Cooling the road
The role of music within the southern Ewe funeral ceremony
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15082201 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Burns (0000-0001-9098-5234, Binghamton University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 158-169 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Mortality (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1357-6275 • E-ISSN: 1469-9885 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13576275.2012.675235 |
| OpenAlex | W2019132941 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
This article examines the role that music plays within the complete funeral ceremony in southern Eweland. Beginning with the procession of the body from the morgue to the home, to the wake-keeping, to the burial, to the final grand funeral, music not only provides a timeline of the various funeral activities, it also signifies something about the identity of the deceased and the kinds of associations they had in life. Within the various funeral events, there are also different genres of music that evoke contrasting emotions ranging from sadness, cultural pride, spiritual power, bravery, and humour. Music also serves to bring the community together in the public sphere of the funeral grounds, to fulfil the shared responsibility of properly sending off the deceased, so they do not remain to trouble theliving. In Ewe culture, death brings about a state of hotness which must be cooled off through the collective actions of the community
Aesthetics · Anger · Archaeology · Art · Ceremony · Identity (music · Media studies · Political science · Power (physics · Pride · Procession · Sadness · Sociology · Timeline · Visual arts · Diverse Musicological Studies · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Social Psychology · South African History and Culture
| Highly cited | No |
|---|