The son of a perfect elder plants a sapling on his father’s Bung’eda, or burial mound.When a man dies, his body is wrapped in a beaded hide shroud and placed on his youngest wife’s bed, inside her hut. The body of Gidahuyda Malomba, a healer and rainmaker, is preserved with smoke from his wife’s hearth.His body is later taken out of the hut, wrapped in a freshly sacrificed bull’s hide, and blessed with a mixture of animal fat and flour.Gidahuyda Malomba’s female relatives wail with grief and uncoil their aluminum and brass jewelry. They will remain unadorned for the next nine months of mourning.The body of the deceased, still wrapped in the bull’s hide, is gently placed in a seated position in a deep pit at the center of the family compound.Relatives bring large calabashes of honey beer for the many guests attending the funeral of a perfect elder, a ceremony that occurs only a few times in a century.Warriors transport a tuft of grass and earth, called Lelechanda, from a sacred ground nearby to the site of the funeral ceremony of the perfect elder.The warriors crown the conical Bung’eda burial mound with the Lelechanda tuft of sacred grass.The sons of the deceased man climb the Bung’eda to plant a sapling on top and ask for blessings for the family. In time, the earth will erode, leaving an arc of leafy branches as a memorial to the perfect elder.At the close of the funeral, through the branches the sun sets and the villagers return to their homes across the plains.
