Conclusion
The traditional burial rite and ceremony of the Benin people in African traditional religion is very important. This tradition is as old as the creation of the world which is still practice till date. Burial rites and ceremony cannot be over looked weather one is a Christian or not. Just as some are born s0 also some dead and just the way we celebrate the new born so we celebrate the death of our love ones. The final burial is very demanding in such a way that so many people go all out to borrow, become indebted to have their parents or patriarch buried. And t is also very important for every member of the family to carry out their rites to the deceased especially the first born who are to take over from the deceased head of the family as the case may be. Since the Benin tradition holds that anyone who did not bury their parents are sanctioned, it becomes very necessary for the living to bury their dead. Obviously, for the living to have peace, it is obligatory that give their parents a smooth journey of transition into the land of the dead to become ancestors. The final burial rites are a debt that must be paid for a blissful life on the living otherwise, calamities, destruction and anguish will befall the living.
Bini burial rites is still of utmost significant in the life of a Bini man. The concept is for continued co-existence of the family, to keep family traditions and values intact, to maintain family unity and orderly continuity of family rituals, and for the house to serve as family seat or home where every member of the family can later return to most especially to worship their departed ancestors.
It also revealed that accessibility to the land of the ancestors has nothing to do with the burial rites such as befitting burial, shaving of head for the dead, subjecting the widow to all manners of traditional beliefs which is in modernity is seen as human right abuse.
Lastly, the study pointed out that every activity of man on earth has a limitation. And that man is not created to be immortal. But to die become immortal provided his activities are justified by the Creator.
In 'burying' their father the children seek to convert him into an ancestor and a 'spirit-elder in the various groups of collective dead (edion). As the latter he at once loses his individuality but as a father' he retains it for as long as it remains significant for the ordering of relations between his descendants. Yet it is fervently hoped that he will soon be reincarnated in one of these descendants. This paradox, it has been suggested, makes sense in terms of that set of values which links together the vitality of the kin-group morality and harmony in relations between kin, the orderly exercise of jural authority, and the dogma that the dead retain an interest in their living descendants. It is with this set or values that the Edo mortuary ritual is mainly concerned, and its heart lies the relationship of parent and child.
This relationship has its place within a wider scheme of social patterning for which one of it forms, that between father and son, is selected as a key principle of organization. Nor is this the only principle. Another is that of age which is significant both within the sibling group and within the wider descent group.
The peculiar quality of the senior son lies in the fact that he combines within him the principle of father-son succession and that of age seniority among siblings. In Edo society there is usual stress on primogenitures, that is to say, an unusually large portion of the dead father's jural status falls immediately to his senior son. The knowledge that this is so can lead to difficult relations while both are alive, and I have suggested that the mortuary rites constitute a symbolic resolution of the conflict between the roles of first son and successor. At each stage changes for the better in dead father social condition are linked with the progress toward recognition as his heir and successor. By constantly elevating the senior son above his brothers, the rites help to give him the standing and prestige which he will need handle his new access of authority successfully.
It also revealed that accessibility to the land of the ancestors has nothing to do with the burial rites such as befitting burial, shaving of head for the dead, subjecting the widow to all manners of traditional beliefs which is in modernity is seen as human right abuse.
Lastly, the study pointed out that every activity of man on earth has a limitation. And that man is not created to be immortal. But to die become immortal provided his activities are justified by the Creator.
