THE BODIES of gogo Leah and gogo Mthawu went to the mortuary on the same day.
But then a mistake happened that could have angered the ancestors forever.
GOGO MTHAWU WAS ALREADY BURIED WHEN THEY FOUND THE BODIES HAD BEEN SWAPPED.
If it wasn’t for mortuary workers, the families of the two gogos would never have known that the two old women had been buried in the wrong graves.
Leah Mthombeni (70) and Mthawu Ramatsomo (65) died a week apart and were both taken to the mortuary on Friday 22 April.
They were due to be buried the next day.
But the undertaker had made a huge mistake that could have meant terrible problems forever for the families from Nkomo Village, near Giyani, Limpopo.
The bodies were swapped and gogo Leah’s body was given to the Ramatsomo family. They went on to bury her as planned, not knowing they had the wrong body.
The families believe that by burying a stranger next to the ancestors, it could bring the families bad luck.
The mistake was discovered when workers at the undertakers realised they had gogo Mthawu’s body in their fridge.
The undertaker’s management immediately went to the police to request permission to dig up the body from the grave.
The undertakers apologised to both families and in full view of community members dug up gogo Leah’s body, and opened up the coffin to check if it was indeed her before taking her back to the mortuary.
A Ramatsomo family member told Daily Sun she realised the body was not that of their gogo but that the elders dismissed her, saying that people change when they are dead.
“I knew the person we were burying was not her and I told the family but no one listened to me. I didn’t even cry because I can’t be seen crying for the wrong person,” she said.
The undertakers accepted full responsibility and offered to pay all the costs of the funeral including food, coffins, tents and transport.
“This is the first time this has happened to us,” said Alpheus Lebeya, director of Bagwadiba Undertakers.
He said the family had time to identify the corpse of their loved one on the day the corpse was delivered as well as on the day of the funeral.
“They failed to spot the error in time,” said Lebeya, who said he hoped the good name of his company would remain untarnished.