Dancing at the grave: Do we mock or mourn the dead?

When someone dies in a traditional African home, it is only the first part of a long journey that will eventually see them laid to rest. There is the period immediately after, when the grieving family receives guests who have come to offer their sympathies.

There is the intricate, lengthy and extremely stressful process of preparing for the funeral. And, of course, there is the river of tea that is going to flow in that homestead, and generations of chickens that will be slaughtered. There is the wailing.