Would you rest in peace inside a bright red chilli pepper? Or enter your eternal slumber within a wooden pineapple or an oversized mobile phone? Fantasy coffins, an increasingly popular funerary tradition in Ghana, provide an outlandish alternative to austere wooden caskets.
Fantasy coffins not only add colour and beauty to Ghanaian funerals but also appear in art galleries around the world. Meanwhile, more and more curious travellers are seeking out the coffin makers of Ghana, eager to meet the talented sculptors who send people to the afterlife in style…
Meet the coffin makers of Ghana
Known locally as abebu adekai (literally, ‘proverb boxes’), fantasy coffins are wooden and vaguely oblong, but their similarity to ordinary caskets ends there. They’re works of art, inspired by animals, household objects, modes of transport and even food. Fantasy coffin makers pour years into their craft, combining carpentry skills with an eye for whimsical design.
One of these artists is Eric Kpakpo Adotey, a husband and father of four children, who carves coffins at Erico Carpentry Workshop in La, Greater Accra. For Eric, fantasy coffins reflect a person’s talents and tastes – they help mourners reconnect with the unique individual they’re bidding goodbye to.
‘Your coffin speaks about you,’ explains Eric. ‘As soon as people see a red fish coffin, it tells them that the person is a fisherman. If they see a football boot, they know that, “Oh, this person is a footballer.”’
Communicating through your coffin
Many cultures in Ghana believe that an impressive send-off can improve someone’s status in their next life. The flamboyance of fantasy coffins is a way of honouring the dead.
While the idea of burying Grandad in a giant shoe or plantain might seem unusual to some, fantasy coffins remind people about how their loved ones were in their prime. The more colourful the design, the more it transforms the atmosphere of a funeral, sparking memories and curious questions – an emotional power that makes coffin-making incredibly meaningful for artists like Eric.
Imagine seeing pallbearers carrying a gigantic microphone-shaped coffin. ‘If you see a mic, it tells [people] it’s a musician, you see?’ says Eric. ‘People start thinking: a musician? What kind of song [did he sing] when he was alive? It changes the atmosphere.’
Compare that to a plain wooden casket, reflecting the silence of death back to you.
How to commission a coffin
Whether you want to be buried in a beer bottle or a Bible, there’s a chance one of Ghana’s coffin makers has received that very request. Fantasy coffins are made to order, and families typically approach coffin makers with a clear idea of the casket’s shape and design. Planes, boats and cars are common choices, though if you’re in no hurry to meet your maker, perhaps a snail-shaped coffin would be more your speed.
Many of Eric’s clients request coffins shaped like canoes, fish and cocoa pods, reflecting common local occupations like fishing and farming. But eyebrow-raising requests are also part of his job – and the customer comes first.
‘One customer requested a snake [coffin],’ recalls Eric. ‘I don’t like snakes, but because of the nature of the work and how the woman came and talked to me, I said: “Let me do this for her”.’
Your imagination may have no limits, but there are some coffin taboos. ‘A lion, eagle, elephant… most of them represent a chief,’ explains Eric. ‘So if you are not a chief, you are not allowed to use such a coffin for burial.’
The unstoppable rise of fantasy coffins
Since the 1950s, fantasy coffins have grown from rare curiosities into big business. Visionary carpenter Seth Kane Kwei is credited with popularising them after he made a cocoa-pod-shaped palanquin (sedan chair) for a chief to use during a festival. When the chief died before the festival, he was buried in the cocoa pod instead.
Soon after, Kane Kwei crafted a plane-shaped coffin for his grandmother, who never had the chance to take a flight. For coffin makers in Ghana, the rest is history: Kane Kwei’s apprentices set about chiselling, sawing and finishing wood, until the craft of fantasy coffin-making became a fine art.
For those who could afford them (they cost many times more than a regular coffin), fantasy coffins became increasingly popular – especially among Ghana’s Ga community (in and around Accra) and spreading north and east to Ashanti land and Ewe land.
From local farewells to global fascination
If you think it’s a shame to bury these fantastical creations, many collectors agree. Fantasy coffins are snapped up by art enthusiasts (including former US President Jimmy Carter) as well as galleries: the largest collection outside of Ghana is in Houston, Texas at the National Museum of Funeral History.
Travellers are also adding fantasy coffins to their West Africa itineraries. Visitors can pop into coffin workshops to witness the creative flurry of sawing and hammering for themselves, hear stories from carpenters like Eric, and see their obvious pride in the intricate discipline of coffin making.
‘My favourite part of the work is the finish,’ says Eric. ‘When I’m making a car and somebody enters the workshop and knows that this is a Toyota, or this is a Mercedes-Benz…that makes me excited. I’ve done exactly what they have requested.’
The ability to perfectly execute a family’s wish and give them joy and consolation at a heart-rending time in their lives is its own reward. But Eric’s mission goes even further: ‘I want to take this artwork not only in the local community but [for] people to see what we can do as Ghanaians. That this is our culture. This is for Ghana.’
Meet Ghana’s coffin makers for yourself on Intrepid’s new 15-day Benin, Togo & Ghana Adventure. Find out what else is new for 2025 with The Goods.
