DEATH AND PEOPLES’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS DEATH

THE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF DEATH AMONG THE NAWFIA IGBO OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Mortuary rites appear to be a cultural universal that bears a people’s cosmology in a measure very large and significant. The present study investigated the autochthonous mortuary rites of the Nawfia Igbo and how it has been affected by Christianity. The main data collection strategy was the participant-as-observer option of participant observation, which began on April 2012 and ended November 2012. It was supplemented with the in-depth interview and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) categories as appropriate. Although the people of Nawfia generally regard death as painful (onwudiwe), it is not to them only a physiological phenomenon or simply a sudden expulsion into a void. It is rather a major turning point in the human cycle; and so other defined states must be passed through before the final and complete fusion with the other world. Thus, we see that death is not simply an end in itself but it is also the beginning of a new life in another world.