EDDA FESTIVAL

 

According to wikipedia,
"A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions, often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.
Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups, contributing to group cohesiveness. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, festivals such as the Saturnalia were closely associated with social organisation and political processes as well as religion.^[1][2][3] In modern times, festivals may be attended by strangers such as tourists, who are attracted to some of the more eccentric or historical ones"
         During my service year in edda land afikpo south, ebonyi state. i was privilege to witness a culture that can be dated back as far as the 30 BC. The uniqueness of the culture was what captivated me to pick interest in it. Though the advent of Christianity affected the creed and practice of this festival, i still find it fascinating that in the 21st century,much supports and interest is been given to it practices. In summary this practice involves the initiation of young boys or those that have not passed through the rites into the traditional cult. The initiates are expected to sleep in the community shine semi nude with some local mixture rob on their body for two weeks, during this period, no body is suppose to see their nakedness except initiates when the come out for their rituals in the evening.after the two weeks, they are celebrated in fashion by those who are already initiates and the whole community.It is generally believed that anyone that has not gone through this is not yet a man(nwoke edda). on the day of the celebration, the new initiates wear masked peculiar to the festival.
see the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8dND7HMcUc&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8dND7HMcUc&t=3s

written by Edidiong Akpan