FESTIVALS

 

FESTIVALS AND CELEBRATIONS.

Festivals and ceremonies in Igarra are of clan based custodianship and involves the entire community who in turns join the celebrating clan in marking such festivities. Hence it becom a taboo for any clan to conest custodianship of a the originator clan or even attempt to usurp same. This prerogative to fix dates, times and coordinate or control such events lies on the originator clans forever.

Aba festival

This is the most popular festival not only in Igarra but in the entire Edo-North Senatorial District. It has been rated the sixth most popular indigenous West African Festival as the inflow of guests in attendance shoots up the population of Igarra so much that hotels in Igarra and environs get fully booked for the one week through which it lasts. It is a crowd pulling festival which attracts both natives and non natives from both within Nigeria and the diaspora. The festival officially marks the graduation of Opoze age group members into Azebani status. It involves the beating of the over two hundred and ninety year old Aba Drum to the dancing steps of the Opoze age group graduands dressed in an all-white apparel on that day to the admiration of the younger men who wish that one day it would be their turn or their husbands' in the case of young women. The event takes place at the Ofumamo area of Somorika Road in the Ubobo quarters of the town. The sole custodian of the Aba Drum is the Eziakuta clan whose members do the beating of the drum that day on top of a rock known as Ireta Ubah and equally located at Ofumamo. Custodianship of this festival is exclusively of the Opoporiku subgroup of Eziakuta clan. They fix and announce the date of the festival without any input from any other clan or non-member of Eziakuta-Opopriku group. They preserve the drum in the house of one of their members throughout the six years when it is not in use. During this period of non-use, it is not tampered with. Violation of this attracts consequences which could defy appeasement. Likewise, making bodily contact with the drum on the festival day without being a member of Eziakuta clan could attract consequences.

 

 

Arido Festival

This comes up some weeks after the Aba Festival. It involves the beating of a group of three drums known as Arido together with a gong (isue). Custodianship of the biggest of these three drums falls under the Eshinagada clan. Anoseri clan own custodianship of the smallest while custodianship of the intermediate one together with the gong resides with the Eshimozoko clan. These drums were captured from Anafua people after thet were defeated in warfare. The three clans were the first to severe the heads of the leaders of the enemy. This festival occurs in three stages each carried out on every other Ofosu day thus separated by eight day intervals..

Stage one is a dance-like procession accompanied with the beating of the drums and gong starting from a cave located within the Uffa axis of the rocky hills and ends at Orere-Une in Uffa quarters.

Stage two and three share the same starting point as stage one but end at Okpe Junction in Utua and Ofumamo in Ubobo respectively. The end of stage three is marked by a mock wrestling competition for the drums between Ubobo and Ebah Quarters.

Ochionine (Ochi onine)

Ochi means stick, stem, tree, cane or log; while onine means burial, therefore this festival simply means stem burial festival

Its significance dwells on the performance of it as a prayer rite against sudden death of especially the just concluded Aba Festival celebrants who would soon afterwards commence their individual Azebani title taking; and their immediate successor Opoze age group members whose reign is just about to commence.

The stem of a tree is cut to mimick death of that tree, and then buried to mimick the burial of sudden and untimely death. These activities is carried out by the (odovidi) opoze leader which is performed jointly but exclusively by  Anonyete and Eshimozoko clans who are sole custodians at the Ireba Omondu along Enwan Road at Ufa Quarters. This is followed by festive gunshots and merryment.

 

Okikuozirepa (Okiku Oze Irepa)

This is the festival which represents the formality that marks the elevation of the Opoga age group to Opoze age group. It holds at the three Irepa roads all located at Ubobo Quarters and it involves tutoring of the incoming Opoze age group by the outgoing one on the Opoze parliamentary proceedings as well as on the aspect of playing the executive role of traditional administration. This festival is held five months after Aba Festival.

 

Ofuofifu (Ofu Ofifu) or Ofifuofu

This literally means 'market dispersal' and therefore marks the end of all Irepa festival rites until the next six years when the next cycle of Irepa festival activities will resume and heralds the commencement of individual title taking ceremonies of the outgoing opoze age groupo memners. The Anona and Ezioga clans hold custodianship of this festival. The beating of the drum and performance of other related rites for the Ubobo aspect are all performed by the Anona clan members while the Utuah version which holds on a later day is performed and the drum beaten by the Ezioga Clan.

 

Ukuokiku

This means delivery of vote of thanks. It is performed in Ufa Quarters, few days after Ofifuofu, by the Anonyete Clan members who solely hold custodianship.

Ekuechi

The annual festival was introduced to Igarra from Okene by the end of the 19^th century. It is celebrated in January, 28 days after the Okene phase of it.

The festival has three main phases: the Onieyishe stage, the Eku stage and the masquerade stage. The first and second phases are conducted or celebrated at night, and usually continue until the following day.

Onieyishe comes up on Amomo day. Okudunshi (Otindi) and Ikede music feature mainly during this aspect of it. The artistes or singers sing their songs which are chorused by their supporters. The songs are short and are easily mastered. Songs are composed to teach morals, to criticize undesirable practices in the community, to praise patriots, to call attention to current issues, etc. The singer has to mount a stage for everybody to see him and hear him sing.

The second stage is that of Eku which is the visitants' dance.

Women are required to prepare moi-moi (Apapa) for fellows supposedly from the eerie world. He-goat meat is also prepared for the consumption of the visitants. The play is heralded by iron gongs and wooden gongs which are beaten to drive mortal beings to sleep. Before their dance, fellows supposedly from the eerie world visit people by standing near their doors and sending greetings and prescribing what sacrifices the people have to make to their ancestors. Later the juju singers compose similar songs to those of Okudunshi which have chorus responses.

The third phase is that of the visitants who appear publicly as masked super-natural beings. Some of them usually the experienced once are fortune-tellers who go about to aid those who have one problem or the other. These ones combine divination with oracle playing. If such people are helped out of their pressing problems, they pay back to the masked people either in cash or in kind the following year.

Some of them entertain people with their skillful dances, while the common ones carry whips and run after young men to whip them. It is forbidden for people to attack the masked people because of certain repercussions.

Echetete (Merriment Galore)

Echetete festival is basically dedicated to ancestral worship

This is an annual get together ceremony of Igarra community. It is a celebration that marks the end of the Etuno pre-colonial calendar year. It involves the provision and sharing of beverages brewed from local

substrates of either sorghum flour (pito) or banana/plantain (eche Ogede).It is an annual thanksgiving ceremony usually observed and celebrated to remember our ancestral parents or departed loved ones in of the same abara or irewunopo. The oldest male person in the Abara prays for each head of the nuclear family with a four or five lobe kolanut (irevu'oboro). This is subsequently shared together with the locally brewed drinks to those at the gathering seated usually under canopies called ativava in Etuno Language. Members of the same age group gather to celebrate the festival with pitto, rich meals, beer and kola nuts. Visitors are entertained from different quarters.

Traditional dances feature in the celebration such as Ikede, Ijavi, Otindi, Okono, etc. The celebration may continue until the following day if enough drinks are available.

Enu

This is the annual new yam festival, which is celebrated mainly in August. Although new yams are harvested in June when Eziakuta clan performs the ceremony for harvesting new yams and planting of sorghum or guinea corn in the month of June. It is then not convenient for everybody to harvest new yams. Two months are, however, added so that everyone should have harvested new yams during the festival. Five days before the festival, members of the second age group clear the main roads and paths in preparation for it. The first age group members have to dance round to declare that they are fit to join an age group. A day before the festival, all farmers go to farm to harvest fat yams for the occasion. Gifts of yams are made to family elders, women, friends, betrothed wives and other relations. Enough yams are reserved for the week long celebration.

On the festival day, pounded yam dominates the main food to be taken by members of the community. Cooked yams are made into porridge or crumbs, part of which is soaked with palm oil. Domestic animals are given to eat, family members take out of it and part of it is dropped on farming implements.

The pounded yam soup is heavily laden with palm oil. Part of the pounded yam may be served on the destitute, tenants and the visiting villagers.

Wrestling matches are organized on street basis. This is among the young men between the ages of ten and twenty years. At a crowded area where there is a prepared mound, a teenager throws a challenge to a particular person in the words Kokoriko to be followed by mama vunu meaning acceptance of the challenge. Wrestling victory is the ability of the wrestler to fall his opponent. Any wrestler who emerges as an overall winner at a base can move to another base to challenge the champion there. That was how the best wrestlers in the community were discovered. Delayed circumcision was generally done during this period in the past. It is no longer done.

Osisi Aku Me Ete (Guinea Corn Planting) Festival

This is an annual festival held to herald the new Planting season of (Aku) sorghum. It is held in November, December or January depending on the dictates of the climatic conditions prevalent at the moment in question.

Custodianship is as well of the Anonfere subgroup of the Eziakuta clan. The fixing and announcing of the date is exclusively theirs. On the day of the festival they beat the Agidibobo Drum to herald commencement, perform the required rites; chief among which is the symbolic actual planting of the crop; and treat the public to entertainment of food and drinks. Violation of planting commencement date attracts consequences which could only be forestalled by appeasement of Eziakuta clan.