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To avoid getting ‘ghost babies’, learn to wear proper underwears

Counties
Knickers
 Lady’s knickers      Photo: Courtesy

Dancehall musician AK47 and younger brother to singer Chameleone passed on mid last month and it got me thinking about traditions and how they apply to modern life.

Traditionally, funerals were about food, booze and, ehh, cultural sex; the argument being that they were creating continuity through procreation to replace the deceased. With the advent of the HIV scourge, how is the “procreation” to be done through the “protection”?

A number of questions buzzed through my mind and I decided to have a chat with my Ssenga (paternal aunt who guides a girl/woman in matters of traditions and marriage). She told me that in our rural home when a spouse dies they are buried in their better half’s underwear.

If the deceased is a man, his wife dresses him up in her underwear, while loudly proclaiming to him that he has gone to the grave with his wife. Similarly, a man does the same when his wife dies.

It is believed this misleads the deceased’s ghost into thinking that they have been buried with their spouse. Therefore, they will not haunt the spouse, especially in the night, for sexual intercourse (ghost rape).

Gentlemen, can you imagine what it would be like if your wife was fond of kinky lacy bits? Thongs, G-strings and the likes, you know! Could this be reason to why we don’t like graves’ being disturbed?

Ghost rape seems to be quite rampant among the male deceased, as none of the women I spoke with could recall an incident where a dead wife haunted the widower. This also got me wondering, all those ghosts that rampage through some village schools, were they single men trying to “sow their seeds” or what’s up with them?

I had a discussion with some friends, and one said wearing the underwear may not be enough to fool the “thirsty husband”. One Nabowa advises that the minute you are told your husband has died you should ‘pad’ yourself with any cloth to tell your dead husband that you are not available.

Nambi disagrees and says you must use the special bedroom cloths – we can discuss those husband-wife moments at a later date.

The widow is supposed to wear the pad throughout until the day of burial. After the graveside rites have ended, she will discretely dispose of the cloths in a nearby banana plantation. I wonder what happens when the burial is at a cemetery and there is no bush or banana plantations?

Does she let it fall through the clothes and walk off? What if some stranger picks it up and uses it for nefarious purposes — if the spouse was a rich man witchcraft is always afoot in property division.

Nambi shared a story of her Teso friend who married a Muganda. She had not been schooled into the “padding” rites and also baulked at wearing her husband’s underwear. Woe unto her! She confessed that her husband would regularly visit her, not as a dream, but in ghost form for his conjugal rights.

The first time she thought it was a dream until she saw the evidence he left behind. She was unable to move on with her life as the comforting ghost now turned tormentor not giving her rest every night. She later passed on due to unclear circumstances.

So if you marry one of us, learn our traditions invest in good underwear for your man, and take head of Ssenga’s words or you may give birth to a ghost baby. 

 

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