From My Diary:Ebola and our love for corpses

A few city authorities in this country have gone on record as having banned the display of corpses in what is commonly known as ‘wake-keeping’. If my memory has not failed me, this is the case in most towns in Fako Division.

I also want to believe that those who conceived this piece of legislation, leading to the ban on wake-keeping with corpses, had a motive to cut down funeral costs and the negative financial repercussions this funeral expenses can inflict on the bereaved family.

I also want to believe that it had to do also with some accompanying health hazards, knowing how much Cameroonians pay so much attention to their beloved ones who they may see no more. For this second motive for this ban, I doff my hat for those who thought of this action.

I am moved to open up my diary to this topic by an experience at a wake-keeping ceremony in Douala. In this part of the country and especially with the SAWA people, admiring a well dressed corpse is one of the primary reasons for attending wake-keeping with corpses.

The admiration starts from the coffin and there are terribly skilled designers now, displaying all forms of coffins, some designs are in the form of Hummer jeeps, with wheel. In my wake-keeping experience in Douala, it was a female relation of mine we were mourning.

The coffin was superb, her dressing, carefully cut and stitched by a specialist, because the deceased herself was a designer of wedding and funeral dresses. The corpse was laid in a well prepared bed or something like a bed well arranged.

At the side where the head of the corpse was placed, there were two old women, constantly moving closer to the corpse and beating intruding flies that were attracted by whatever odour attracted them to the corpse. Towards the legs of the corpse where she laid were other two women, this time not old women doing the same job like the other two women I had just described.

Then suddenly an announcement is made inviting people in, to pay their last respect to the dead. Usually the room is stuffy and one can feel a strange air in the room, strange enough to suffocate a weak pulse.

As people stream-in past the corpse, there are some who even decide to stay a little longer to admire the corpse, until some one reminds him or her that they are blocking the way.

At the end of this march past, the mourners go back to their seats outside not far from the corpse and food and drinks are served. This, of course is a serious health hazard which we tend to undermine.

As Africans, I am sure our brothers and sisters in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone must have been sharing this culture with us long before Ebola knocked on their doors and stayed.

Today, even to greet a closest friend or relation has become a taboo; talk less of adoring the corpse of an Ebola victim.

In some of our societies today, especially the SAWAS, there is the tendency of seeing old women carrying their mats or little mattresses to mourning homes where they spend several days under the pretext of comforting the bereaved. At least they are fed throughout their stay.

With Ebola threatening, I begin to wonder what our love for corpses will turn into. I therefore congratulate those who banned wake-keeping with corpses for their foresight. It is an important preventive measure against a likely invasion by Ebola.