As Ethiopians, we have elaborate traditions associated with death and funerals. When someone dies in Ethiopia, in addition to the conventional signs of grief, there are specific characteristics unique to our country, although it may vary from region to region. For instance, the celebration of the dead takes a longer process.
Handling the body, managing the funeral process, and the commemoration of the death follows culturally prescribed rituals. This article looks at Ethiopian funeral traditions and is part of a series that highlights how different cultures care for their dead.
Ethiopian Funeral Procession. Photo by Rod Waddington (cc license).
Initial Response and Announcement of Death
Back home, the news of death is orchestrated very carefully. Delivery of news about death is one of the largest issues of difference for the Ethiopian community as compared with other communities. If someone dies late in the day, the news is kept quiet, because there is not enough time left in the day to organize the burial.
The announcement of the death is made the next morning when there is enough time for people to prepare for the burial. Sometimes, family members may know of a loved one’s death but remain quiet if it happens late in the day, in order to give enough time for people to organize. Burials don’t happen after 4:00 PM, so a person who dies later in the day will be buried the next day. A burial may happen on the same day as death when the death happens early in the day.
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Back home when there is a death, the immediate family usually isn’t told right away. An elder is called upon to deliver the news. Here in the United States, this news-telling tradition is not quite the same. A close friend or family relation, other than an immediate family member, is still told first.
The best action is to go to deliver the news with someone the family knows. It is better to contact someone from the community to help deliver the news than to go alone. If there is a situation where a parent passes away and the Medical Examiner can notify either the daughter or the son, it is not really important which one is chosen. However, a woman may handle the news more emotionally than her male counterpart.
As soon as the bad news is announced, people start gathering at the deceased’s home to comfort the grieving family.
Expressions of Grief
Families are expected to express their grief openly. Everyone grieves openly by loudly crying and wailing, saying the deceased’s name, and beating their foreheads and chests. Usually, they cry, wail loudly, call out the name of the deceased, and beat their foreheads and chests. Physically injuring yourself to express grief is common and even expected in certain areas of Ethiopia. And crying shows that the deceased was loved.
Female relatives may scratch their face and tear out their hair, throw themselves to the ground, faint, or attempt to harm themselves as a manifestation of intense grief. Women also may scratch their face, tear out hair, throw themselves on the ground, faint, or do other harmful acts to express grief.
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Some people may choose to sit in silence rather than talk with the grieving family. Physically being there is the most important thing. Conversations are still welcome, but laughter is rude.
Community Involvement and Support
In Ethiopia, we have burial societies that operate when there is a death in a neighborhood community. Almost all Ethiopians are members of an Eder in their own localities. An Eder is a social association akin to funeral insurance. As an Eder member, one pays the allocated membership fee (usually affordable and small amount) monthly.
Members of a burial society pitch in money every month for membership. When there is a death, the society is responsible for making the announcement and for taking care of all the organizational details of the funeral. In this way, death is a community responsibility. For three days after a death, a family doesn’t have to do anything except to mourn.
Community members visit and comfort the grieving family during a three-day mourning period before the funeral. This also gives relatives time to arrive and pay their respects. Close family and friends of the deceased bring food and drinks. The grieving family isn’t expected to cook, work, or do other daily tasks.
If the deceased’s family doesn’t have a large house, they set up a white tent outside to hold more guests. The tent usually stays up for about a week as community members visit and comfort the family.
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Most Eder’s have in store all that will be needed for catering and practical items to the last detail such as plates, cups, pots etc; which will be needed after the burial of the deceased. With these they prepare food for the guests that will come to give their respects for the dead and for the family of the deceased. This will ease the burden of accommodating the guests by the deceased family.
Regardless of the time of death, the Eder trumpet announcing the death of the person who passed will be blown by the Eder trumpeter in the wee hours of the morning to advise members in the community of the Eder to be aware of the death of so and so and to be present early to put up the tent and bring chairs, plates etc to the deceased person’s residence to kick start the burial process and the grand send off the dead.
Funeral and Burial Practices
Rather than being a small ceremony for close family, an Ethiopian funeral is typically a large, community-wide event. As many as 1,000 people may attend the funeral. Everyone gathers for the funeral celebration with rituals depending on the deceased’s religion. Also, depending on the deceased’s age, some funerals may have more elaborate rituals than others. For example, an Ethiopian funeral for an elderly community member may have more funeral celebrations.
The burial takes place in either a Church or a Mosque nearby. Orthodox Christians typically can choose their own burial location, or their family can choose if they didn’t. They may choose their ancestor’s burial location or another meaningful location.
The Islamic burial ritual involves bathing and dressing the body and then saying a prayer.
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Mourning Period and Memorials
After the burial a lunch program will ne held at the family’s house. If the grieving family does not have a large house, a white tent will be set up outside or alongside the street for the people to commorate.
Following this other memorials will be held after three, fourty, and eighty days after the death of the person. Typically, the funeral day and the first 40 days after one is deceased are earmarked as a grieving period, following which normal life continues for those close to the deceased.
After the burial, mourning lasts for several weeks or even months. While mourning, women may shave their head and wear a black scarf over it. They also may choose to not wear makeup, fancy clothing, or jewelry. Men may grow a long beard and wear only black clothing.
Orthodox Christians also have a celebration on the 40th day of the mourning period. There’s a memorial service followed by a feast with hundreds of people. Family members decorate a small altar with a photo of the deceased, flowers, candles, and other decorations.
At the three-day mark, an early morning ‘crying session’ will be held, to remember the memories of the deceased. Another feast - a memorabilia- takes place on day forty following which things start to resume to normal. A widow grieving her husband’s loss, would typically sleep on a mattress on the ground for 40 days out of respect for her husband.
Burial Associations and Financial Support
Community members pay their respects by making a monetary donation to help with funeral expenses. Families are members of local community groups designed for raising funeral funds. Each group may have 50 to 100 families and they meet monthly to make fund decisions.
Practices Related to Suicide
For the family, a suicide death is treated the same way as other death. The family mourns the same. However, the suicide death is different for the church. They don’t do the church service. For other deaths, they pray sometimes the whole night, they do a special service, a special ceremony. For suicide deaths, they don’t do any of that. They say God made you and will take you, so it is a sin to kill yourself.
The family decides how they want to deliver the news to the priest. The family decides what to tell the priest. No social stigma is attached to suicide. It is for the family’s satisfaction of having the traditional ceremonies that they may say it is a natural death even if it is a suicide, knowing the priest will not see the paperwork.
Beliefs About Autopsy and Organ Donation
Beliefs about autopsy vary family to family. Some people may say, let the body rest. Some people may want to find out what happened. For this cultural group it is hard to generalize about autopsy. There is not a cultural or religious basis for objecting to autopsy.
People may think the autopsy is done for medical reasons like for the doctor to know how someone dies. Organ donation, like autopsy, is also an individual or family’s decision and not influenced by culture. An idea is out there in the community of new immigrants, that taking organs might be like killing someone before they are dead in order to take their organs.
Body Preparations
Body preparations require special care. For a deceased person from this community, it is better for the body to be cleaned and dressed by a person of the same-sex as a way to show respect.
Regional Variations
In Contrast in Northern part of Ethiopia namely Tigray while the other practices are the same the people try to recover from the sadness quicker rather than staying in the dark for too long. They even hire people to tell jokes and entertain the family.
