Would you relaxation in peace inside a shiny pink chilli pepper? Or enter your everlasting slumber inside a picket pineapple or an outsized cell phone? Fantasy coffins, an more and more common funerary custom in Ghana, present an outlandish different to austere picket caskets.
Fantasy coffins not solely add color and wonder to Ghanaian funerals but in addition seem in artwork galleries world wide. In the meantime, an increasing number of curious travellers are looking for out the coffin makers of Ghana, keen to fulfill the gifted sculptors who ship folks to the afterlife in model…
Meet the coffin makers of Ghana
Recognized regionally as abebu adekai (actually, ‘proverb packing containers’), fantasy coffins are picket and vaguely rectangular, however their similarity to bizarre caskets ends there. They’re artworks, impressed by animals, family objects, modes of transport and even meals. Fantasy coffin makers pour years into their craft, combining carpentry abilities with a watch for whimsical design.
One in every of these artists is Eric Kpakpo Adotey, a husband and father of 4 kids, who carves coffins at Erico Carpentry Workshop in La, Larger Accra. For Eric, fantasy coffins replicate an individual’s skills and tastes – they assist mourners reconnect with the distinctive particular person they’re bidding goodbye to.
‘Your coffin speaks about you,’ explains Eric. ‘As quickly as folks see a pink fish coffin, it tells them that the individual is a fisherman. In the event that they see a soccer boot, they know that, “Oh, this individual is a footballer.”’
Speaking by your coffin
Many cultures in Ghana imagine that a powerful send-off can enhance somebody’s standing of their subsequent life. The flamboyance of fantasy coffins is a means of honouring the useless.
Whereas the concept of burying Grandad in a large shoe or plantain may appear uncommon to some, fantasy coffins remind folks about how their family members have been of their prime. The extra vibrant the design, the extra it transforms the ambiance of a funeral, sparking reminiscences and curious questions – an emotional energy that makes coffin-making extremely significant for artists like Eric.
Think about seeing pallbearers carrying a big microphone-shaped coffin. ‘Should you see a mic, it tells [people] it’s a musician, you see?’ says Eric. ‘Folks begin pondering: a musician? What sort of music [did he sing] when he was alive? It adjustments the ambiance.’
Evaluate that to a plain picket casket, reflecting the silence of loss of life again to you.
Easy methods to fee a coffin
Whether or not you need to be buried in a beer bottle or a Bible, there’s an opportunity one in every of Ghana’s coffin makers has acquired that very request. Fantasy coffins are made to order, and households sometimes strategy coffin makers with a transparent thought of the casket’s form and design. Planes, boats and automobiles are frequent selections, although in case you’re in no hurry to fulfill your maker, maybe a snail-shaped coffin can be extra your velocity.
Lots of Eric’s shoppers request coffins formed like canoes, fish and cocoa pods, reflecting frequent native occupations like fishing and farming. However eyebrow-raising requests are additionally a part of his job – and the client comes first.
‘One buyer requested a snake [coffin],’ remembers Eric. ‘I don’t like snakes, however due to the character of the work and the way the lady got here and talked to me, I mentioned: “Let me do that for her”.’
Your creativeness might haven’t any limits, however there are some coffin taboos. ‘A lion, eagle, elephant… most of them characterize a chief,’ explains Eric. ‘So if you’re not a chief, you aren’t allowed to make use of such a coffin for burial.’
The unstoppable rise of fantasy coffins
Because the Nineteen Fifties, fantasy coffins have grown from uncommon curiosities into huge enterprise. Visionary carpenter Seth Kane Kwei is credited with popularising them after he made a cocoa-pod-shaped palanquin (sedan chair) for a chief to make use of throughout a competition. When the chief died earlier than the competition, he was buried within the cocoa pod as a substitute.
Quickly after, Kane Kwei crafted a plane-shaped coffin for his grandmother, who by no means had the prospect to take a flight. For coffin makers in Ghana, the remaining is historical past: Kane Kwei’s apprentices set about chiselling, sawing and ending wooden, till the craft of fantasy coffin-making turned a advantageous artwork.
For individuals who might afford them (they price many instances greater than a daily coffin), fantasy coffins turned more and more common – particularly amongst Ghana’s Ga group (in and round Accra) and spreading north and east to Ashanti land and Ewe land.
From native farewells to world fascination
Should you suppose it’s a disgrace to bury these fantastical creations, many collectors agree. Fantasy coffins are snapped up by artwork fanatics (together with former US President Jimmy Carter) in addition to galleries: the biggest assortment outdoors of Ghana is in Houston, Texas on the Nationwide Museum of Funeral Historical past.
Travellers are additionally including fantasy coffins to their West Africa itineraries. Guests can pop into coffin workshops to witness the artistic flurry of sawing and hammering for themselves, hear tales from carpenters like Eric, and see their apparent satisfaction within the intricate self-discipline of coffin making.
‘My favorite a part of the work is the end,’ says Eric. ‘Once I’m making a automotive and anyone enters the workshop and is aware of that this can be a Toyota, or this can be a Mercedes-Benz…that makes me excited. I’ve completed precisely what they’ve requested.’
The flexibility to completely execute a household’s want and provides them pleasure and comfort at a heart-rending time of their lives is its personal reward. However Eric’s mission goes even additional: ‘I need to take this paintings not solely in the area people however [for] folks to see what we are able to do as Ghanaians. That that is our tradition. That is for Ghana.’
Meet Ghana’s coffin makers for your self on Intrepid’s 15-day Benin, Togo & Ghana Journey.
