Life and death in Ibba

Death, as we know, is a part of life. Here in Ibba we have spent the last 8 months getting to know the traditional rituals practiced by families and the community around death.

Ibba is a town which could be described as a labyrinth of villages merged together. When someone has died in the night we hear the women wailing and people rushing to the home from all over the town. The wailing increases as more women arrive accompanied by singing and drumming. What follows are three days of mourning at the home of the deceased. The dead person is brought into the middle of the compound on their bed with mosquito net under a temporary shelter. The women gather tightly around the bed and drum, cry, wail, dance, pray and sing. Many people remain at the home during these three days – the women gathered around the body, or serving food and fetching water; the men, after observing the body, sit together separately from the women and children.

The men from the in-laws’ side of the family dig the grave, either at the home or in the church graveyard. On the second day there will be a Christian burial service conducted by a local clergyman and the body will be lifted and closed into a coffin and then buried. On the third day there will be a closing of the grave service and a cement structure is built on top of the grave. Over these three days the family are feeding all who have come.

It’s not just the family and close friends who will spend 3 days and 2 nights there, but the community as well. This means that scheduled events at the college, church and in the community, as well as businesses, are affected as everyone stops to lament together.

During September there were 3 deaths in one week. As you can imagine, the impact on the community was huge. People literally dropped their hoes and rushed to the funeral home, when the news reached them. Staying overnight in the open means people are vulnerable to mosquito bites and therefore malaria. This, and other customs, means that people are more vulnerable to sickness and disease during these times. The impact of death, therefore, reaches far beyond the immediate family circle.

For those closely related to the deceased, they face an additional cultural burden as there is a common practice and belief that when a husband or wife dies, the spouse and children must leave the home and not take any of the things belonging to the deceased or crops they worked on with them. They must return to their own family of origin. Such traditions increase the challenge of living in already difficult circumstances.

But, as with all life, in the midst of sorrow there is joy and laughter.

These women from our community bring a smile to people’s faces as they pass by with a vast array of items balanced on their heads. From jerrycans to bags filled with produce, we have seen all sorts of cargo. The balance and skill required to walk with a garden rake left us almost speechless!