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Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#141

Post by jillesvangurp »

TheGRS wrote: post #40

That was a very interesting read. I appreciate when anyone tries to dig into the actual why of culture instead of just leaving it at face value. I get the impression this is more of a working theory than factual on the sociological side, because I do think there's a lot of counter-arguments to be made about strong kinship networks that are otherwise wealthy and prosperous. And there's a pretty obvious parallel in wea…

Social pressure to do stuff like this is enormous in some families. It's not necessarily about the subjects (deceased person or the newly wedded couple) but about re-affirming the status of their relatives. Arguably the dead don't really care. But their nearest relatives definitely do care how they are perceived to be dealing with the death of the deceased. It underlines their importance and status. People come to "pay their respects". There's a whole etiquette around that.

In many cultures it used to be (or still is) quite common to treat brides as property. It's more like a financial transaction than a romantic thing. The groom's family "buys" the wife for the husband. Money changes hands sometimes. An elaborate party seals the deal. A lot of royal houses actually have a rich and colorful history with arranged marriages. And inbreeding because they jealously guarded their power by marrying cousins and managing how wealth and power is distributed via inheritance.

Of course grief and empathy with the mourning relatives is also very real and genuine and is mixed through this. Same with happiness for a newly wed couple.

And some of that empathy translates into people making sure they are there for the mourning family. So, they travel from far. And if everybody is coming, you need to make sure you don't forget to invite everybody else. People will want to be there. And that creates a need for a social gathering. And that in turn results in it becoming a big event. Which then that creates an obligation to make sure that all these people are welcomed properly. They need to be fed, entertained, etc. Or it would look bad on the family.

In short, it's all very explainable. But also a bit irrational to put yourself in debt because you are getting married or because somebody you care about passed away. Some people flip this with not wanting to impose on others with either their marriage or deaths. I'm not married and I don't believe in an after life. I've told my relatives to do what pleases them and works for them with my remains when the time comes but that I otherwise don't really care.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#142

Post by madradavid »

I am Ugandan. These kind of burials are unheard of in my country. The Author is labeling this an “African” thing which is just the usual daft nonsense. A number of Ghanaian and Nigerian tribes bury their dead like this , it is more a celebration of life. This is like taking something a small town in Louisiana does and declaring it an “American” tradition.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#143

Post by kingofmen »

stavros wrote: post #119
komali2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the State economy is capitalist, but the family groups are clearly operating under some kind of Communism. The article itself mentions it - "nothing you own is actually yours, everything is owned by the family." Thus wealth accumulation not really being possible, a hallmark of a communistic economy. This is my experience with extremely rural areas or tightly knit / kinship / indigenous cultures as well. They hap…

> My point there was that it's possible that an older tradition from a pre capitalist system that worked fine then is not compatible with how capitalism works. Many things aren't. Oh, yes, agreed there. I can imagine that these communities were very insular in the past, so there wasn't really anything to own that wasn't what they could immediately see and touch around the village. Then again, there wouldn't be a need…

A herd of goats and an apple orchard both exhibit exponential growth in production, to the limits of the supporting land (which admittedly may be reached rather quickly). Indeed this is the origin of interest: I lend you my goats for a season and expect to get back a larger herd. The argument that non-capitalist economies can't have exponential growth from investment is a non-starter.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#144

Post by JumpCrisscross »

decimalenough wrote: post #103
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money Are Indian families spending multiples of annual incomes on weddings? They're lavishly done. But the cost of labour, land and e.g. fresh flowers is also ridiculously cheaper in India than in the West.

Per Wikipedia, the average cost of an Indian wedding is six times annual income.

> Per Wikipedia, the average cost of an Indian wedding is six times annual income

Income disributions can produce that effect even if every couple spends less than a year's income on a wedding. This article says "out of 325 families that declined into poverty in western Kenya over a period of 25 years, 63 percent cited “heavy expenses related to funerals” as a major cause." I'm curious if we have similar statisitcs of financial burdens caused by wedding expenses.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#145

Post by stavros »

kingofmen wrote: post #143
stavros wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point there was that it's possible that an older tradition from a pre capitalist system that worked fine then is not compatible with how capitalism works. Many things aren't. Oh, yes, agreed there. I can imagine that these communities were very insular in the past, so there wasn't really anything to own that wasn't what they could immediately see and touch around the village. Then again, there wouldn't be a need…

A herd of goats and an apple orchard both exhibit exponential growth in production, to the limits of the supporting land (which admittedly may be reached rather quickly). Indeed this is the origin of interest: I lend you my goats for a season and expect to get back a larger herd. The argument that non-capitalist economies can't have exponential growth from investment is a non-starter.

Good thing nobody made that argument! My argument was that you can't hide goats.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#146

Post by SanjayMehta »

madradavid wrote: post #142

I am Ugandan. These kind of burials are unheard of in my country. The Author is labeling this an “African” thing which is just the usual daft nonsense. A number of Ghanaian and Nigerian tribes bury their dead like this , it is more a celebration of life. This is like taking something a small town in Louisiana does and declaring it an “American” tradition.

[flagged]

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#147

Post by lm411 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66
klooney wrote: post #2

> Modernity is about not doing what your family says The flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.

> flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad The happiest countries in the world are also rich [1]. I'm not saying you can't fuck up being rich. But it's a lot harder to be fulfilled if you're poor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2025_re...

Personal anecdote, having lived in a few very poor countries and a few relatively very wealthy ones:

1) In the poor countries, I find people are generally quite happy living their day to day lives but rate their happiness low - because they think people in wealthy countries have it so much better. I.e. they underrate their happiness because they think wealthy people must be so much happier.

2) Vice versa in the wealthier countries - so many miserable people, but, they feel that they can't complain because they see how bad things are in the poor countries.

I think these "happiness ratings" are a bunch of bullshit. Some of the happiest families and communities I've seen are in the poor countries while so many people are miserable and lonely in the wealthy countries.

I believe it is very very hard for a person to subjectively rate their own happiness. (Edit to add, especially when they are comparing their own happiness against cultures and people they have mostly only seen on TV).

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#148

Post by andrewl »

madradavid wrote: post #142

I am Ugandan. These kind of burials are unheard of in my country. The Author is labeling this an “African” thing which is just the usual daft nonsense. A number of Ghanaian and Nigerian tribes bury their dead like this , it is more a celebration of life. This is like taking something a small town in Louisiana does and declaring it an “American” tradition.

His article has a link to an article about Uganda called How the deceased are robbing the living. [1]

I know approximately nothing about Uganda, and I have no way of evaluating the article. Especially since I haven’t read it yet. But it does contradict Madradavid’s statement that these kind of burials are unheard of there.

[1] https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/magazines/life/how-the-dece...

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#149

Post by phist_mcgee »

tyeaglet wrote: post #131
kenferry wrote: post #46

The factual material about funeral spending costs is very interesting, but when it gets into "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" it seems rather… unsupported? That's a sweeping statement that actually requires understanding the whole picture, and the whole picture is not being presented. Is there reason to think the author truly has all the context to make these claims?

Korea used to have something similar to this phenomenon, although it wasn’t for the funeral. When the oldest man (probably the grandfather of a big family) has his 60th birthday, the entire family had to celebrate with basically throwing a days-long party. It was like a family duty for the rest of the family, and it was embedded into the culture so deeply so they wouldn’t simply think about the alternative of having…

So it was just the head of the family?

What if there were several of these birthday parties in succession due to siblings dying?

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#150

Post by overfeed »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #44
mlsu wrote: post #18

In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.

This seems very different that what the article describes. Sure, some young people may spend more than they can really afford on their wedding, but this still seems like a personal choice - tons of people have cheap weddings (or gasp, elope). I don't think may people are cutting back on eating (when they already suffer from malnutrition) to have a big wedding like how the article describes funerals in Zimbabwe. Plus,…

> to have a big wedding like how the article describes funerals in Zimbabwe.

I clicked through to the linked about Zimbabwe, and the article misrepresented the research (at best). The paper notes that when families have unexpected funeral expenses, they hold onto assets if they only have one in that asset class at the expense of temporary food insecurity, which would be like not selling your only car in the face of a shock medical bill and opting for cheaper groceries/ramen.

The paper notes that when Zimbabwean more than one item in an asset class, they are likely to sell one (or more). This reads a lot like generic loss-aversion and not specific to attitudes about death, which would require to be controlled against expense type (e.g. weddings, environmental disaster or unexpected loss of income).

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