JOHANNESBURG – When Khumbulani Moyo learned that his daughter had died of pneumonia during a painting trip, it broke.
He then confronted South Africa’s new truth: his beloved Siphesihle Sithole, 22, is expected to be buried within 4 days, in the absence of parents other than his parents. Traditional funeral practices have been set aside.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought layers of pain to the country, more than 14,000 deaths and rituals to mourn them.
A South African funeral is regularly an elaborate affair, held from Saturday to Sunday, with a circle of relatives and other mourners traveling from all over the country, conducting night vigils and washing the body.
“A seed fell to the ground,” says a popular mourning hymn, the word repeated to the end.
Hundreds more people can attend the funeral, and some still do so despite new government restrictions restricting mourners to 50.
Some of these funerals have been accused of being highly propagative occasions of the coronavirus. Earlier this year, officials in Eastern Cape Province learned of two hundred cases similar to two funerals in the cities of Port Elizabeth and Port St. Johns.
Even South African leaders have damaged the rules. At the state funeral of prominent anti-apartheid activist Andrew Mlangeni, who decades ago was sentenced to criminal along with Nelson Mandela, members of the ruling party were criticized for not practicing social estrangement while crowding around the coffin.
Burying his daughter was a complicated experience, Moyo told The Associated Press. Relatives in neighbouring Zimbabwe and even other parts of South Africa may simply not attend, as between provinces it was prohibited.
And the frame did not pass over the day before the funeral, according to tradition, to allow the mourners to gather in the circle of relatives at home. Instead, the frame will now have to be transported directly from the morgue to the grave or crematorium.
Instead, some funeral managers agree to drive the hearse through the deceased’s space to the grave.
Tagu Sibeko, director of operations at Maziya Funerals in Katlehong Township east of Johannesburg, said the ritual that has been altered to the fullest through the new regulations is the washing of the frame through the circle of relatives before burial.
“In African tradition, the circle of relatives came here to wash the frame, then we put the frame in a coffin and on Friday we delivered the frame to the circle of relatives. He would stay there until Saturday, the date of the funeral. That’s absolutely changed.
“With COVID-19, the frame is already leaving the hospital already placed in 3 or 4 frame bags, which are meant to be open,” Sibeko said.
Due to the increase in the number of deaths, families can no longer reach the time of burial.
“We’ve never been so busy before,” Sibeko said. “We usually bury on Saturdays and Sundays, but that has replaced absolutely because now we bury every single day.”
He’s afraid of inflammation himself.
Some coVID-19 victim coffins are now attached with yellow stickers with a biological hazard symbol and the words “Very contagious”.
The CEO of Avbob funeral insurance company, Carl van der Riet, said the government regulations are making what was already a traumatic experience even worse. The company manages funeral payment plans for millions of South Africans and produces coffins and caskets.
“Customers and families face trauma and grief in other ways,” he says. Now, corporate agents have the difficult task of telling families that some of these practices are no longer allowed.
An informal culture around South African funerals is an informal collection after burial at the deceased’s home, called “after tears.” Early in the closure of the country, police arrested others in the capital, Pretoria, who organized a demonstration “after the tears.”
Those discovered with the guilt of violating the face of a fine or imprisonment of up to six months.
As South Africa continues to gradually block regulations, many expect such rituals to be re-allowed.
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