Cultural colossus and founder of Kungoni Centre of Culture and Art, Father Claude Boucher, will be laid to rest at Kungoni compound at Mua in Dedza on Wednesday.
Boucher popularly known as Achisale, died on Monday at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe.
Joseph John Kadzombe Gama, who worked with Boucher from 1994, confirmed of the burial at Kungoni compound.
He said Boucher’s remains will be taken to Mua on Tuesday before a mass at Our Lady of Help.
“There will also be a mass on Thursday (tomorrow) at Kungoni Amphitheatre before interment at Kungoni compound,” Gama, who has been trained by Boucher and now leads a group that holds performances at Kungoni, said.
Father Brenda O’shea (Angozo), who took over from Boucher and is now the director of Kungoni Centre of Culture and Art, said yesterday that after a good consultation with the Bishop of Dedza, His Lordship Peter Chifukwa and his pastoral team, they have set the burial for Wednesday
O’shea said Bishop Chifukwa will also celebrate the mass for Boucher today and that the body of the confrere will lie in state in the church for vigil.
Several people have mourned Boucher on social media describing him as an extraordinary person, who promoted Malawi’s culture to the world.
Jacaranda Cultural Centre (JCC) Director Luc Deschamps, who is also French Honorary Consul to Malawi, said Boucher “was an extraordinary man, a man of God from the Catholic Church and an initiated chief from Chewa culture”.
“When you met him, you could feel the spiritual density of a man, in a certain way; he was a mysterious man, a man who knew the secrets of the Chewa initiation,” Deschamps said.
Boucher, who dedicated his life to researching and preserving the country’s culture, spoke Chichewa fluently and was awarded an honorary Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Shareworld Open University in 2014, spent the years 1967 to 1970 in learning to speak local languages with Chichewa the main focus.
The period of 1970 to 1976, taught Boucher, who was 83 years old to think in the culture whereas the period 1977 to 2000 brought about the possibility of acting in the culture by establishing the Kungoni Centre of Culture and Arts and its various activities.
In the period of 2001 to 2014, Boucher, who came to Malawi as a missionary in 1967 from Canada, was blessed with several publications and the need to reflect on the past and on the history of Kungoni.
In 2017, Boucher received his second honorary Doctorate Degree in the same discipline conferred by Mzuzu University for his true missionary work couched in education, training and ethnology, and for making religion accessible.
