TRADITIONAL BURIAL AND FUNERAL RITUALS IN UMUMBA-NDIAGU: A CONTROVERSY BETWEEN TRADITION AND CHRISTIANITY

Abstract

The traditional rituals at burial and funerals portray something about a man’s inner religious awareness, his vision and his belief about the cosmos. The belief of Umumba-Ndiagu people in ancestral existence is the clearest expression of their faith in life after death. The same belief is also the dynamic hope of the traditional Igbo—that after a successful life on earth, one could be happily gathered with his forefathers in the land of the ‘living dead’, to continue the interminable cycle of life. This transition from the physical existence to the invisible existence takes place in the land of the ancestors. It is for this reason that the dead is accorded a special ritual before and after burial. Despite this, traditionalists and Christians in Umumba-Ndiagu run into conflicts on the presentation of material and items for funeral rituals. The presentation of certain items, type, quality and quantity differ between traditionalists and Christians. Also, the issue of killing life animal ranging from fowl, goat, cow and used the blood to sprinkled on the eye or body of the corpse before burying the corpse and the shaving of the hair of the close relatives were other major problems affecting burial and funeral rites in Umumba-Ndiagu. The purpose of this is to examine traditional burial and funeral rituals in Umumba-Ndiagu: a controversy between tradition and Christianity. This study adopted qualitative method of data collection. This study used secondary data collected from the review of literatures in textbooks, journal articles, library and the internet. This study adopted method content analysis to analyze the contents. The findings of the study showed that burial and funeral rituals in Umumba-Ndiagu are deeply rooted in Igbo traditional belief and values which many parts are serious opposed by the Christian doctrine. Also, the findings of the study indicated that the people of Umumba-Ndiagu seriously believed that failure to perform all the traditional funeral rituals to send the dead home posed socio-religious consequences such as unidentifiable sickness, spirit haunting, trouble in business, death of livestock, death in very severe situations, seen the spirit of dead person on the road, market and in the farm. The finding also, showed that this beliefs made people of Umumba-Ndiagu to attach much importance to funeral rituals according the demands of the tradition. The study recommends that since tradition of Umumba-Ndiagu and that of Christianity are different belief systems from each other on the issue of burial and funeral rituals, both of them should be practiced differently in the community and avoid clashing with each other.