THE FESTIVALS AND TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE OF OWE-KABBA PEOPLE IN DETAILS

by mosunmola aderewa owoshagba, UNIMAID.

INTRODUCTION

My tribe is Owe. The owe people are a Yoruba-dialectical tribe like Ekiti, oyo, ijebu, akoko, owo, etc. They live in the northern fringe of Ile-ife – which is popularly believed to be the cradle of the Yorubas. The owe people are the natives of Kabba in Kogi State. Oral history has it that three (3) expeditious hunters left their home city of Ile-Ife to actually found the town of Kabba many hundred years ago. Over the years, Kabba has metamorphosed from a provincial name to a town bubbling with commerce and tremendous socio-cultural developments.

The owe people are endowed with a culture which is rich in festivals and socio-cultural celebrations such as traditional marriage, chieftaincy award, house warming, etc. 

The major festivals of the owe people are as follows:

1. Ebora festival
2. Egungun (Masquerade) festival
3. The Agura festival and 
4. Udi (Wrestling) festival

EBORA FESTIVAL

The Ebora festival is a purely male initiates’ festival. It is always celebrated at the arrival of new yams to give thanks to the ancestral gods for the fertility of the land and for abundant rains. It is also for the purpose of cleansing the land of evils and pestilences. This festival is normally celebrated in the first week of the month of June every year. The Ebora worshippers perform all the sacrifices in the Ebora grooves which are situated high up the three (3) hill-tops surrounding the town. Every of the Ebora grooves has its own male initiates and only initiates of an Ebora groove is allowed to partake in the Ebora festival.

The arrival of the date of the ebora festival is always announced with the male initiates of the ebora grooves storming the market place and making away (free of charge) edible food items which they take to their grooves in preparation for the Ebora festival. This portion of the celebration is called ‘Reja’ (literally meaning ‘permitted stealing’) 

A unique feature of this festival is that nobody is allowed to cook or eat Akara (cooked beans cake) seven days to the date of the Ebora festival. This is because akara is a major item that is used as sacrifice to the ebora. It is therefore supplied to the grooves by women in very large quantity for the male worshippers of ebora to use after the long absence of akara in the town. 

On the date of the Ebora festival, females and other non-initiates of the town keep in-door, while the ebora deities move round the town pronouncing prayers to cleanse the land of evils and pestilences. They move around the town with the song of the ebora ‘Wa dodo se’. Intermittently, the ebora would call out in loud voice and the worshippers would respond again and again with the song of ‘Wa dodo se’. It is only initiates of the ebora deity who know the meaning of the songs. Infact it is a taboo for non-initiates to sing the ebora song. 

Females and non-initiates are therefore not allowed to see the Ebora deities and their worshippers during this period. After the festival, male initiates must never mention any of the sacrifices carried out at the groove nor are they ever allowed to speak the language of the Ebora after the festival. Secrecy is therefore a major norm practiced by the initiates of the Ebora deity.

With the advent of civilization, the State Government has banned the parade of the Ebora deity around the town whereby they caused automatic dawn to dawn curfew. They have therefore been restricted to carry out their sacrifices only at the ebora grooves in order not to disrupt economic activities in the town. 

EGUNGUN FESTIVAL

The egungun or masquerade festival is a festival celebrated after the harvesting of all farm produces. It is normally celebrated in December of every year. It is a festival to thank and appease the gods also for fertility of the soil and the women wombs. This is because the worshippers of the egungun believe that it is the egungun deity that causes fertility of the soil and the wombs of women. Unlike the ebora festival, male and female initiates participate in the egungun festival and actually everybody is allowed to watch the egungun (masquerades) when they perform their dances.

The masquerades are also referred to as the king’s masquerades as they bring to the king fortunes and well wishes from the spirit land. Some people also believe that the masquerades are the risen spirits of the dead ancestors of the people. 

The celebration of the Egungun festival is preceded by seven (7) days of preparations during which the egungun priests make sacrifices to the egungun deities to arouse their spirits. Preparations of the initiates also included seclusion from social vices and total commitment to the sacrifices to the deities. It is the belief of the worshippers that adequate preparations and dedication at this period would enable the spirits of the dead-which the masquerades represent, to come down more powerfully on the date of the festival.

The eve of the festival is grandly celebrated by the initiates with the arrival of a fearful but overtly harmless masquerade called ‘Inoko’. Inoko literarily means ‘the one who lives in the farm’. The inoko masquerade would move from house to house on the festival eve relating to the adherents good wishes brought from the spirit land. These fortune telling are normally rewarded by monetary gifts or with fowl or even goats for sacrifices. The priests of the Inoko are always seen carrying these gifts items to follow the masquerade. This is also the period when people who have received the manifestation of the blessing of the Inoko bring gift items to redeem pledges and vows made to the Inoko masquerade the previous year. The eve of the egungun festival is normally rounded off by dances by the Inoko, Monure and the Alase mascurades. 

At the eve of the festival, these masquerades show off for the first time all the renovations made to their raiment. Every year brings new designs and renovation to the clothes of these masquerades which worshippers believe are the masquerades for funfairs. 

The early morning of the day of the festival is the time when the worshippers accompanied by the funfair masquerades carry the boxes called ‘Apopo’ containing the apparels of all the masquerades from the house of the chief priest of the masquerades to the egungun Shrine. This ceremony is also marked with songs of joy and dances by the worshippers to complement the dances of the masquerades. The shrine of the egungun is fenced-in and only initiates are allowed into the groove. After the early morning performance, the egungun worshippers reclined back to their houses to eat delicious pounded yam meals with ‘Shekere’ soup and lots of meats to celebrate the festival. 

The grand finale is the evening of the day of the egungun festival. It is the period when all the masquerades perform to the admiration of all present at the shrine. The dances are normally preceded by spiritual cleansing of the land by the chief priest of the Egungun. The smaller masquerades would then arrive on the stage to do their performances. These smaller masquerades included the Monure, Alase and the Inoko. The masquerades take turn to thrill the watching crowd with their new dancing steps and they are rewarded in turn with applauds and cash gifts. After this period, the Chief Masqurade, normally referred to as Ajima, would then take his seat accompanied by his cream of other masquerades in council. 

When Ajima and the other masquerades in council are fully seated, the chief priest interprets the yearly messages from Ajima to the King, the chiefs of the town, and the entire community. These messages are always coded, and it is only the chief priest and other initiates of the egungun deity that can understand the messages. After the messages, Ajima and his council masquerades take turn to dance. The Ajima who is the chief masquerade would normally be the last to dance and his dancing heralds the closing of that year’s festival. Every worshipper of Ajima would want to touch and assist to carry Ajima back to the groove as they believe that they automatically inherit children and wealth in the coming year by so doing. 

The law that restricts the Ebora worshippers to only stay at their grooves during their festival also restricts the movement of egungun to the vicinity of their groove during this festival to ensure peace and tranquility in the modern town of Kabba.

THE AGURA AND THE UDI (WRESTLING) FESTIVALS

These two festivals are also celebrated by the male youths (called Gbarufu) of the society. The festivals are celebrated after all harvesting have been done on the farm, and during the dry season. The two festivals are held in the same week but on different days, with the agura festival held first. The festivals are also held during the moon-light period.

The main essence of these festivals is to prepare youths through cultural games for wars and the independence attached to adulthood. The festivals also assist the community to foster love and good neighborliness among the different quarters of the town. 

These two festivals are normally celebrated in each quarters of the town. As my grandfather’s house is situated in Ayewa quarters, it then means that youths from our house would partake to celebrate this festival at Ayewa. There are still other ten (10) quarters of the town which must also perform these celebrations.

Preparation for the agura festival actually takes about a month. The Gbarufu (young males) gather in their different quarters and troop to the bush each day of the preparation to fetch ‘Aga’ (tall grasses which are also used for roofing in the olden days). All the youths would carry a load of Aga on their heads and return home to their square (centre of their quarters) with love songs for the admiration of the female youths. Songs like ‘abo o re, Oni ba lomo lika Un ma gha’ (we are coming now, parents who have beautiful maidens should send them to us) and many other beautiful songs are sung. 

If along the road to the square, old women were coming out to watch the procession instead of maidens (Idan), the song quickly changes thus ‘omo lomidan, gbogbo ghon agba sio sio gbogbo ghon’. This means that they do not have maidens to watch the procession except stricken old women. The harvested Aga are stock-piled in the different Quarters for a period of one month. 

The agura festival is normally celebrated at night and on the same day by all the Quarters of the town. By the evening of the day of agura, the youths go to the mountain tops to fetch another variety of Aga to build the ‘Omooloko’. The Omooloko is normally carved in the form of masquerade’s apparel and is worn by one of the youths and brought home with songs, dances and funfair. The Omooloko is set apart from the pile of harvested grasses and awaits the fire from the gods later that night for the agura to commence. It is a taboo for any Quarter to steal or tamper with the grasses and/or the Omooloko of other Quarters. 

By night fall, usually around 8.00 pm, the youths would gather again to commence songs and dances while they await the fire from the gods on the Omooloko to announce the commencement of the Agura. Fire eventually got the Omooloko at around 10.00 pm and Agura festival commences. At the agura, each youth takes turn to pick and burn Aga from the pile with a shout of ‘Petee agura wo mo la’. When the heap of agura burn-fire is enormous enough, each youth drop their yams into the fire for roasting. Yam eating in the deep of the night away from the prying eyes of women is also a major delight of the festival. 

Youths normally celebrate the automatic holiday from farm work the following day by songs like ‘Oju gwo mo nmo e e e e, Oju e gwo mo njoko e e e e, Ohihi mani ghoko lola, omoni agbe le tan okigi’. Meaning that if the day likes, let it break, if it doesn’t like, let it remain as I will not go the farm tomorrow but will sit at home with my maiden. The funfair with the sacrifices of Aga continues until day break when everybody disperses to his house but to return the following evening for the Udi (wrestling) to commence.

Udi is a male festival. It is a wrestling competition between two males. Unlike Agura that is purely for youths, Udi contest can attract grown up adults and even chiefs who may want to still test their prowess in the game. Udi normally takes three (3) days. The first day of the wrestling completion is for each Quarters. At the Quarters’ square, Udi songs are sang and the youth divide themselves into two groups with each of the two groups declaring challenges for contest to each other. Songs like ‘Oluja mi tano o gwo le gwo to, gwo ba to o oghon da gwo’. This song means that those who have been fighting underground should challenge each other openly to determine the stronger of them. With songs like this, one person would go from his group to challenge the other group. The other group would respond by accepting to a volunteer or a nominee to take on the challenger in the wrestling contest. Everybody already knows the rules and must do the wrestling purely by them. 

The wrestling commences with each wrestler keenly watching that he is not taken unawares by the opponent. The period before the duet commences is normally a period of carefulness for the contestants and that of suspense for the warring groups. However the duet would eventually commence and after few minutes a winner would emerge- the winner being the contestant that can floor the other first. In this type of contest, there is normally no umpire as everybody knows the rules. There are victory songs for the winning side and there are those for the losers. The wrestling bout continues like this until all the youths have their turns, with those who are brave and strong doing more than one bout. 

The second day of the wrestling competition is inter-quarters. Prior to this day, invitation would have been sent to another Quarters to seek consent for the wrestling contest. The Quarters making the request would have to go and meet the opponents at their quarters with Udi songs. At the square of the Quarters where the Udi is to take place, the visiting side would be on one side while the home team would be on the other side and the contest goes on as already described, this is because the rules for the contest are the same for all the nooks and cranny of the town.

The grand finale of the Udi festival is on the third day when all the youths from all the quarters in Kabba town gather at the Ala-Kekere- the most central square in the town. This contest is normally watched by the Paramount Ruler of the Town – Obaro of Kabba, in company of the members of his council. 

The contest in this square is not normally divided along any line as a challenger can actually be taken on by anybody from the crowd. When a person who is considered to be lazy at farm work throws out a challenge to the crowd he would be teased with songs like ‘Ode bidi saka ragaja, Ise re kun ghoko’. This teases the man with the fact that though he brags around with muscles for wrestling, his farm is very bushy and unproductive. If an elderly man was able to defeat in contest a relatively smaller person, he is teased with the song ‘Lati pa Omoerinwo ri loju re?, Omoerinwo, Awodi re pa Omoerinwo eyo, Omoerinwo’. Meaning that the contestant literally stole and kill an animal by name Omoerinwo and everybody knows that the animal is neither edible nor have any useful economic value. 

The grand finale of the Udi festival identifies and brings out the best wrestlers in the town. In the olden days, history has it that the princesses of the land were married to men who have distinguished themselves in the contests at the Udi festivals. Though maidens do not normally attend these contests, but they heard the news of all the happenings at these contests to assist them to determine the bravery of their would-be suitors. The funfair of the Udi festival is brought to a close late at the night of the third day as everybody disperses to their homes to await the following year’s contests.

With the advent of civilization, Udi was first replaced by football games and now it only surfaces at ceremonial functions to recapitulate our cultural inheritance. The festival like others, like it in the town, has succumbed to pressure from urbanization and civilization. 

TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE IN OWE LAND

Marriage in owe land is an institution that is very much revered and held in high esteem. It is a ceremony that graduates an ‘Idan’ (maiden) into ‘Adelebo’ (married woman); the ‘Boi’ (Boy) also becomes ‘Baale’ (married man). Commencement of this journey actually starts when as growing up children; a boy spots a woman he likes from one of the different playing grounds for male and female. Such playing grounds in the olden days are normally referred to as ‘are osupa’. 

The man who likes a girl and would want to marry her would normally not go directly to meet with the girl, but he would send an intermediary called ‘alarinno’ to the girl. The alarinno would go to the girl and espouses to her the virtues of the man who loves her and would want to be her husband. The reason why alarinno is used here is that owe people believe that nobody blows his own trumpet. There is always the first rejection by the woman. However, the alarinno persistently visits the woman with gifts from the suitor until the woman eventually agrees to meet with the man. The agreement of the woman is not without consultation with his mother to determine if the man is from a good and/or acceptable family.

When the woman eventually agrees to meet with the man, the alarinno would arrange for a meeting place where he would officially introduce the man to the woman and then takes his leave. This fulfills the saying in owe that when the suitor eventually meets the woman, the alarinno would disappear. It is a taboo for an alarinno to use his privileged assignment to swindle the suitor of his lover. When the man and woman are eventually connected, they start the process of courtship. Courtship involves meeting in secret places to chat and discuss and no more. These secret meetings would enable the duo to eventually make up their minds about marriage. 

When their minds are made up, each of them would break the news about their intention to their parents. The woman would tell her mother who would look for a way to break the news to the father. This is probably because children did not have direct access to their fathers in the olden days. The man on his part would tell his father about his intention, and the father will arrange with some of his friends to visit the woman’s parents to seek for the hand of their daughter in marriage. This process is called ‘toro omo’ in owe land. 

When a party from the suitor’s house visits with the request to marry a daughter in any house, the maiden’s family would not give immediate consent. This is because there are many other consultations that must be done before consent can be given. The first of the consultations is for the maiden’s family to consult around the neighborhood of the residence of the suitor to find out if the family has history of protracted illnesses, bad behavior and bad lineage. If the suitor’s family passes this acid test, the next would be to contact an ‘Ifa’ oracle to determine if the union of the two would be good for all parties to the marriage. The olden days’ people believe that the Ifa oracle can predict what will happen in the future. The consent of the Ifa oracle may also be given premised on the performance of a sacrifice. The marriage may be disallowed by the Ifa oracle. 

When eventually the consent of the Ifa oracle is secured, there will finally be the process of the breaking of the news to the extended family members of the woman. If the news is given to the extended family members and no objection is raised, consent for marriage is sent immediately to the expectant family of the suitor. The receipt of no objection consent by any family is often celebrated in the suitor’s family as it also portrays that the suitor’s family is good. 

The family of the bride and bridegroom now arrange to hold a meeting to agree on the date of the traditional wedding. At this meeting, the bride’s family would hand over the lists of all the materials they desired for the traditional marriage to the family of the bridegroom. Family members of the would-be couple depart from this meeting to commence preparation for the date of the traditional marriage. Preparation for the marriage would normally include advertising the date to friends and well wishers and stocking away food items and drinks that would be used to entertain guests. New cloths are made or acquired also in preparation for the day of the marriage.

Early morning on the date of the traditional wedding, cooking of food commences at the bride and groom’s houses. The favorite food at this type of occasion is pounded yam with ‘shekere’ soup. Friends of both families visit them to have their fill and take drinks. Later on in the day, a delegation of men and women from the groom’s house would go to the house of the bride dressed in colorful attires with songs and dances. They also arrive at the bride’s house with the engagements materials and the dowry. A lot of funfair is made out of this ceremony. The delegation is received by the bride’s family after formally probing them and making them to publicly declare their intention for record purposes. 

There bride’s family engages in the entertainment of the groom’s family. The housewives in the family of the bride gather to entertain all present with songs and dances which are normally rewarded with cash gifts. They make cash demands on the family of the groom and would threaten to stall the proceeding of the marriage if such demands are not met. One of the songs they sing at this time is ‘Omi mo kun, eyanni ghan ko gha’. This literally means that there is flooding along the way and that the groom’s family should arrange for a canoe to paddle them across the river. The groom and his family having prepared for these demands would make great show of the cash gifts to the housewives of the bride’s family.

The groom is seated. The arrival of the bride at the scene of the wedding ceremony is normally done with great funfair. This is not done though until the groom has been deceived into opening the veil on the faces of other people who were faked as his bride. Eventually the bride is seated and the ceremony commences. The family of the groom led by the groom himself and his friends would make former request for the bride by prostrating. Their request is accepted and they would thereafter present all the items of gifts they have brought to the family of the bride. Interestingly, these gift items vary from family to family. An item that seems to be uniquely present in the traditional marriage gift items is yam tubers. 

After a lot of negotiation and agreement on the items brought for the marriage, the dowry is demanded and it is given to the parents of the bride. On the receipt of the dowry by the family of the bride, the family of the groom starts to celebrate. This is because the receipt of the dowry seals up the marriage. 

With the payment of the dowry by the groom, items of kolanuts, salt, palm oil, and honey are used as prayer materials by the heads of the celebrating families to pronounce blessings upon the newly wedded couple. With this, a session of the traditional marriage ceremony is brought to a close, but the bride would still return back to her family to prepare for a final journey to her husband’s house at night. It is the belief of the owe people that a bride do not go to her husband’s house in the day time. 

As the night falls, the friends of the bride would carry the loads of the bride and in a singing and dancing procession lead the bride to the house of her husband. The family of the bride will give to her a little girl called ‘olosu meta’ to accompany and stay with the new family for three (3) months. A major feature of this night procession to the house of the groom is that the groom must not be in the house when the wife arrives his house. At the house of the groom must be on hand women from his family to receive the new wife. At the doormat, the lead woman from the groom’s family receives the new wife by pouring cold water on her legs and pronounces blessings on her. The new wife thus enters into the house of her husband to await her husband who would only join her later in the night when all the visitors would have gone back to their own houses. This way a new family commences.