“Bones in the Wrong Soil”: An Idiomatic Metaphour for Reflecting on the African Psychology of Death and the Afterlife
International Journal of Social Science Research and Review July 11, 2026 Augustine Nwoye
In African traditions, people die only in body and not in spirit, continuing to live as ancestors or members of the living-dead. This essay examines how this psychology of death and the afterlife, drawn from John S. Mbiti's work, dominates the thoughts and anxieties of displaced Ugandan refugees whose relatives died and were buried in refugee camps away from ancestral homes. The analysis draws on questions about conditions for a successful afterlife experience from Jahn & Wilhelm-Solomon's 2015 article.