Oops...
I have a number of great photos and a post on the toipc of my mother's visit- but I was just shocked twice trying to plug in my flash drive... and thats really all I can take for the day.
Check back soon. Dem dey go come.
Check back soon. Dem dey go come.
posted by K at 10:46 AM
1 Comments:
I have been a constant visitor to your website and ocassionaly take issue with some comments. But to a large extent I enjoy most of what you write and love the pictures. I am Bafut and will like to give some feed back on your piece about "cry die." I was offended by the choice of words you used, "dance on the corpse" while refering to the act of trying to compact the earth over the coffin as it sits in the grave. When you attend a burial in the states, if the body is to be buried not crimated, chances are you walk away once the body has been lowered into the grave and you toss flowers and a hand full of soil into the grave. The undertaker uses earth moving equipment to push soil into the grave. Its the same equipment he uses to compact the soil over the grave. In Bafut, such equipment are not availabe. The burial of anyone is solely the responsibility of family members and sympathizers.
You must have noticed that graves are deeper and rainfall is heavy in Bafut.
The kneading of the soil in the grave does two things. It compacts the soil well enough to forestall run off from exhuming the corpse. Secondly, Bafut used to have alot of wild animals, hyenas included. The deep graves plus the compacting of the earth over the corpse kept such animals from desecrating the dead. We don't exhume the dead in Bafut. Its an abomnation. Prior to western influence, coffins were made with bamboos and a single rip from a hyena will definately do a lot of harm to a dead body.
Finally, the Bafut people cry die twice.When the person dies, there is the initial grieving period which lasts for a week. There is a later cry die which is more of a celebration to put a final closure to the person's life on earth.These celebrations were marked by eating achu, boiled plantains and maize, dancing and drinking of palm wine. Again, western influence introduced beer and other forms of non traditional alcohol which are expensive. You know just as well as I do that the breweries that churn out these drinks are subsidiaries of some companies no where near Bafut. So, don't blame them for wasting their hard earned francs on alcohol, blame its introduction into their midst, and how they are enticed daily to keep drinking. Let me tell you a bit of my experience with multi-national companies in Bafut. In the early 60s when I was about 6 or 7 years old, we went to see our first motion picture in the Fon's palace. It was being shown by the French tobacco company Bastos. I can't recall what the movie was all about, but I still remember the commercial that kept being repeated at intervals. "Bastos toujour, juene." Bastos is always fresh. I still wonder how I never smoked, but needless to say that phrase and the images of young men puffing away at Bastos cigarettes is still very fresh in my memory.
Thanks for serving in my village.
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