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8 August 2008
A journey is a passage through space and time, depending on the purpose and destination one is trying to reach. This applies to both the living and the dead. The destination of the living can be reached using different paths of passage such as land, water and air. The hereafter is the destination for the dead, an abode which a sound and inquisitive mind ponders how it can be reached.
Cultural and religious beliefs, since the beginning of life on earth, have carved different shapes and sizes of containers as befitting conveyance vehicles for the dead in their journey from earth to the everlasting abode.
Perhaps, the most known and boarded of such vehicles is the coffin. Coffin, also known as casket, is a funerary box solely meant to contain the remains of the deceased either for burial or for cremation. A section of the human kind even believes that any box used to bury the dead is a coffin.
The use of the word "casket" began as a euphemism introduced by the undertakers trade in North America. It was originally a box for jewellery. Later, they drew a distinction between the two terms they hitherto used interchangeably.
Coffin is a tapered hexagonal or octagonal (also considered to be anthropoidal in shape) box used for burial while a rectangular burial box with split lid used for viewing the deceased is called a "casket".
A renowned maker of such containers, Mr. End Time, said, "A coffin is six edges and more frightening than casket which has four edges, but in essence they both house the dead".
Makara, used as such vehiclesby most of the communities in Northern Nigeria and other communities in neighbouring West African states, is a stretcher- like object consisting of mat over a wooden or long sticks frame commonly used amongst the Muslims in transporting dead persons to the grave. Receptacles for cremated human ashes sometimes call their own, or urns.
A coffin may be buried in the ground directly, placed in a burial vault or cremated. The above ground burial is in a mausoleum. Often, it is a large cement building at a cemetery, housing hundreds of bodies, or a small personal crypt.
Some countries practice one form almost exclusively; in others, it depends on the individual cemetery. The handles and other ornaments (such as doves, stipple crosses, crucifix, Masonic symbols etc.) that go on the outside of a coffin are called fittings (sometimes called 'coffin furniture', not to be confused with furniture that is coffin shaped), while organizing the inside of the coffin with drapery of some kind is known as "trimming the coffin".
Caskets, coffins and Makara are well designed, structured and manufactured in beautiful shapes and comfortable sizes for those who are ready to buy and store for their aged loved ones.
The phobia of death scares people when they hear about casket or coffin because it is the van that conveys people to an irreversible destination. However, some people earn a living by the manufacturing it. "One man's food is another man's poison, you could say."
It is certain that man happens to be the biggest hater of death and always seeks ways to dodge and distance himself from it, which makes the generality of mankind to have a wrong perception towards the manufacturers of casket.
They are simple people, mostly craftsmen that specialize in carpentry. They are specialists in producing only coffins locally or traditionally as their permanent trade.
However, the strong fear that people have for the casket distances them from the trade. Yet, most casket or coffin manufacturers claim to have joined the trade out of interest.
Mr Alex O. Okpelibeye is an indigene of Anambra state. He runs his casket business at Dape/ impresit along Karimo road in the FCT.
According to him, "I ventured into this trade as a result of frustration. na condition make crayfish bend. I was selling stationeries at Tinubu Square in Lagos before some people persuaded me to move to Abuja. When I arrived the FCT, things didn't go as expected because I found it very difficult to survive and make a living coupled with a terrible sickness that struck my wife. I had no money to take her to the hospital for treatment. A Good Samaritan sympathised with me and donated N2000 which I used to treat her. After she recovered, I decided to continue searching for a better job, but all efforts were fruitless. So casket making became the last resort, just for me to survive between life and death."
Nobody taught Alex how to make a casket. "I started it because the little capital I had could only afford the materials needed for casket making, it being one of the most lucrative businesses then, and I was able to realize a substantial profit from the three caskets I sold for N4600 each," he recalled.
Alex then discovered that with the increase in demand for caskets, as people die regularly, the venture could certainly be a lucrative business for him. So he made no mistake of quitting casket-making, saying, however, "I am not praying for people to die for me to sell my casket, but praying for the families of the deceased to have money to buy beautiful and comfortable house for their loved ones."
Casket manufacturing varies in different places. Human communities that practice burial have widely different styles of coffin. In Africa, elaborate coffins are built in the shapes of various mundane objects, like automobiles or aeroplanes. Sometimes coffins are constructed to display the dead body, as in the case of the glass-covered coffin.
In some varieties of Orthodox Judaism, the coffin must be plain, made of wood, and contain neither metal parts nor adornments. These coffins use wooden pegs instead of nails. In China and Japan, coffins made from the scented, decay-resistant wood of cypress, sugi, thuja and incense-cedar are in high demand.
Coffins are also made of many materials, including steel, various types of wood and other materials such as fiberglass. There is now emerging interest in eco-friendly coffins made of purely natural materials such as bamboo. Coffins are sometimes personalized to offer college insignia or different head panels to better reflect the deceased's life choices.
Mr. Alex said that they produce caskets using different woods such as mesonia, black akpara, omoh wood, iroko and orah wood. Though they are of different quality, Mesonia is the strongest, attractive and most expensive in the timber sheds.
However, the workshop of casket manufacturers has no difference with that of any other carpenter. They use the same equipments to carry out production, and in the same way they cut the woods into sizes, smoothen them and then assemble them into a box, using nails with some ornaments.
Alex explained, "We both produce goods for mankind, for those who believed that eternity is realistic may prefer more beautiful and comfortable houses for their everlasting journey"
Casket is part and parcel of the furniture industry that carpenters run away from because it is a convertible vehicle to the grave and because of the societal stigma imposed on the makers.
Mr. End Time, or so he calls himself, is another coffin manufacturer. He noted that people regard coffin makers as mischievous, lamenting, "people don't look at us with good eyes, dey always say we dey pray say make people die so that we go get money". He said others even accuse them of committing some atrocity by selling caskets, arguing, however, "We are doing business for livelihood and to provide homes for the departed loved ones. People's impression towards us is uncalled for. We found ourselves in this trade because it is better than venturing into robbery for survival."
He noted that death is irreversible and at liberty to strike any person without prior notice, adding that casket manufacturers are not praying for people to die, but, "on the contrary, we pray for the people to buy coffins so as to decongest our mortuaries."
On the other hand, Mr. Godwin Eke said that "it is the symbol of honour for the dead person's family to provide him with a very good and befitting house. If we do not construct caskets how many people can produce it on their own? Therefore, we contribute to the development of the Nigerian economy because casket industry is a large employer of labour today."
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