Modern thinking sweeps myths aside

MYTHS meaning things that many people believe but that do not exist or are false, have been around almost from the beginning of humans life itself. For instance, until the 19th century, most of European countries still had a belief that in fairies of human like tiny creatures that had magic powers. As children back in our school days, people used to believe that sharpening a pencil on both ends was an insult to one’s mother. None of the people did it but to this day people do not have no idea as to the origin of the belief. There is devastating power in laughter and however was foolhardy enough to it, was laughed at with almost shuttering effect for his schooldays. The other and rather funny myth involved the popular leapfrog game among children, which was said to stunt the growth of the one jumped over. We did it many times often exchanging roles but none of us became any the shorter. Gone are the days when it was taboo to point a finger at a graveyard for whoever did that according to that myth, would imminently lose a loved one. It was also not normal to see people passing through cemeteries save for times of burial.

Dar es Salaam residents, the so-called jobless youths who spends most of their time throughout a day in open graveyards, whereby they engage in various businesses and other immoral things and without shame, some are seen seated on top of a cemented grave seemingly without giving it a thought. Who is actually to blame? The city council authorities who seemed to have failed top create a fencing compound? This is Karume graveyard in Ilala near regional commissioner’s office in Dar es Salaam.

Cemeteries were still associated with many horror stories. Apart from being places where the dead rested in peace, graveyards were also believed to be the abode of evil spirits. Thus looked at carefully, as far as cemeteries are concerned. People tended to fear more encounter with the ghosts of death than the dead. Before being placed by superior faith, myths reigned until societies received new light. In the case of Europe, widespread beliefs in Christianity did not necessarily wipe out stories of fairies. In fact fairies were often the invisible hand in William Shakespeare’s comedies, plays and poems. Some 500 years after, he remained the greatest weavers of tragedies in literature. Many African societies believed that, the dead, if disturbed, could rise from their dark world to haunt the living. That fear led people not to build houses near graveyards. Thus it was not usual to find a house or any other building near graveyards.

A good example of a fenced graveyard in Kinondoni-Mkwajuni in Dar es Salaam. Should most graveyards look like this one in the city, it could restore respect of the dead laid to rest in such cemetery grounds.

Some years back, a group of thugs exploiting that myth staggered from the Kinondoni graves in Dar es Salaam and hobbled towards a nearby bar. The pandemonium that followed was behind belief. Seemingly confident people who were downing their beer, presumably after a hard day’s work scattered in all directions to save their lives from vengeful ghosts. Criminals had exploited a popular myth to commit a crime in a manner that was almost impossible to investigate save only if one of them had been caught. But who would stand in the way of ghost guest not even a policeman. The fear of death did some people not to dare get near a copse, let alone to touch it. But all that is changing . Houses are now being built very close to graveyards and stories are bound either defiling tombs of graves in ways and manner that would have involved the several curse in the heyday of belief in myths.

Part of the fenced graveyard as it can be seen with some little buildings near to it.

Footpaths through graveyards, if not fenced off are quite common these days. People can now be seen sitting or even napping on tomb stories. Graves are the internal homes of the dead ones, their souls have ascended to heaven, there is nothing to fear about them, says Tom Wanyonyi, a priest at St. Dominic Parish, Mbezi Juu on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam city. Father Wanyonyi adds that people are more aware of what death is and have come to accept it as normal ending of human life. That is why they have now built houses near graveyards. “What lies in tombs is mere bones, and what we ought to do is to pray for the souls of our departed life, as we believe in life after death” says father Dominic. The fact that people nowadays die in other people’s hands and other reach a point of touching and kissing their loved ones when paying their last respects, signifies that people no longer mystify death as was the case in the past. Muhidini Hassan from the Hajj department at the Muslim council of Tanzania (BAKWATA) says that it is not good to encroach on land set aside for cemeteries. Living near cemeteries posed neither social nor spiritual problems but warns against defiling the resting places for the dead. He gave the examples of early Dar es Salaam residents like Mzee Kopa and Mwinyijuma of Mwananyamala suburb in Dar es Salaam city who offered their free land for burial in 1960s. But when the city became more and more congested, people started encroaching on the land. Hassan attributes all that to ignorance of the holy scriptures from both the Christians and Muslims. Moral decay and the effect of globalization whereby peddling nudity has become normal.