It is 2018 and the effects of globalization is being felt at all corners of human development . Technological advancement has in no small measures changed the way man thinks and reasons.
It’s effects have made certain cultural beliefs obsolete with many of such practices discarded or abandoned.
The import of religions have in no small way affected African cultural transmission both in expression and adherence.
Suffice to say that the war between the African traditional beliefs and religion as imposed by the white man has battered the home side and rendered it eternally redundant.
Religion mixed with globalization or civilization has become so potent in its drive to remove the African from his culture and tradition and reform him according to the principles of religious dictate.
The multiplier effect is that it makes it impossible for certain practices to be classified into distinct features without having an element of culture and religion being interwoven together.
However, some communities have kept faith with their culture and have preserved same from being eroded by the aggressive influence of religion.
One of such practices like community-sanctioned disposal of dead bodies in evil forests practiced by many cultures ages ago, have witnessed rapid decline in enforcement over the years except in this town – Rumuji.
In the town of Rumuji in Emuoha local government area of Rivers state, the ancient practice of disposing dead bodies into the evil forest is still being strictly enforced, with the locals saying that they don’t foresee an end to it in the future.
Parts of the reason why some communities opted for the evil forest treatment in the past instead of burying the dead bodies within the communities was perhaps, the belief that the evil often perpetrated by those dead bodies while alive will be revisited on the communities.
The evil forest treatment was part of community’s subsequent rejection of any consequences that might arise as a result of the evil deeds that the dead bodies had perpetrated while alive.
However, unlike the ancient practice where people who are known to have done evil while alive or outcasts who were not welcomed in the towns and communities had their dead bodies thrown into the evil forest, Rumuji dispose dead bodies of women who died with their pregnancy into the evil forest.
This practice is rooted in the belief that the ancestral land does not condone the burial of women who died with babies in their womb.
An indigene of the town said that it is frowned at, for a woman not to bless the land with the fruit of her womb that people have seen and had expectations for.
“Even those that had injuries before they died also gets thrown into the evil forest. So it is not a question of only dead pregnant women. It is our culture and culture has a reason for that”
“Like in Ibaa, when a pregnant woman dies, they usually separate the baby from the mother and bury them separately. So, it is their own way of life. This is our own way of life and we respect that”
