Photographing the Igbo Funeral: The Materiality of its Performance

Abstract

This essay is a re-engagement of my visual odyssey, verbal dialogues, texts, and proceedings that I have undertaken during participation in multiple burials and funeral events in past years in southeastern Nigeria. Responding to the emergent demands of communal and social responsibilities, it is the result of a gradual, thoughtful process that I explored while going through my photographs, diaries and interviews. I thought that scholars of funerals and burials in Africa had missed an opportunity to tell the stories of the funeral photographers and their photos of the dead. This essay is an exploration of a unique methodology in visual history where I attempt to understand what it means to photograph a funeral in eastern Nigeria. In a further attempt to examine the multiple meanings that can be derived from funeral photographs, I deploy storytelling as an essential ingredient, to arrive at a robust theoretical argument in the ethnography.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to the families of Chief Michael Ifeatu (Omechalunnia), Mama Okpuo, and Okafor Nwosisi for their permission to publish their funeral photographs. Many thanks also go to Nwoye Brown for allowing me the generous use of the photographs.

Notes

1 For a brief ethnographic sketch of the Igbo (also known as Ibo) people, see Amadiume (1995).

2 The Igbo Ikenga sculptural figure is a spiritual and physical embodiment of the heroic persona. With origins in the 19th century, Ikenga sculpture was revered: sacrifices and libations were poured onto it daily to animate its supernatural powers. Ikenga figures were seen to possess a live soul that listened and responded to the custodians (Basden 1938, 401; Stevenson 1985). The sculptures were revered in most clans as the iconic embodiment of the spirit of the dead. There are many types of Ikenga, but the most famous variety is the "warrior," a well-developed human figure with horns and a fierce expression. Ikenga ancestor sculpture was the ultimate consummation of the aspirational modernity of success in commemorative imagery. I demonstrate here the continuation and persistence of traditional commemorative imagery in contemporary Igbo funeral photography.

3 There are examples of the existence of similar altars in other cultures. Thus photographs of family members, both living and dead, feature prominently together with holy statues, religious pictures and other assorted objects in the home altars which survive throughout Mexico. These altars have a spiritual function as the sacred site of interaction between the human and divine, and a commemorative function in which the memory of ancestors is honored and a family history articulated through the display of trinkets, treasured mementos and family photos. These Mexican home altars are constructed and maintained continuously throughout the year, but special, more elaborate displays are created for important annual festivals such as Easter, Christmas and the week-long Day of the Dead celebration, which coincides with All Saints and All Souls Days in the Christian calendar. El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is the most important Mexican festival, when the spirits of the dead return to the family home to commune with their living relatives and feed together on the food laid out for them on the home altars. In some areas of Mexico these are constructed at cemeteries. Photos of dead relatives and items that once belonged to them feature prominently on the home altar at this time, acting both as a spiritual presence and an aide-mémoire. Their association with holy images links the dead with the realm of the saints, the Santos, and highlights their role as intermediaries who can intercede on behalf of the living. During this festival the home altar brings together the divine, the dead and the living in an effort to create a model of beneficial and productive relationships.

4 Jayne Augoye, 2021. “I recorded ‘Dad’s Song’ while watching my father’s funeral—Teni.” Premuim Times. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/music/music-interviews/450920-i-recorded-dads-song-while-watching-my-fathers-funeral-teni.html; accessed 16 Aug. 2022.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Okechukwu Nwafor

Okechukwu Nwafor (Okey, to his friends) is an Asst. Professor of Art History at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, CT. His articles have appeared in journals, including Cultural Critique, African Arts, African Studies, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Fashion Theory, Critical Intervention: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture. His first book was Aso ebi: Dress, Fashion, Visual Culture and Urban Cosmopolitanism in West Africa (2021). Email: [email protected]