LISTEN | Contralesa slams actress Gabrielle Union for burying her father’s ashes on SA soil

African cultural activist Dr Zolani Mkiva says American actress Gabrielle Union’s act of burying her father’s ashes on SA soil is “untraditional and unhistorical”.

The Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) secretary-general said Union had no links to SA and her actions “fell outside normality”.

Union shared a video of herself burying ashes of her late father next to a tree they had planted when the two visited a Cape Town wine farm in 2022.

Her father, Sylvester “Cully” Union Jr, a former military sergeant and business owner, died last month at the age of 81, after a years-long battle with dementia.

The video, which she shared on an Instagram reel, shows her pulling out a handful of ashes from her trouser pockets and burying them next to the tree.

“Burying my dad’s ashes at a winery in Cape Town, under the very vines we planted together as a family just a few years ago. May you nourish the earth the way you nourished us,” she could be heard saying in the video.

According to her, they had visited the winery in 2022 when she turned 50.

Mkhiva has questioned why the actress would choose that particular winery to plant her father’s remains.

“They [Union and her father] don’t have connections with SA nor have they lived in the country or the father passing on here. Why on earth would they want to bury him here?” asked Mkiva.

“I don’t see the logic. We don’t have such a tradition [as Africans], it’s in fact untraditional and unhistoric. If that person had died in SA, it would have made a bit of sense. This is strange and cannot be encouraged, and I wonder who they interacted with here in SA.”

He said burying a person is a sacred exercise, and this fell outside that normality.

The actress’s actions have sparked debate on social media with different views being shared.

Some were even shocked by Union keeping her father’s ashes in her pocket.

Sowetan