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"For eight months in 2011 I was living and working in northern Ghana as a videographer. My company gave me a house near a small farming village called Fuo, where I lived alone for most of the time. One afternoon, the day watchman knocked on my door and invited me to the village to film the chief's funeral, which was just starting. I didn't realize that a chief's funeral is basically a huge all-night party involving hundreds of people from all over the country. I went and filmed, and understood almost nothing of what I saw. I sat on the footage for a few years until we started making Far Off Sounds, at which point I arranged a Skype interview with my good friend from Ghana, Hafiz Gbabillana, so he could begin to help me understand what I had witnessed that evening in 2011. This video is a combination of the funeral footage and my Skype'd interview with Hafiz." —Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman
WEBVTT
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A visa here, you.
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Can you hear me?
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Yes, can you hear me?
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Yeah.
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Yeah. Can you introduce yourself?
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Yeah, I\'m not physiognomy.
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I just get it.
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They don\'t know.
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Yeah. Okay, I\'m
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done. I have these little
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theater artists and
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drama director.
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Can you explain to me
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what it is that we are seeing in
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this video before it even starts?
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Generally, just generally.
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What is it?
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The video is a
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kind of a funeral.
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That\'s.
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From what I understand,
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they are doing this funeral
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a year after the chief
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has died.
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Is that true?
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Yeah, usually
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just goes up up to a year
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because they have to do a little
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because they have to do a lot of
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sacrifices, you have to put these
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in order because Chief Coonrod
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doesn\'t just
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do it like they do in the funeral.
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Well, if he\'s losing you.
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I think I might be leaving you.
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But.
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But.
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But.
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The big question is that.
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And then the burial is
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done.
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You don\'t have to keep
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crying because when you cry
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and you just talk on the floor is a
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punishment to the dead.
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But we believe like it
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if his spirit is still around
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or to join
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and then the ancestors
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who have died thousand years ago,
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all will push it over.
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So the funeral is not perform well.
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Oh, the chief is not very
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well respected.
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And he joined us justice
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because our ancestors may not accept
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this spirit
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so that the entertainment
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of the funeral, it\'s not just for
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the living, it\'s also entertainment
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for the death.
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Yeah. Yeah,
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but
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I.
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Know.
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But.
