Funeral in Maseso

Her name was Eneless. Yesterday morning she died in a hospital in Zomba. Last night she was at home in her village, her cloth covered corpse resting on the swept earth floor in a small house where her extended family and friends paid their respects. This afternoon members of her Muslim faith attended Friday services at their mosque and then went to Maseso for the young girl’s burial.

We were invited to walk to the village with teachers and students from Namitembo Primary School where she had been in Standard Six. We understood that they would leave at “half eleven,” but when we arrived, the schoolyard was inhabited only by a few youngsters hanging around to play. Someone said they’d been gone five minutes. Chet and I decided to follow and perhaps catch up with the group. When we reached the pillar, a landmark at a crossroad, there still was no sign of a group. A couple of passing boys told us the funeral was up that road, so we started walking. Shortly, we met a lot of secondary students coming toward us and they said the funeral was over. So we turned back, pausing to walk through a small cemetery that we’d not yet visited.

“Annie, let’s go.” I heard. It was the Standard Three teacher and several others. They had been behind us all the time. We hurried to join them, relieved to be with people who knew the way. (That was not a nickname. She knows me as Mrs. Ann, and she adds “ie” to most names ending in a consonant.)

The next part of the journey was on a typical Malawi road, full of ruts, and crossed occasionally by small streams. It soon narrowed to a path though drying maize, grasses and past some fish farming ponds.
It was a gentle but definite uphill slope.

We passed another cemetery, nestled in a grove of trees. Shovels stuck out of a pile of dirt, next to the freshly dug grave.

About ten minutes later, we were in the village. We saw about twenty brick houses arranged in an oval with several outbuildings near each house. Except for large tree roots, the ground is swept smooth around all the buildings. Here and there are maize gardens with pumpkins and beans growing between the now dried stalks.

Chet was escorted to the men’s area. A little while later our friend, Fabiano, arrived and sat beside him.

I went with the teachers to the women’s area. They told me to wait while they entered the small building where the dead girl lay. When they came out a few minutes later we went and sat down. They asked to see the girl’s mother. She was supported and comforted by two other women as she came over to us. She cried and talked. As we pressed contributions of money into her hand, I was glad I knew the Chichewa word pepani – sorry. Later my companions told me that the girl had been given 15 pints of blood in the attempt to save her, “Usually when someone is anemic, a pint of blood makes them well. Where was all that blood going?” said one. “It must be witchcraft,” said another.

We waited about an hour. I was grateful for a chair that someone brought me and for the shade of a big tree. A young girl sobbed behind a house nearby. A billy goat roamed past bleating and chickens rustled around in the dry maize stalks.

Then we heard loud cries and sobbing from members of the family. A group of Muslim women arrived and began intoning a song. At first, I thought someone was playing an instrument. Later I learned that the rhythmic sound like low notes on a stringed instrument was made by unified exhaling in a certain way. Across the yard, men, some in traditional Islamic garb, began a quiet chant. A frame about six feet long and shaped like a small covered bridge with a wood floor panel was brought out. A fitted white cover was placed over it. Another white cloth, about two meters long was arranged and rearranged. Then a smaller yellow cloth was cut into three pieces and placed on the white one. These were rolled up and then rolled into a grass mat. The smoke from incense was allowed to permeate this roll. Then it was taken into the house where the girl’s body lay. A few minutes later, the enshrouded body was transferred into the cloth-covered frame and set down in the yard in front of the assembled women. The elders lined up beside it and said prayers. Then the men followed the elders and the body down the hill to the cemetery. A cry went up from all the women. In this Islamic sect, women never enter cemeteries.

The teachers and I prepared to return by a different path to avoid the cemetery. A circle of women chanted outside the small house as others brought large containers of water to clean the floor where the body had rested.

The sounds of massive keening and wailing from the center of the village followed us down the hill for a long way.