IGBO TRADITIONAL BELIEFS: DEATH AND AFTERLIFE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON MORALITY

Abstract

The Igbo traditional society has a set of beliefs about death and afterlife. Those beliefs somehow regulate the way the people understand the relationship between the living and the dead. They help the people to live their lives in accordance with a set of codes of conduct that specifies what is right or wrong, good or bad in their relationship with their fellow human beings, their immediate environment, and the spiritual beings and forces that suffuse the Igbo universe. Such ordering promotes cosmic, moral, and social balance in the visible and invisible realms of existence. The Igbo people believe that a person’s condition of existence after death is consequent upon how well or badly he or she conducts his or her life on earth and the way he or she dies. Hence, people generally try to live morally good life on earth in order to enjoy a befitting, happy death, burial, and afterlife existence. This paper works on the hypothesis that the Igbo beliefs about death and afterlife have a strong influence on their morality. It aims at showing how this influence is felt among the people and its implications. By examining the extant literature on those beliefs, their connectedness with, and their impact on, how the Igbo order their moral lives is clearly delineated and defined. The delineation and definition mark a unique contribution of the paper to research on the subject matter.