ABSTRACT
Nine nights is a common funeral practice in Jamaica and other Caribbean countries such as Belize, Antigua, Grenada, Dominica, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Haiti. These wakes are also common in places with significant Afro-Caribbean communities like the US and the UK. Children in class may have attended one. During slavery, funeral practices and wake rituals were an important and deliberate tool of resistance. Nine nights is firmly rooted in West African spiritual beliefs. Enslaved Africans believed that it took nine nights for the duppy to return back home to Africa. Today, around 600,000 Garifuna people live in Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the USA. However, there has since been a resurgence of Dugu practices and other ancestral activities throughout Central America as it is a key source of unity, empowerment, resistance and pride for the Garifuna people.
