Would you relaxation in peace inside a vivid crimson chilli pepper? Or enter your everlasting slumber inside a picket pineapple or an outsized cell phone? Fantasy coffins, an more and more in style funerary custom in Ghana, present an outlandish various to austere picket caskets.
Fantasy coffins not solely add color and sweetness to Ghanaian funerals but additionally seem in artwork galleries around the globe. In the meantime, increasingly more curious travellers are searching for out the coffin makers of Ghana, keen to fulfill the gifted sculptors who ship folks to the afterlife in type…
Meet the coffin makers of Ghana
Identified regionally as abebu adekai (actually, ‘proverb packing containers’), fantasy coffins are picket and vaguely rectangular, however their similarity to strange caskets ends there. They’re artistic endeavors, impressed by animals, family objects, modes of transport and even meals. Fantasy coffin makers pour years into their craft, combining carpentry expertise with a watch for whimsical design.
One in all 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 mirror an individual’s abilities 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 crimson 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 means of 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 method of honouring the lifeless.
Whereas the concept of burying Grandad in an enormous shoe or plantain may appear uncommon to some, fantasy coffins remind folks about how their family members had been of their prime. The extra vibrant the design, the extra it transforms the environment 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. ‘When you see a mic, it tells [people] it’s a musician, you see?’ says Eric. ‘Individuals begin pondering: a musician? What sort of music [did he sing] when he was alive? It modifications the environment.’
Evaluate that to a plain picket casket, reflecting the silence of dying again to you.
fee a coffin
Whether or not you need to be buried in a beer bottle or a Bible, there’s an opportunity one in all Ghana’s coffin makers has acquired that very request. Fantasy coffins are made to order, and households usually method coffin makers with a transparent concept of the casket’s form and design. Planes, boats and automobiles are frequent selections, although if you happen to’re in no hurry to fulfill your maker, maybe a snail-shaped coffin could be extra your velocity.
A lot 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],’ recollects Eric. ‘I don’t like snakes, however due to the character of the work and the way the girl got here and talked to me, I stated: “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 signify a chief,’ explains Eric. ‘So in case you are 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 an alternative.
Quickly after, Kane Kwei crafted a plane-shaped coffin for his grandmother, who by no means had the possibility 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 grew to become a high-quality artwork.
For individuals who may afford them (they value many instances greater than a daily coffin), fantasy coffins grew to become more and more in style – particularly amongst Ghana’s Ga neighborhood (in and round Accra) and spreading north and east to Ashanti land and Ewe land.
From native farewells to international fascination
When you assume it’s a disgrace to bury these fantastical creations, many collectors agree. Fantasy coffins are snapped up by artwork lovers (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 inventive 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 automobile 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 executed precisely what they’ve requested.’
The power 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 art work not solely in the local people however [for] folks to see what we will do as Ghanaians. That that is our tradition. That is for Ghana.’
Meet Ghana’s coffin makers for your self on Intrepid’s new 15-day Benin, Togo & Ghana Journey. Discover out what else is new for 2025 with The Items.
