When musician Frederick Teiko Ofori, 40, died in a road accident, his family chose a guitar-shaped coffin that dominated his funeral in Adjen Kotoku Amoama on Accra's outskirts. The instrument rested above a scattering of bright red flowers and a portrait as mourners sheltered from the sun, then accompanied the musician to his grave. Ofori left a wife and a young family, including a child born a week before the service; the guitar remained a statement of identity even in burial.
The guitar came from Daniel Oblie Mensah, known as "Hello", a veteran craftsman who has spent more than three decades creating figurative coffins. Mensah said the work thrills him when a family asks for a coffin tied to the deceased's profession, "It helps me truly honour the deceased and the family," he told AFP.
The tradition of sculptural, or "fantasy", coffins grew among Ga carpenters around Accra in the middle of the 20th century, influenced in part by the elaborate palanquins chiefs used in life. Today those funeral objects sit in an uneasy space between popular ritual and contemporary art; some artworks enter museum collections, including a guitar-shaped coffin by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe now on loan to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Not every commission is theatrical. Samuel Commey Tetteh, born in 1943 and known in his community as "Teacher", lay dressed in white before mourners filed past. Tetteh's coffin was a giant pen, another of Mensah's pieces. The carpenter said the pen took about two weeks to make. Rituals accompanied the burial, including the slaughter of a sheep and the application of blood to the coffin, underscoring that the symbolic design did not replace solemn rites.
Workshops across Accra translate photographs and descriptions into fish, canoes, cars, cocoa pods, Bibles and other shapes. Lawrence Okoe Anang, who began training at age 10 and is now 26, recalls helping with a crocodile coffin for a priest in the Volta Region more than a decade ago. He describes himself as a carpenter, coffin maker and artist rolled into one. Typical household coffins fetch around 10,000 Ghanaian cedis ($900), while pieces made for exhibitions cost more and use materials meant to survive museum display.
The trade remains family-based and skill-driven, but it has modernised. Power tools have sped production, wood supplies are more reliable, and overseas museum and collector commissions have provided new revenue streams. Workshops around Accra continue to balance everyday funerary demand with interest from galleries and museums, keeping the craft visible at gravesides and gallery walls.
