ACCRA — Frederick Teiko Ofori, a Ghanaian musician, died in a road accident. His family commissioned a coffin shaped like an enormous guitar for his funeral on Saturday in Adjen Kotoku Amoama, on Accra's outskirts.
Ofori, 40, left behind a wife and a child born one week before the ceremony. The custom coffin honored him in a practice common among Ghana's Ga communities, where funerary celebrations include detailed tributes to the deceased.
These "fantasy" coffins reflect the dead person's profession, passions or status. Fishermen are buried in coffins shaped like fish or canoes. Farmers receive coffins resembling cocoa pods. Drivers are laid to rest in car-shaped tributes. Religious figures often have coffins crafted like Bibles.
Daniel Oblie Mensah, 54, a coffinmaker known as "Hello," created Ofori's guitar-shaped coffin. Mensah has spent more than three decades crafting these final resting places.
"I find excitement in commissions that reflect the deceased's profession," Mensah said. "This work helps me truly honour the deceased and the family."
The modern tradition of sculptural coffins began among Ga craftsmen near Accra in the mid-20th century, partly inspired by the elaborately shaped palanquins used by local chiefs during ceremonies.
While most fantasy coffins are buried, some have gained recognition as contemporary art. A guitar-shaped coffin by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe is on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Samuel Commey Tetteh, known in his community as "Teacher," also received a custom coffin from Mensah. Tetteh was born in 1943 and taught for more than 50 years in Paanor, in Ga South, outside the capital.
His coffin was designed as a giant pen, a tribute to his half-century career in education. Mensah took approximately two weeks to complete it.
During Tetteh's funeral rites, a sheep was slaughtered and its blood was applied to the pen-shaped coffin, a ritual that underscored the solemnity of the proceedings before the burial.
