To browse Academia. The paper explores the changing nature of funeral celebrations in Asante, Ghana, highlighting the significance of these events in social life and cultural identity. Through personal narratives and ethnographic observations, the author emphasizes the role of family and community in mourning practices, as well as the evolving customs that reflect broader social changes.
It is a reflective account of the author's deep connections with the Asante community and the meaningful lessons learned about life and death. This paper is based on conversations and observations made during anthropological fieldwork conducted in a rural town in southern Ghana. The author views funerals as a form of care which a family provides for old people after death.
Both old and younger members of a family regard a fitting funeral as indispensable to mark the life of a person as successful. It is a family's responsibility to arrange a funeral. The author attempts to understand the meaning of funerals for older people, and draws attention to a common discrepancy between the grandness of funeral celebrations and the poor quality of care and moral support which old people enjoy from kin during the last years of their lives.
Most older Ghanaians appear to support this view. To understand the grandness and emotion of Ghanaian funerals we need to look at the living rather than the deceased; we should think less of religion and more of politics, particularly the politics of reputation. The author takes the discrepancy between premortem and postmortem care as a starting point for his exploration of the meaning of funerals in a rural Akan community of Southern Ghana. The essay is based on conversations with elderly and younger people and on personal observations and attendance at funerals during anthropological fieldwork.
Funerals are first and foremost occasions for the family to affirm its prestige and to celebrate its excellence. When thinking about their own funeral, the elderly are ambivalent. On the one hand, they criticize the overemphasis on funerals at the expense of proper care during their lives.
