Hadza dance…Tanzania.

When a person dies he is immediately buried in a shallow grave. The men dig, and inter the corpse on its side. They dampen and stamp the clay soil, which hardens, preventing scavengers from digging up the corpse and eating it. During the interment the women cry and wail. Once the burial is accomplished those assembled resume their regular activities. There is no period of pollution and mourning. The deceased is, however, remembered in the near future in the performance of the epeme dance. The dance is performed at night once a month to promote general well-being, good health, and successful hunting. The dancer is believed to be epeme, a powerful sacred being. The Hadza do not believe that the dead are dangerous to the living or may affect them, and thus the dance dedicated to the deceased is merely an act of remembrance. The dance is an act intended neither to placate the spirit of the dead nor to remove it into the land of the dead. Valuable items such as gourds are broken and left on the grave. The site of the grave is neither marked nor visited.

 Death and Afterlife: Perspectives of World Religions. Contributors: Hiroshi Obayashi - editor. Publisher: Praeger. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1992 (p.6)