ACADEMIA Letters Traditional Mortuary Rites Culture among the Akans of Ghana Dickson Adom, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Jephtar Adu Mensah, University of Cape Coast Death is part of humans, as long as an individual is born, death is inevitable. Death is consid- ered as the separation from the realities of the physical world and loved ones or objects (Bonsu & Belk, 2003). The Akan is the largest ethnic society in Ghana and occupies 47.3% of the population of Ghana consisting of the Bono, Asante, Adanse, Twifo, Asen, Fante, Akuapem, Akyem, Akwamu, Kwahu, Sehwi, Awowin, Nzima and Ahanta. To the Akans of Ghana, and many of the African ethnic societies, death is an unavoidable journey that each one must make to reach the life beyond and continue to live as an ancestor (Opoku, 1997; Adom et al., 2021). One of the Akan maxims states: “No one climbs the ladder of death and returns” which means that those who die never return to narrate their experience of death. This account makes death a non-negotiable part of life; for those who die continue to live in the land of the spirit, which is a replica of the world in which we live (Opoku, 1997). The Akans believe that the spirit of the deceased joins the company of ancestors who are believed to be living underground in the ancestral world (Ephirim-Donkor, 1997; van der Geest, 2002). Such transition from the physical to the spiritual world makes rituals an important aspect of their culture (Adom et al., 2021). Among the Akans of Ghana, mortuary rites are held in high esteem and there is a great variation concerning the nature, form, and content that the rituals assume (Atta-Cudjoe, 2018; Adinkrah, 2016). Mortuary rites may assume varying forms based on one’s success in life, moral life, age, status, and nature of death determine the kind of mortuary rites performed in one’s honour (Atta-Cudjoe, 2018; Binford, 1971). Though mortuary rituals constitute a universal culture (Binford, 1971), they at times change due to the multiple infuences of colo- nialism, Christianity, Islamization, and modernization, among other factors (Arhin, 1994; Academia Letters, January 2022 Corresponding Author: Dickson Adom, adomdick2@gmail.com Citation: Adom, D., Adu Mensah, J. (2022). Traditional Mortuary Rites Culture among the Akans of Ghana. Academia Letters, Article 4678. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4678. 1 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0