Saturday mornings in Kumasi are a sight to witness; traffic jam, loud blaring music, jams and crowds of people uniformly dressed in their red/black funeral cloth. This is to pay their last respect to a dead one. These funerals are not the normal kind of funerals you would witness in other parts of the country. In a layman’s language, we will say that Ashantis typically take funerals personal. In this article, we are going to give you reasons why the typical Ashanti funerals are rated one of the best in Ghana.
1. Funeral food
Have you heard that funeral food is sweeter than wedding food ? If you haven’t, let me assure you that this saying is principally attributed to the funeral food served in this part of the country. Ashanti women will rarely hire professional caterers to do the cooking for them. Not at all! They will do their own shopping, gather and cook together. There are always the older women around during the cooking hence lots of instructions on traditional cooking methods. Not only do they save money by doing this, the end result is terrific! You can ask Mr. Pocu of He has full details.
2. Entourage of rented mourners
The most important aspect; rented funeral mourners! If you are not familiar with this term, you may want to witness it in Kumasi. In the typical African setting, we believe that the number of mourners present at a funeral show how important the person was whilst alive. For instance, if there are about a group of more than five women mourning a dead man, it could imply that he was a generous and rich man.As a result, families who want to attract a lot of attention and big talk hire people, usually women, to mourn the dead person. Thus, funeral mourners have become a popular and lucrative business.
3. Boogie down
After mourning comes joy! After the mourning show, so everyone steps onto the dancing floor after having had some few bottles of beer whilst signaling their nieces and nephews to pass the black polythene bag so they can package some funeral jollof home. They perform a showcase of their rich cultural dance; Adowa and then crown it with hot dazzling moves. Trust me, not even the oldies are left out on this one.
4. Unsingle Me
The bonus to being on one of these funeral grounds is that you can go home “unsingled” (lol). There are usually a number of young ladies and gentlemen who come to these funeral grounds to find a forever-partner. Do not be surprised therefore if you see a lot of hot dancing on the floor when the music is turned on.