87 community. These beliefs can be analyzed as not rational as they depict everyday life, which is shaped by value-constraining aspects. In the present context, this brings the aspect of trauma and cultural consideration that are expressed through modern symbols into the genocide memorials.
88 There is a popular belief that the deceased continue to appear to the family members and provide advice or give orders. To confirm the involvement of the living dead in social life, some Rwandans continue to believe that they often come across the impaca, the inhabitants of the invisible world, while working during the night or very early in the morning.
Others affirm that they hear their voices while they are in their houses. One genocide survivor testified that she heard the voice of her father very late in the evening, when she was going to the Kigali Memorial Centre to celebrate the tenth anniversary of her father‘s death. Although such beliefs remain uncertain, undocumented and irrational, they have a major effect on the Rwandan understanding and definition of daily life.
Human irrationality contributes strongly to the understanding of what life is. The subjectivity of these thoughts helps them to reduce the universal fear of death (Robben 2006: 3, Muzungu 1975:
25). In many cases, the deceased person appears to members of the family until there is nobody living who knew their name. The person will be almost forgotten four or five generations after they died.
During the period of appearance to the living family, the departed is called living dead. This means that the concept of death does not mean the end of life in African belief (Mbiti 1969: 25).
Although the person has disappeared in the physical world, they continue to live in the metaphysical world, meaning that the dead has remained part of the life of the living family.
The living dead have a controversial significance. The word living opposes dead and dead means not living. This contradiction signifies that the dead are never dead but continue to live in one way or another. This is a psycho-social and cultural consideration of the departed. There is a proverb in Kinyarwanda that states ‗umupfu ntazima arazimira, which means that the dead do not ‗extinguish‘ but ‗disappear‘.
89 In fact, this proverb expresses individuals‘ immortality. The dead do not come back physically but they have their own way to do so and continue to affect family activities (Muzungu 1981: 60, Bigirumwami 2004: 176). According to the way some Rwandans understand death, the everyday use of the concept death highlights the expression living dead, which means another way to organize behaviour and attitudes. A person who dies does not meet social and cultural norms or values, because such a person is referred to as uwapfuye ahagaze, which means he lives although he is already dead; such beliefs undermine the family and society.
This strange behaviour is defined by the social and cultural context (Huber 1980: 15). Physically, the person is alive but the deviance in which she or he is involved makes the community consider them as dead. It is the cultural context that defines this consideration. This engages the person‘s irresponsibility in the community. The one who seems careless of everything is called umupfu or dead.
Human immortality is also expressed through offspring. In Rwandan culture, a childless couple and a family whose children have died reflect malediction (Bigirumwami 2004: 171-180). Mbiti (1969: 27) points out that ―procreation is an absolute way of ensuring that a person is not cut off from personal immortality‖. The ritual related to death, as a part of life, influences the social communication in everyday life and this holds significance within social relationships for the living family (Byanafashe 2004: 31). The concept of death integrates the scientific and socio- cultural meaning that its complexity generates different definitions and uses of the concept.
The death of one member of the community affects the rest in one way or another. Following Dawson, Santos & Burdick, Marrone (1997: 379) states that
From this sociological perspective, the death of a community member disrupts the society‘s smoothly running function. Funeral rituals and memorial services are equilibrium producing systems in that they strengthen the individual recommitment to the community and, in this sense, are the key to a stable society.
90 The mourning period helps both the individual and the whole community to fill the gap left by the deceased, as well as encouraging the recommitment to the life function and recognizing the position the dead occupied in the community when alive. Similarly, the memorial period in Rwandan culture is a moment of comforting the deceased family. If the departed was a head of a family, father or mother, the rest of the community is responsible for assisting the family to accept the loss and learn to move along with it. During this period, all members of the family are required to attend the mourning, because this is a crucial period, during which serious issues are discussed.
It is the responsibility of the large family to always be there, but, it would wait until the family recovers from the shock (Bigirumwami 2004: 195-196). In Rwandan culture, when someone dies, the person continues to live in the family because she or he is still part of the network within the living family. Such beliefs influence human behaviour and sometimes they fuel fear when the funeral rites are not performed appropriately. Thus, the family feels it necessary to organize the burial process respectfully as well as the mourning and memorializing.
These rites are observed according to the prescript that the deceased had declared before she or he died, in the rituals of kuraga [Kuraga is the will document in which a person informs the family and friends how to settle important issues left behind, including instructions on how the person will be buried. This ritual becomes more important when it is a parent instructing her or his offspring] (Bigirumwami 2004: 171, Spijker 1990: 52).