Beyond Life; Cooling and Cleansing in Kilimanjaro

Frode Storaas
Knut Chr. Myhre
2018
23 minutes

On the rural slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, a young man takes his own life, leaving a wife and several small children behind. On the third day after his burial, a ceremony is conducted to cool or cleanse the homestead - ihora kaa. Such ceremonies are conducted for every death to allow its inhabitants to resume their everyday lives. However, it requires particular care and attention in the case of a suicide. The film follows each step to document the ceremony, and thus demonstrates how the camera can serve as a tool for ethnographic data collection.

Anthropologist: 
Knut Chr. Myhre
Producer / Production company: 
University Museum of Bergen
Africa: