Ritual Structure and Rites of Passage in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman

Burial rites are social affairs, and in Africa, political actors are cultural agents whose existence, decisions and rites have been inscribed into the social fabric, history and life of the society. Their life rites, death rites and burial rites are factors of social change and factors for the renewal of life's affirmative essences, which if lacking in the society, would have disastrous consequences. Socio-cultural, political and individual preferences that threaten these life, death and burial rites in Africa threaten the essence, constitution and cosmic peace of the society and would be resisted in Africa in order to avert disaster and tragedy even if necessarily through what other cultures may define as calamity. Our aim in this paper is to examine Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman through the anthropology of ritual as set out here