Ghanaian Tribal Caskets Shaped Like Deceased’s Vice, Livelihood
Members of the Ga Tribe in coastal Ghana honor their dead with creative coffins that celebrate the way the deceased lived – for better or worse.
From Ghana Web:
The coffins are designed to represent an aspect of the dead person’s life — such as a car if they were a driver, a fish if their livelihood was the sea — or a sewing machine for a seamstress. They might also symbolize a vice — such as a bottle of beer or a cigarette.
It can take up to a month for carpenters to finish shaping the coffins, during which time the deceased is kept in a refrigerator at the morgue. It is considered bad luck to bring a coffin home ahead of time, so the coffin stays at the carpenter’s shop until the funeral day (which is pretty much dictated by the speed of the carpenter).
Click on the thumbnails to see the images full size.
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- Cigarette-shaped coffin being carried in a funeral procession in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. Relatives wanted to honor the dead man’s love of smoking and his cigarette business.
[Via: Ghana Web, Oddity Central]
ha… nice.
I wrote an article in college on this very same subject and almost no one believed me. Looks like people are doing more interesting shapes and fun color schemes. Way to go, I mean… if you’re gonna die… in my opinion, that’s better than being fed to birds on a high peak somewhere. ouch.