A History Of Death And Funeral Rites: A Case Study Of The Ga In Jamestown (Ghana)

Abstract

Rites of passage which are found everywhere in the world are life-cycle ceremonies that usually include religious transformations with a passage to the next stage of life. Death and funeral rites represent the last rite of passage and the Ga ethnic group of Ghana has its own unique way of performing them; their traditional rites which existed for a long period of time in precolonial society have drastically changed under the influence of colonial intervention and modernization. The other factors of change include the influences of the environment, ethnic conflicts, intermigration, religious transformation due to the impact of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam, development of trade, merging of cultures, etc. Early death rituals with their rich cultural heritage in the traditional Ga society and the environment are in imminent danger of being lost due to the impact of all these external factors, but some of them have been modified and kept within the new rites. Due to the multitude of variations of the rites among the Ga subgroups, the case study of Jamestown will be applied as a part of this research project. The relevance of the study is not only in its contributions to the existing knowledge, but also represents a new historical and ethnographic approach to changes of traditions, awareness of all these various changes for the particular ethnic group and an attempt to preserve some of them.