18/12/2023
Kofi suggests life goes beyond death and judgment. I believe it's our forebears speaking to him.
To the Akan traditionalist, life is an endless cycle: we live, die and come back to live again. Death is not the end but a transition, a renewal. After death, your soul travels to the land of the dead (asamando), spends some time there, and you come back after a while. Those who die young return quickly.
It may not make sense to the Christianised mind, but if you reflect deeply on it, the belief isn't different from the scientific idea of entropy, the great cycle from chaos to order and back to chaos. Your shirt, for example, was part of chaotic atoms that formed into an ordered fabric through a long process. When you finally discard them, they'll rot, and their matter will join the planet's atmosphere. When the sun shines, your shirt's atoms will go back to chaos and restart the process.
So, our ancestors' belief in reincarnation, an active life after death, or that death as a part of a perpetual cycle of existence stands on strong legs.
Before I die (not soon, I hope) and embark on the journey to the other world, the traditionalists around like Adinkra Boamah Biriko may try to give me water for the journey ahead. He may say something like, "Take this water, drink it, and make sure nothing bad happens to us as you leave."
At my burial, Nana Sekyere may also give me things, including money, for the lonely journey. The ancient Greeks did something similar; they believed that the souls of the dead had to cross the River Styx to reach Hades (the underworld, which is translated in the Bible as hell). Since the dead could not cross Styx themselves, people were buried with coins so they could pay the ferryman, Charon.
Farewells (funerals) are important to the traditionalist. In former times, failing to see off a guest to the gate or outskirts of the village was deemed disrespectful. Similarly, not to be mourned after your death is akin to saying, "The world would have b
