance for the poor,” as Philippe Lemay-Boucher (2007) calls similar associations in southern Benin—rather than new bonds between disinterested solidarities: it is the calculated, strategic aspects of these reciprocities and exchanges of support that are most oten central, and codiied, precisely deined contributions are the norm in the overwhelming majority of cases. Economic and social or moral support oten entwine, however, since members of “burial societies” and other associations oten take part in funerals through performing speciic tasks and activities. Technological changes and the material culture of death Technological changes readily adapted by entire populations played key roles in the evolution of African funerals in most regions of the continent throughout the twentieth century. First, the gradual difusion of schools throughout the population, from missionary and colonial to post-colonial, had by the second part of the twentieth century encouraged the propagation of writing practices and their appropriation for popular use. In the 1970s in northern Ghana, Jack Goody noticed that written lists of contributions at funerals were kept, a practice already popular in southern Ghana. hese records allowed for a more calculated mode of reciprocity (Goody 1987: 144–147; see also Vidal 1986 on Ivory Coast). Additionally, written records were and are necessary to the functioning of the above-mentioned associations, essential to the politics of death in contemporary Africa. Second, announcements of deaths were also progressively transformed by developments in public media, from printed obituaries in newspapers (restricted to a literate elite, see Lawuyi 1991 on Nigeria) to posters publicizing funerals in towns, as well as the growing prevalence of obituaries on radio and even on television in several African countries (Noret 2010 on Benin; East African Standard 2004; de Witte 2003 on Ghana). In parallel with the development of African diasporas in the last decades (and the growing movements for corpses to be brought “back home” from the West to Africa), electronic obituaries now appear on the websites of immigrant associations or churches. Anyone familiar with European neighborhoods that have large African populations will have noticed the regular appearance of obituaries on the façades of “African food” shops or bars that publicize deaths and funerals in Africa, or will have noticed mortuary night vigils being held in the neighborhood. African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 23 Today, printing facilities, mass media, mobile phones, and Internet announcements enable funerals to be advertised far and wide. In recent decades, the development of printing capacities and technologies also actively stimulated a new material culture of death, one that involved the distribution to funeral or postburial ceremony attendees of pieces of clothing (“wax”) and T-shirts printed with images of important dead (or, more recently, similarly printed plastic bowls and fans.) Less directly personalized, for a few decades now families and the social networks of the deceased have worn uniforms during the funeral or at later events (such as the “death celebration” in the Cameroon Grassields; see Jindra, this volume), which ofers a novel way of marking group ailiations as well as a new, material way to evoke memories of the dead. Important changes to the material culture of death have been in continuous development throughout the colonial and postcolonial decades. he colonial period saw—and saw irst in urban settings—a more extensive use of coins, European-inspired black clothes for survivors, and written obituaries or “faire-parts,” among other innovations. More recently, an entire “funeral industry” has developed. In regions like southern Ghana or southern Benin, funeral entrepreneurs are now to be found in every little town, renting all or part of the material needed to organize a successful funeral (Noret 2010; de Witte 2003). Additionally, many other professions obtain a signiicant part of their income from funeral occasions: from the masons and painters active in repairing houses before funerals to the photographers and cameramen hired to cover the event, funerals certainly increase the circulation of money in African economies. Finally, another major technological change profoundly inluenced African ways of death when mortuaries were gradually adopted in various regions of the continent. For the last few decades, mortuaries, where used, have enabled kin to modify the time structure of funerals and to delay burials for weeks or even months (Page 2007; Durham and Klaits 2002; Noret 2004; de Witte 2001; van der Geest 2000, 2006). he extra time allows people to gather resources, communicate the news to distant parties, and organize a grand afair for the burial of the corpse itself. his new time structure of funerals has of course had consequences for the whole cycle of “traditional” rites, at least in the regions where it was maintained. However, it has been unequally appropriated throughout Africa, and the existence of mortuaries does not necessarily imply delayed burials (Noret 2004). he interplay or entanglement of diferent factors must always be taken into account when understanding the diferent social uses of mortuaries. In many Muslim regions and countries, for instance, delayed burials are still avoided, since burying the deceased as soon as possible is a fundamental Islamic duty, but in Lubumbashi (southern Democratic Republic of Congo), the main motivation to avoid delaying burials seems to be 24 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret economic destitution, since the huge majority of households have neither the resources to gather and organize grand events, nor enough to pay expensive mortuary fees in the city’s “economy of precariousness” (Petit 2003; Noret and Petit 2011). About twenty years ago, scholars began to discuss funerals as events that also play a structuring role in ongoing processes of social change (e.g. Gilbert 1988; Vidal 1986). Funerals today regularly appear in the literature as crucial social moments where diverse solidarities and patronage relationships are (un)made, and communities as well as social diferences are (re)produced. Similarly, the grand size of funerals in many regions of sub-Saharan Africa is widely acknowledged, as well as the ostentatious and lavish nature of these expensive events. Indeed, in many regions, the internalized norms and social pressures of today oten convince the vast majority of social actors to organize obsequies beyond their means. he quest for family prestige and status is certainly a major cause of the extravagance observed at many funerals in contemporary Africa (van der Geest 2000; Arhin 1994). However, to assume this extravagance is mostly about ostentatious and strategic status seeking does not really do justice to the multiple tensions and frustrations that characterize the everyday life of a vast majority of Africans today. In fact, the potential expenses of mortuary events may be seriously debated in both nuclear and extended families. Writing about Malawi, Harri Englund writes that “the existential and material burden of funerals” may even be “particularly distressing for both moral and material reasons” in urban townships (2001: 99–100). In southern Africa, Erik Bähre (2007) similarly points out the diiculties and social and psychic tensions that arise from the diiculties in facing both the demand for solidarity that comes from burial societies and the obligation one has toward close kin within the household or family. Similar conlicts between competing social commitments exist in West Africa also (Noret, Jindra, this volume), and one could consider this general dimension of African funerals to be the alltoo-common hidden face of the lavishness that is more regularly reported. The AIDS pandemic and its aftermath he AIDS pandemic has afected large areas of the continent, including funerary practices (Dilger and Luig 2010). he rise of mortality rates in some areas due to AIDS and other diseases creates space issues that make it challenging to ind proper burial places in a number of areas (Ngubane 2004). In Tanzania, human resource managers complain that increased mortality from AIDS imposes additional costs on organizations because of the days their members spend attending funerals and the funerary costs which they help provide (Baruch and Clancy 2000). he increase in health care and funerary costs in African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 25 HIV afected households also means that people may fail to have enough money for other basic expenses as food, education, or housing, a situation that causes debts that can afect entire household and family networks (on South Africa, see Booysen and Bachmann 2002). he proliferation of orphans constitutes another dramatic generational efect, one that tends to increase the number of children who lack proper support for food, education, and health care. In western Kenya, funerals are sometimes organized without much thought about the orphans, and the assets of AIDS victims may be used to cover the victims’ own funeral expenses, leaving any orphans even more deprived (Nyambedha, Wandibba, and Aagaard-Hansen 2003). In Uganda, however, some funerals seem to have been reduced in scale in order to limit expenses related to deaths from AIDS (Schoepf 2003: 565). In a recent report from Malawi (Kiš 2007), the entire “funeral culture” is afected. Individuals have so many funeral events to attend because of AIDS deaths that they must pick and choose among them based on considerations of reciprocity. his changed cultural context means that burial places no longer have the signiicance they used to, and the sheer numbers of dead in places where AIDS is prevalent have in a few places caused radical changes in social practices (Ngubane 2004). In areas such as the Congo, AIDS, endemic warfare, and economic turmoil have ravaged the population. Filip de Boeck (2005, 2009) has written on how death has become a “banal reality” in Kinshasa, where corpses may be abandoned anonymously (see also Grootaers 1998), cemeteries are used for squatting, markets or drinking places, and coins and grave goods are dug up and resold. Even funerals themselves are raided by youth who demand payment as a form of appeasement. With death and cemeteries violated and made trivial in these various ways, respect for elders is lost in unprecedented proportions, and the social breakdown in Kinshasa seems almost complete. It is also interesting to note how this indicates that the fear of the pollution of death, traditionally as strong a notion here as elsewhere, is all but eliminated, though the fear of sorcery and the power of the dead that sorcerers utilize remains. his instability has also sparked some of the religious change discussed above, as De Boeck (2009) juxtaposes the strong growth and omnipresence both of death and of the new Pentecostal and other independent churches in Congo. In some areas of South Africa, because of AIDS, lack of space for burials, complications with transportation, and other issues, cremation is becoming more common among blacks (Ngubane 2004). Cremation in Africa has always been extremely rare (Lee and Vaughan 2008: 355), regarded as an “insult to the past” that “threatens the future with discontinuity” (Jua 2005: 346; Ngubane 2004: 175), and also expressed when ire or some other destructive method was used for disposal of a corpse to prevent someone, such as a witch, from returning (Einarsdóttir 2004: 120; Schofeleers 2000: 120; Noret and Petit 2011). 26 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret The transformation of African religious worlds he impact of religious changes on death rites in Africa has been ongoing for centuries, but in recent periods has become even more dramatic. Religious changes had multiple consequences, including the transformation of world views and of notions of personhood, death, and aterlife, as well as the transformation of social structures that allowed for the development of new associations and organizations based on a shared religious ailiation. he speciics of these changes in funeral culture depended on the epoch and the region involved. he Christian and Muslim inluence on mortuary processes has been extensive, and also played a role in conversions to the respective religions, with the two faiths sometimes inluencing the rites of the other as well.5 Also important is the aesthetic appeal of rites, those involving choirs, symbols, and an oiciant—a visual representative of a higher authority, whether a priest or a mallam—to conduct the service. Both religions had the broad efect of making rites across the various ranks of society more equal, since in many societies ancestorhood (the condition that warranted a performance of the full cycle of mortuary rites) was previously restricted to a small male elite. Along with changes in the disposal of the body and the rites associated with this, the most signiicant changes were in attitudes towards the corpse and the pollution of death, as well as interconnected beliefs about the presence and power of ancestors. The declining fear of pollution As the colonial era began, and at diferent times in diferent places, one can see a major transition from unmarked graves, or sometimes disposal of the corpses in the bush, to marked graves and cemeteries. Along with this oten came a shit in the shape of graves, where burial was the practice, from round to square, and with the use of coins. Before this shit, graves were let unmarked and allowed to grow over, whereas today they are oten permanently marked, especially when in cemeteries.6 Compound burial, probably the most common form of burial outside of cities, is now normally (but not always) marked. his shit to marked graves also meant a decline in the sense of danger that surrounded death and bodies. Fear associated with death, stemming from either the contagion/pollution of death or the possibly dangerous spirit of the deceased, was a common theme historically in many (but not necessarily all) areas.7 Where this attitude was prevalent, it was also oten connected with hurried burials. In Kenya, the quick disposal of bodies in the bush was common among the various ethnic groups of the Central Highlands, along with strong notions of fear of the corpse and pollution (see Droz 2003; Glazier 1984; Lamont, Droz, this volume). In Nigeria among the Rukuba, Jean-Claude African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 27 Muller noted in the 1970s that “when a commoner dies he is interred immediately and the fear of the dead and the hurry to put him away may stem from the fact that the Rukuba do not do anything more for a dead person except hope that he will not come back as a ghost” (Muller 1976: 270). In fact, where historical literature on death rites exists, it generally highlights notions such as the pollution of death and fear associated with it. he importance of keeping death at a distance was (and still is, in some areas) also relected in the language used surrounding death, characterized by avoidance, restraint and euphemisms (Barreteau 1995). However, the fear surrounding death pollution has not necessarily been equally strong everywhere, and there may have been early changes in notions about death in areas where religious cosmologies have been inluenced for centuries by contacts with the broader “Atlantic world.” he fear surrounding death, however, is much less common now than earlier in the twentieth century (Jindra 2005; MacGafey 1986: 70; McKenzie 1982: 9; Sepeng 1969; Wilson 1957: 23f). Where children previously could not see a corpse, now such cautions are much more rare—though again still found among more traditionalist groups (Gottlieb 2004: 94). Where burials used to take place at night, they are now done normally in the day. Delayed burial (along with mortuaries, as discussed above) also indirectly indicates that corpses are not surrounded with as much fear as has historically been the case in many regions. his decline is also manifested in the decline of puriication rituals, which in previous times most oten involved a ritual sweeping, washing, or shaving (homas 1982: 166f; Noret and Petit 2011), and which today have generally changed their focus from eliminating the presence of death to other concerns, such as sociality (Karlström 2004: 599). Connected with the decline of beliefs about pollution, the last century also witnessed the reduced length and severity of mourning periods and rituals, a reduction which of course varies quite a bit by region. In some cases, as among the Eik in Nigeria (Oiong 1987: 53), the reduction in length is from ive years to just a few days. hese changes have particularly lessened the burden on women, who in the case of the death of husbands frequently had severe restrictions placed up on their bodily care, mobility, and relations with others. hough witchcrat is still regarded as a factor in both untimely and “normal” deaths, the most institutionalized ways of dealing with such an etiology (as in “questioning the corpse” rituals) have progressively declined due to religious change, even if witchcrat-related deaths can still provoke intense and violent reactions in contexts of major family crises (on Ghana, see van der Geest 2004) or broader social turmoil (on Brazzaville, see Dississa 2003, 2009; on Kinshasa, see De Boeck 2009; Vangu Ngimbi 1997). Some of these changes are of course due to the impact of the world religions. Death is especially fraught with danger for the living if the deceased does not 28 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret depart normally, or if the deceased has special powers or feels anger towards the living. Christianity and Islam, on the other hand, at least in their oicial doctrinal forms, conceive of it as a passage that is harmless to the living. he decline of fear surrounding the potential for contagion related to death, in the many areas of the continent where these religions have taken hold, is rather remarkable. In general, one see this shit in the mortuary cycle, where the initial fear of the dead has declined, while the hoped for benevolence of ancestors remains, which may also involve a stronger focus on celebration.8 his marks a signiicant change, as many societies and cultures worldwide have long held (and some still do) strong fear of the spirits of the recent dead (Taylor 2002: 27–8). World religions and the changing meanings of funerals In precolonial Africa, the social ranking of an ancestor was most oten based on age, gender, marital status, and especially the existence of children. his was relected in beliefs about the immortality of the dead, and thus also in funeral rites. Commoners, the unmarried, children, women (especially those without children), and those deined as “bad deaths” were oten denied immortality as ancestors. his oten meant minimal or nonexistent burial rites and no secondary rites.9 In general, the inluence of the world religions has caused a certain universalization of the aterlife.10 With Islam and Christianity, individuals could be sure on the one hand that their religious community would arrange their burial, as Droz (this volume) describes in Kenya. On the other hand, the Christian promise of an aterlife was attractive to women and to others who were not ofered any aterlife under the traditional cosmology (Jindra 2005: 369; Hamer 2002: 608; Peel 2000: 176). Part of the attraction of the world religions, particularly for people of lower status, has been in these world religions’ funerary rites, the inal statement of a person’s life. World religions have profoundly remolded both institutional and communal forms of life, including death rites, world views, and religious schemes of thought. In areas of West Africa and along the East African coast, burial practices had already changed with the early spread of Islam. In Muslim areas, one common practice consists of a relatively simple burial soon ater death with low-key visitations in the days ater, followed by a memorial ceremony forty days later (Roberts, this volume; van Santen 1995). Many variations on this, however, occur in diferent areas and depending on the diferent Islamic sects (Langewiesche, this volume; Lee and Vaughan 2008: 353f). he more sober Islamic rites in some areas stand, for instance, in sharp contrast to the elaborate ones among the traditionalist populations of the southern Chad basin (Baroin 1995: 187). In fact, Islam is more decentralized than many major Christian denominations, with little direction from Hadith or the Qu’ran applying to African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 29 burials. his leaves signiicant room for local variations. In the last decades, for instance, even in regions where the Islamic presence has been longstanding and where the religious inluences between Islam and local “traditional” cults were for centuries reciprocal11 more recent and radical evolutions have taken place. In the Minyanka region of Mali, for instance, reformist Muslims have since the 1990s refused to attend funerals performed according to the local “traditional” bamana rites (Jonckers 1998: 42). his, however, does not prevent funerals from being grand, expensive afairs in both Muslim and non-Muslim areas of Mali, with quick Muslim burials followed by important post-burial ceremonies that mobilize extended social networks and receive multitudes of guests, ceremonies similar to those found in many other regions of Africa. In general, at the same time that funerary practices changed, control over these ceremonies also changed, with compromises and conlicts emerging among the diferent parties, both religious and otherwise. In fact, there is a considerable degree of diversity in religious practice in Africa today, and burial rites surely relect this pluralism, with a spectrum of practices that range from an exclusive commitment to the practice of one religion (even then with much diversity, depending on the speciic denomination or tradition) to the common situation of both Christian and traditional rites being performed in parallel, sometimes with tension, sometimes with mutual respect (Langewiesche, Noret, this volume; see also Okite 1999; Oiong 1987: 52). Actually, being buried “the right way” can be a key motivation for many signiicant life decisions in contemporary Africa, from religious conversion to choice of residence and even marriage (Langewiesche, Ranger, this volume). Moreover, tensions regarding funeral options are regularly found at the very heart of relations between the generations, as when the desire to convert conlicts with the desire to respect one’s ilial duty or parents. In places such as Mali (Jonckers 1998), Burkina Faso (Langewiesche 2003), and Benin (de Surgy 2001), conversions can be delayed ater one has taken part in the “traditional” mortuary rituals at one’s parents’ (particularly father’s) death, or ater the prohibition to conversion has ended with a parents’ death. Not only did “traditional” conceptions of death and customary funerary rites change with religious transformations, however, but the religions, particularly the Christian churches, also changed by adapting to local beliefs. At irst, nearly all mission-founded churches “insisted that their converts abandon all contact with African traditional religions and cultures” (Kirby 1994: 61; see also Spijker 1990: 131f; see Karlström 2004: 601 speciically on funerary rites).12 But in the second half of the twentieth century, more churches began to adopt elements of local traditions, from rites to musical styles. he Catholic Church led some of the opening to local tradition with Vatican II from 1962 to 1965, when it underwent a wholesale reevaluation of the relationship between liturgical and local cultural practices, including a beginning of the 30 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret “inculturation” of some traditional rites into Church practice (Lado 2009). Catholic priests in Togo may conduct séances to ind the cause of death, a process which involves ritual queries answered by Biblical quotations (Pawlik 2008). he kurova guva ritual among the Shona in Zimbabwe, which integrates the deceased’s spirit into the family as an ancestor, was adapted and reinterpreted within a Catholic framework that incorporated the concept of purgatory (Gundani 1998; for inculturated death rites in other areas, see Noret 2010; Shiino 1997; Mbuy 1994). Indeed, in several places, “a new form of Christianity is emerging, shaped by the conigurations of African life, bound to take account of the ancestors” (Walls 2002: 128; see also Ajayi 1993). Even within churches, however, changes are unpredictable, as in Cameroon where an archbishop in the early 1990s had been allowing burial in compounds if the body was irst taken to church. Prompted by reports of “pagan practices” at funerals, however, he then allowed compound burial with a church mass to take place only in situations where no church cemetery was available (Jindra 1997: 160).13 In efect, he reacted against this aspect of the compromise between Christianity and “culture” by promoting a stronger diferentiation between the two. Explicit breaks from “traditional” lineage rites and from ancestor veneration in general are oten stronger in Protestant and “African Independent Churches” (AICs), where an “anti-syncretism” discourse regularly dominates, although situations vary across the continent and although some churches take doctrinal positions that lean toward compromise (Noret, this volume; Engelke 2010; Anderson 2001: 202f). In the last three decades, Pentecostal churches, which are largely confrontational toward traditional funerary rites and ancestor veneration, have somewhat overtaken other AICs in growth and have shaken up the mainline mission-founded churches (Meyer 2004). Another source of tension ambiguity, occurs within the secondary funerary rites that can be held weeks, months, or years ater a death in various locations.14 In fact, calling them “secondary” is oten a misnomer, as they can be larger and more important than the “primary” burial rites. hese events can mark the end of mourning, the transition of the deceased to the world of the ancestors, the succession of a new family head or ruler, the dedication of a tombstone, or a simple Christian commemoration or memorial. In some cases—even in Christian areas—they are necessary to please the deceased, lest “bad luck” occur. Given the diferent beliefs and opinions that Africans hold over the presence and power of ancestors, and given the tensions over religious synthesis, these secondary events can carry a multitude of possible meanings (Noret, this volume). While Christian converts were sometimes pressured to forego some of these practices (Smith 2004: 573; Hutchinson 1996: 324), the desire or need to have postburial rites means that in some places, new forms of delayed commemoration are popping up that involve Christian memorial services (Spijker 2005: 164), sometimes combining these services with traditional African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 31 rites (Jindra 2005; Häselbarth 1969). As discussed above, these rites may also be combined with the delayed burials allowed by the use of mortuaries. A symbolic separation between burial and secondary events may, however, endure in both terminology and practice. hus in some places secondary rites are actually declining or disappearing because of the increased focus on the delayed burial (Roberts, this volume). he exhumation and reburial of remains, as found famously in Madagascar (Bloch 1971), are not common, but practices such as exhumation of skulls in the context of ancestralization processes do exist in parts of West Africa (Jamous 1994; Pradelles de Latour 1991: 87; Dumas-Champion 1989). Ancestors remain a “vigorous element” of most African societies despite their neglect by scholars (McCall 1995), and it is at mortuary rites where ancestors may be the most “visible,” and where processes of forgetting and remembering are oten framed. As Richard Werbner (2004: 139) writes on Botswana: “Having found a way to forget the dead, the living eventually become concerned to remember them, when feeling weighed down by aliction and by the intractables of social life,” a theme found in many places on the continent. he recent dead need to be safely forgotten because of the disruption and pollution death brings, but the need to remember and call upon them for help oten becomes crucial at a later point. In some of the essays in this volume, the ancestors become key players that inluence the living, while in others, ancestors are merely “remembered,” their power is muted, and other, more secular concerns come to the fore. Conclusion he changes in funerary rites on the continent have been considerable and complex, and we hope this volume gives the reader a sense of these changes as well as an account of how and why they have occurred. he complex literature on the topic, which we have attempted to summarize but of course can only sample, reveals the varying perspectives on the meaning of these rites. One may think of the ancestors irst of all, and the reality in most situations indicates a continued role for ancestors, but a more indirect one than in the past. As de Witte mentions in her chapter, changes in funeral celebrations oten “involve a partial shit from communication with to commemoration of the dead,” with a stress on the partial, as photos and other mementos oten still include at least an implicit form of communication with the dead. Religious, social, economic, and technological changes have combined in contrasting ways to ofer a type of immortality to a broader swath of people. In the meantime, one witnesses an ongoing creativity in the organization of funerals as people adjust to various upheavals while also taking advantage of technological changes and various 32 | Michael Jindra and Joël Noret new networks of mobile kin and contacts. One can see processes of “globalization” occurring in African funerary practice, but here as in other domains of social life, the complexities of local social and religious conditions, family dynamics, and aesthetic sensibilities surely continue to play key roles. Notes 1. Archaeological evidence of prehistoric burials in Africa is not extensive, but see de Maret (1994) or Meister (2010). 2. Tensions at funerals may exist for other reasons, of course, such as in Rwanda where survivors of the 1994 genocide continue to look for the bodies of relatives, and burials and commemorations continue to occur. Rival segments of the population, however, may not participate for a variety of reasons, including political reasons, but also notions of shame or fear of attack by ancestral spirits (Spijker 2008). 3. For an overview of the role of widows in African societies, see Potash 1986. Also see van Santen and Rasing (in press). 4. See Vidal 1986 on Ivory Coast, Smith 2004 on southeast Nigeria, Geschiere 2005 on Cameroon; Droz (this volume) on Kenya, and Durham and Klaits 2002 on Botswana. 5. See Pawlik 2008; de Witte 2001; Hastings 1994: 331; Gray 1990: 67f; Droz, Langewiesche, this volume. For a recent survey on religion across sub-Saharan Africa, see “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa” at http:// pewforum.org/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa.aspx. 6. For examples, see Werbner 2004: 139; Langer 2004; Vivian 1992; Lamont, Jindra, this volume. he following passage, from research in northern Togo, also nicely sums up the transition: “he use of a coin, the position of the body inside the grave, the decoration of the body—bring about the disintegration of the link between the funeral rituals and other aspects of culture. For instance, the dead are no longer perceived as returning to the mother-earth in the way they entered the world: naked, in embryonic position, put into a grave that is shaped like the womb. he disapproval of this situation is best expressed in the words of an old one of the old Bassari: ‘Is a man brought into this world in a box to bury him in a coin?’” (Pawlik 2008). 7. Examples include areas within these countries: South Africa (Hirst 1985; Schapera [1937] 1950; Gluckman 1937), Rwanda (Spijker 2005), Congo (Douglas 1963: 226; Manker 1932), Zimbabwe (Ranger, this volume), Tanzania (Wilson 1957), Sudan (Evans-Pritchard 1949), Cameroon (Jindra 2005, Bureau 2002), Ghana (Vollbrecht 1978), Ivory Coast (Etienne 1986: 253). For West Africa in general see homas 1982:166. For other areas of Nigeria, see Ogbuagu 1991; Forde 1962: 119; Meek 1931, and for other areas of Kenya, see Morovich 2003; Parkin 1991; Leakey 1977. his is of course only a partial list. 8. For mentions of these changes, see for instance Jindra 2005; Blakely and Blakely 1994: 410; MacGafey 1986: 71; Vansina 1973: 220; Wilson 1957; Gluckman 1937 . 9. See Ranger, this volume; Bernault 2006: 213; Jindra 2005: 364; Einarsdóttir 2004: 35; Awolalu 1996; van Santen 1995: 170; Parkin 1991; Spijker 1990: 92f.; Oiong 1987; Onunwa 1987: 42; Hirst 1985: 108; McKenzie 1982: 15; homas 1982: 136f; 1968: 120f; Glaze 1981: 150–2; Vollbrecht 1978: 310; Vansina 1973: 210; Bradbury 1965; Goody 1962: 149 . African Funerals and Sociocultural Change | 33 10. In Africa, personhood has generally developed over time out of social interactions and accomplishments (Peatrik 1991; Vansina 1973: 210, 220; Middleton 1971; Fortes 1971; Goody 1962: 149), and not from an inherent or ascribed status or rights, as in the Western tradition (Sahlins 2008: 101). (A reincarnated baby believed to be an ancestor is an exception.) It culminated in marriage(s), children, and any ranks or titles that may have been attained, all of these relecting a person’s social interaction and interdependency with family and community. Not having children meant not becoming an ancestor (where ancestor worship existed), with a major impact on the size of funeral and any secondary rites. “Strangers and friendless people, having no social relationship with the community, are buried without ceremony” (Gluckman 1937: 125). 11. Jean-Loup Amselle suggested, for instance, interpreting the local “traditional” cults of the Bamana region under the label “white paganism” because of the ancient and profound Islamic inluences that the “local” cosmologies and ritual systems have integrated, a category that would mirror that of “black Islam,” which has been in use for some decades to describe West African reinterpretations of Islam (Amselle 1991). 12. One still sees wholesale resistance to local traditions more recently among some churches (not necessarily those connected to missions) and in some areas, such as among the Nuer, where Christian converts in the 1980s turned to adopting the Muslim mortuary feast because their own church practices let them without postburial mourning rites (Hutchinson 1996: 324). 13. 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