Yes, you can take it with you
Before the pandemic sobered us up, some folks went to crazy lengths to make their funerals truly memorable, writes Fred Khumalo
When one of my wife’s great aunts passed away three weeks ago it was the first time since the advent of Covid-19 that I was directly exposed to raw emotions about people being denied the opportunity to bury a loved one.
My wife spoke as if it was her fault that we couldn’t attend the funeral in the Eastern Cape. Endless tears and mutterings.
It amused me that even though I had met the woman only once, when she came to our wedding more than 20 years ago, I would have been expected to fly to that part of the world to attend her funeral.
Failing which would have been a blot on my character. The family would talk about me for years to come: “What kind of mkhwenyana is this who doesn’t attend family funerals?”
In many cultures, funerals are intimate affairs where only members of the core family — sometimes as few as five people — attend.
In the black tradition a funeral is a major communal occasion. All members of the family — down to the remotest cousin by marriage — are expected to be there.
All neighbours are also expected to show face. In the township, everyone on your street is your neighbour. You have been to their house before, and they’ve been to yours.
If you don’t visit other people’s houses, and don’t welcome them to yours, people begin to wonder: what is he hiding? Is he a witch?
Naturally, because they are such big communal occasions, they put pressure on the bereaved family.
The coffin must be classy — or what will people say? Unlike Muslims and Jews, who bury their dead on the day they died, in the black community we take our time.
A funeral can be delayed for a week, sometimes two, while the bereaved family send messages all over the country about their loss.
At the beginning of the week in which the funeral will be held — we generally bury at weekends — friends and neighbours will start visiting the house to express their condolences.
When these people come they expect tea and cakes. Not those cheap flaky Tennis biscuits and Ricoffy. Something classy. Jacobs coffee and sponge cake for the inner circle, and Nescafe and Marie biscuits for the hoi polloi. But there must be tea and cake.
By the time the funeral comes on Saturday, the family would have dispensed hundreds of cups of coffee and biscuits.
On the day of the funeral, the family have to give the mourners full meals. Otherwise people will talk: “What misers the Khumalos are, they gave only samp and goat meat! Not even beetroot, pumpkin and good old John 14 [this is township argot for coleslaw].”
It’s not unusual to have 200 people attending an average township funeral. Obviously, the more famous the person, the bigger the crowd and the classier the food.
Black funerals can be fashion parades and car shows too. At the risk of offending close friends and family, I have never seen any of my close female friends and relatives attend a funeral dressed in an outfit they’ve used before.
A funeral demands its own outfit. When I raised questions about this I was looked at as if I was from an alien planet. “You want people to gossip about me, saying I held the late So and So in such low regard I even attended their funeral dressed in an outfit I was last seen wearing at some other function?”
Apart from being expensive, black funerals can also be markers in the social calendar. For example, March 28 in Jozana village in the Eastern Cape will from now on be remembered annually as The Day Tshekede Pitso Was Buried.
You might not have heard of Tshekede Bufton Pitso, but he was a prominent UDM politician and a very flamboyant character.
He must thank his lucky stars that his funeral happened just before lockdown came into effect, otherwise his instructions as to how he wanted his body to be interred would have been difficult to implement.
When he was lowered into his final resting place it was not inside a coffin.
Dressed exquisitely in suit and tie, he was seated behind the wheel of his car, complete with the seatbelt, just as if he were driving.
Then he was wheeled into a specially dug grave in his trusty Mercedes-Benz. That’s right, in his car.
Pitso’s funeral wouldn’t have been possible under the Covid-19 lockdown.
I can imagine that some of the people burying their dead under lockdown are relieved that they don’t have to spend so much.
But I can also imagine that some are highly offended that the money they’d put into burial society accounts will not be fully appreciated by neighbours and friends.
Burial society schemes are so cleverly designed that you cannot cash in your investments. The money goes towards buying a burial package that includes an expensive casket, expensive catering, hiring a marquee, the hiring of buses.
Even the poorest of the poor try their best — they go to loan sharks and all manner of lenders — to have a funeral that will have people saying, “Ag, shame, it was a beautiful funeral. Ag, shame, we even had some beer and whisky at the after-tears.”
After-tears is a noun. It’s a post-funeral ritual that seems to have been borrowed from the Irish.
During this ritual, people drink seriously as they reminisce about the departed. The Irish do the drinking and reminiscing in what is called a “wake”.
All of this does not and cannot happen under lockdown. I wonder what funerals will look like, postCovid-19. So much to ponder.
All members of the family — down to the remotest cousin by marriage — are expected to be there. All neighbours are also expected to show face