Traditionally, among the Igede of Nigeria as in other African cultures, the living and the dead are in a permanent relationship with each other. The living act as temporary caretakers for the prestige and prosperity of the lineage on behalf of the ancestors who did the same during their lives. Having laid the foundations for the existing society, the ancestors are concerned that the present successfully unfolds into the future.
That which is cherished and respected as being of the forefathers is also referred to as being of the dawn or morning. The protective ancestral deities are known as "morning deities," and members of a lineage describe the oldest village from which they trace their origins as their "morning house." Because the beginning of the day is associated with birth and renewal, the ancestors are believed to be concerned not only with continuity and conservation but with regenerative and creative aspects also.
Music and dance--the pre-eminent forms of creative expression in Igede--are thought of as an inheritance from the forebears, and traditional music is called "music of the dawn." Thus, within the worldview and cultural orientation of the Igede, both conservative and creative aspects are apparent. These dual aspects are also reflected in their arts. Traditional practices necessarily have a basic conservatism, but change or innovation is not stifled if it appears as a logical extension of established usage.
While traditionally the Igede wove their own cloth, constructed pots, worked in iron, and modeled statues, it is music and dance, and the carved masks and woven dance costumes, that provide the greatest source of individual pleasure and communal pride. A skillful music ensemble achieves prestige for the entire village, while an outstanding dance performance can win a man a wife. Participation in a music association is an investment of a kind, since the music ensembles to which an individual belongs will perform at his funeral and add to its grandeur.
Funeral ceremonies are by far the most significant of the life-cycle rituals, and the music associated with funerals is the most profound in the Igede repertoire. The only time that some ensembles, Ogirinye for example, will perform publicly is at the funeral of a member. Within a society in which the ancestors figure so prominently, it is not surprising that the funeral should be the most elaborately celebrated occasion in communal life; after all, the funeral marks the passage of a community member into the ancestral realm.
During a funeral, the community gathers on the village meeting ground to dance and to watch performances of Okomu, or masquerades. As a receptacle for supernatural forces, the mask invests the ceremony with ancestral authority. Its presence confirms that the deceased was a responsible member of society and belonged to an association of political, religious, and social importance, and it projects this status into the afterlife.
It may seem odd at first to the western mind to associate vigorous music and dancing with the funeral process, accustomed as it is to link funerals with solemn mourning. It should be remembered, however, that a major mode of modern Western music grew out of the funeral tradition: Jazz was born in the funeral parades of New Orleans, patronized by black and Creole societies at the turn of the
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