Note: This was written for a class in African American Deathways for a course at Marian University.
The sounds of gospel music, church hymns, and spirituals rise to the rafters during African American Homegoing service as neighbors, friends, and relatives gather to remember a loved one. Soloists give praise to the deceased before lifting their voices in song. Friends and family rise to pay tribute to the dead who may be laid out in an open casket at the front of the church. After the funeral, the family and friends will have a repast where they will feast on meticulously prepared foods and share memories of the departed (Fletcher, 2021). An ocean away, the Konkomba people of Northern Ghana gather to mourn the death of a village elder. The men gather outside the home while the women sing dirges about the deceased’s courage and life deeds. Relatives and friends gather from near and far to pay homage to the lost loved one and a feast is held to celebrate his life. The decedent’s body is ritually washed and wrapped in cloth. Before burial, friends and relatives are given the opportunity to say goodbye to the deceased (Fletcher, Spirits & Hereafter , 2023). African funeral rituals are followed by feasting as a way to comfort the living and to thank those who participated in the funeral (Mbiti, 1991, p. 121)
Although outwardly African American Homegoing celebrations and the funeral rites of the Konkomba differ, Homegoing rituals contain vestiges of African funeral rites carried by slaves from their African homeland to America during the dark days of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the period from the 1600s to the early 1800s when 427,000 people were kidnapped and transported to the United States territory to become slaves (Plater, 2016, pp. 91-93). The traditional practices may have been altered and muted during the dark days of slavery, but the essence of these funeral practices has survived. Rituals can provide a sense of comfort as well as continuity and unity as they are repeated each time an event, such as the death of an elder, occurs. The repetition of rituals also provides a way for people to communicate what is important to young people (Mbiti, 1991, p. 131). Death rituals are especially important for humans as they provide a way for the community to come together and mourn and, in doing so, take away some of the burden of grief from the deceased family and closest friends (Plater, 2016, p. 85).
The African people who were brutally captured and taken to the United States, and other places, took with them only the clothes on their backs, seeds they may have been able to smuggle in their hair (Johnson, 2019), and their memories. These memories would have included memories of death rites practiced in their homelands. Although many slaves were not able to honor their dead as some slaveholders prohibited their slaves from gathering for fear they would use the gathering as an opportunity to plot an escape, some slave holders did allow their slaves to gather to bury their dead (Cann, 2020, p. 3). Slaves were denied many of the ritual implements of their homeland, but they found ways to incorporate aspects of those remembered funerals into rituals in the new land and many of these ritual aspects continue into funerals today. These include music, ritually leaving the last item touched by the deceased at the grave, passing children over the casket of the deceased to protect them from spirits and death, and using randomly arranged writing to confuse spirits (Plater, 2016, pp. 102-103).
While funeral rituals in Africa were used to show respect for respected elders (Fletcher, Spirits & Hereafter , 2023), African American funeral rituals became a way to honor and show respect for people who may not have been respected in life (Cann, 2020, p. 2). Homegoing rituals also provide a way to transform individuals into symbols of freedom deserving of respect (Plater, 2016, p. 87). Emmett Till’s mother demanded that his mutilated body be displayed at his funeral as a way to both honor her son and to show to the world what had been done to him (Harvey, 2022).
Culture is ever changing and evolving as the past flows into the future and while the form of death rituals has changed as they were brought by slaves to the United States, the meaning hasn’t. While the first people kidnapped and brought in bondage to the United States may not have recognized the form of RIP t-shirts, but they would have understood them to mean that the deceased was a person of honor who was loved and missed fiercely by their friends and family (Fletcher, 7 Elements of African American Mourning Practices & Burial Traditions, 2021). They also would not have recognized the rap music being played at Rapper Goonew’s celebration of life while his corpse overlooked the festivities (UWUMAROGIE, 2022), but they would have understood the urge to honor his life through dancing and celebration.
References
Cann, C. K. (2020). Black Deaths Matter Earning the Right to Live: Death and the African-American Funeral Home. Religions, 1-15.
Fletcher, K. (2021, February 8). 7 Elements of African American Mourning Practices & Burial Traditions. Retrieved from Talk Death: https://www.talkdeath.com/7-elements-of-african-american-mourning-practices-burial-traditions/
Fletcher, K. (2023). Spirits & Hereafter .
Harvey, A. (2022, October 5). The Inspiring Story Of Emmett Till’s Mother — And How She Became A Civil Rights Hero. Retrieved from ATI: https://allthatsinteresting.com/mamie-till-mobley-emmett-till-mother
Johnson, E. O. (2019, January 30). How hair was used to smuggle grains into the Caribbean by African slaves. Retrieved from Face2Face Africa: https://face2faceafrica.com/article/how-hair-was-used-to-smuggle-grains-into-the-caribbean-by-african-slaves
Mbiti, J. S. (1991). Introduction to African Religion (Second Edition). Long Grove: Waveland Press, Inc.
Plater, M. A. (2016). African American Entrepreneurship in Richmond, 1890-1940: The Funeral Industry and the Story of R.C. Scott (Garland Studies in Entrepreneurship). New York: Routledge.
UWUMAROGIE, V. (2022, April 5). Mother Of Rapper Whose Body Was Put On Display In DC Nightclub Says ‘I’m Pleased With How I Sent My Son Away’. Retrieved from Essence: https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/rapper-funeral-at-club/