Sunday 13 September 2009

Going out with a bang, stitched up or in a puff of smoke

I spent an afternoon at the British Museum recently, primarily to see the display of Chinese ceramics. But it’s the Ghanaian coffins that have stuck with me.

Local carpenters can shape and paint your coffin to resemble absolutely anything – there’s even a camera coffin in the museum’s collection. A search online unearthed everything from Mercs (the favoured car in Africa) to fish to cellphones to aeroplanes to pineapples. One man’s love of smoking made him choose a cigarette coffin, a sort of fly in the face of adversity deathbed gesture. But my favourite has to be this one:


I’ve entertained the notion of foregoing a coffin and being cremated in my favourite quilt, but haven’t been able to get my head around wasting a good quilt like that. Perhaps I could get a friendly Ghanaian carpenter to carve me a wooden version instead…

4 comments:

Liz said...

That is beautiful. I don't remember seeing those when I was at the museum. Though that was back in 1986, so they probably weren't there. Guess it is time for another visit...

tintocktap said...

You've been tagged - see my blog!

kat said...

We've come across these in our Guinness Africa research. Crazy but oh so creative.

Jackie said...

Hello. You are a no reply blogger so I am replying here..nice to meet you. I chose this post because I recently realised no one will want my stash when I go so i told my husband to put me on top of it and light a match!!
Oh! How funny ..the word for verification is 'embacarm' a brand of funeral director?