Burial traditions die hard in Kenya despite modern life pressures

Contrary to the narrative popularised at the beginning of colonialism by missionaries and settlers that Africans were primitive and practised pagan worship, research has shown that most African societies believed in a supreme being, who was the author of our existence. The dead were also believed to be nearer to the supreme being than the living.

In African societies, the concept of life is intricately connected to death and, in fact, they are not mutually exclusive but exist in a continuum. According to many traditions, death is merely a rite of passage to another plane of existence, a transition which does not change or alter the life or temperament of a person but only causes a change in its form. Individuals who have died become ancestors and continue to “live” in the community and to commune with their families. The predominant purpose of death was for one to become an ancestor.