Every country has her own culture and it's celebrated in different season of the year. I am a Nigerian and there are three ethnic groups in Nigeria namely; the Igbo, the Hausa and the Yoruba. I am Igbo and we have different cultural practices but I will love to discuss about Masquerade festival in Igbo Land.
Find the question from Hive learners community below 👇
Tell us all about a festival that holds in your country that is unique only to your people. And tell us why you enjoy it so much. Or if you don't.
Masquerade festival differs in Igbo land considering your own State and your village as well. So in Enugu State (Nsukka Village) to be prescise, masquerade is usually celebrated when the second 🌕 moon (onwa about) appear sometime in November every year. There is a way the elders of my village use to choose the festival day following the appearance of the moon and this made it not to have a specific date for the festival. Once the second moon appear, the king will order the town crier to go round the whole village and announce the forth coming festival.
It's usually a two-day festival and always unique. On the D-Day, all cultural dance in the village usually perform massively, the Ogene people and the children masquerade too. The aim is to gather the whole village and have other of our tradition being explained in detail to the young ones, it also serve as the time of togetherness to all villagers where different local games are being played at the village square both young and old people. There are usually lots of palm wine and food enough to grace the occasion. The Dancing competition is another interesting thing about the festival and lots of people wants to get involved because of the monetary price attached. During the two-day events, shops and market are being shut down to ensure maximum participation from everyone. This was how I met masquerade festival being celebrated as one of our culture in my own village.
WHY I DON'T LIKE IT ANYMORE
You see, this part of our culture used to be fun while I was growing up but later on, the motivate of initiating the culture by our ancestors was ruined.
When the event is approaching, the masquerade will start coming out and causing nuisance in the whole town, they will be blocking the road and requesting for money and if you fail to give them money, they will beat a hell out of you. Sadly, I was once a victim of these , it was so painful and horrible experience and that's why I detest it now .
The masquerade go out the whole town with big cane flogging people left and right, some even embed razor blades inside the cane inorder to injure anyone that offended them. Young guys intentionally wear masquerade in search of people that hurt them and use the opportunity as revenge! Some go as far as to the river for extra spirit power just to perform magic during the event. All these and many more has been happening lately and nobody is saying anything about that and that's my main reason why I don't like the festival anymore. Well, so many things has gone wrong and I just wish we can go back to the way it used to be before.
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