News And Education Centre

The Moon is the Earth’s attendant and a body revolving about it, to transmit experiences into the instinctive functions of human nature by forming habitual pattern that become predictable behavioural reactions and responses in a living culture. The Moon represents the mother and any strong matriarchal or family influence that has left a deep impression on the psyche. It often reveals itself in patriotism and vivid awareness of traditional values and ancestral worth. The Moon governs conception, pregnancy, birth and animal instinct. It rules the infant, the most impressionable stage of a person. The moon is the regulator on the pendulum of time; representing the weight of the past, and acts like a brake on the progressive towards cosmic consciousness. In so doing, it protects, nourishes and lovingly, nurtures the spark of life whenever it appears. “The moon stop over Aijalon valley. The sun stood still and the Moon did not move until the nation had conquered its enemies. This is wr

It is gratifying to note that there are many good and beneficial aspects of our culture, which need to be continually projected. Although in some parts of Africa there may be aspects that are barbaric and need to be jettisoned because of their harmful and negative effects on some people the culture and custom seem to serve. The cultural heritage of a people is transferred from generation to generation and every society has its own cherished culture. History has it that what we have today as customs and traditions in different ethnic settings were genuinely and authentically tested facts. The Igun Eromwon people is located in Oredo Local Government Area of Benin City with a unique cultural background that have attracted the Western world, dates back to 15th Century during the reign of Oba Ewuare the great. Known for their art work mostly in Bronze casting which have won laurels to their state, Nigeria and Africa in the past. For a long time, our traditional leaders and rulers took

Spirit possession and medium culture is basically a belief that a spirit is submerging someone’s personally, speaking and acting through that person and the possessed person is called a medium (Ebo-zoe). An altered state of consciousness known as dissociated mentality that sometimes make the person affected, performs actions conforming to the identity of the spirit, which is thought to be possessing the person. Dissociated mentality may be otherwise pathological. Ordinarily it is a natural state, for which a facility can be developed. The identity and character of the spirit, which is the object of the belief, depends on the particular social or the rites of the context. Patron spirit are those that belong to a central rite and are usually the objects of religious faith and worship, such as the ancestral worship or divinities, usually there is no dissociated mentality involved in patron spirit possession. There is a mystical spirits originated in specific places that have thought

Ovia was a beautiful woman transformed to the name Ovia River, the largest river in the kingdom of Benin. She is worshipped in many communities but women are not allowed to enter her sacred groves. At the time of Ovia festival most of the men in the community go into seclusion in the groves around the shrine for periods varying from a week to three months. They are completely masked and in every second day throughout the festival the spirits emerge to dance in the village or in the town. Each spirit wears a suit of cotton with long sleeves which come down to cover the hands. Over this are draped two single circlets of fresh young palm leaves - Omen or palm fronds suspended from the waist and the shoulders. Round the ankles each dancer wears anklets and sometimes also anklets consisting of small brass clapper - bells Eroro or pellets bells Ighenghan. On the head the spirit wears a skull-cap of bark-cloth into which a framework of soft sticks is pegged. Into these sticks are inserted

In retrospect and till date, we had varieties of fast foods. These fast foods are called “Ekusun” which is seasonal and made from fresh maize “moin-moin” made from beans. “Akasan” made from strong-corn. “Emieki” made from plantain flour and beans etc all wrapped up in fresh leaves. The leaves are capable of protecting these foods without loosing taste. It is a common scenario to find young boys, girls and mature ladies hawking these food products in the streets and market places across the metropolice. These are health foods in their natural state devoid of excessive sugar which is the primary cause of diabetes, excessive salt which act as a booster to hypertension and animal fats which also accelerate collesterol consumption in human diet. But what we see these days are youths patronizing refined fast foods that contain a lot of sugar, excessive salt and animal fats which is detrimental to human health in our modern fast foods centers. However, at home or bukateria, the average Be

THE gods are superhuman beings or spirits of an outstanding physique with divine nature created little above human beings. Human beings are created little less than the gods with fine qualities even to attain godhead, deity or states of being a god or goddess when they possess the character of a god. Since the human beings were created little less than the gods, they became the god parents, of the human beings while the human beings became sons and daughters of those divine beings in essence, they work to assist the human beings hence in ancient culture the curse on anything is directed to overseeing of the gods. The dichotomy, that is the two divisions or classes of human beings and the gods spirit contrasted groups are quite strong in nature that the two speak well of one another. In the olden days, there was a goddess river whose inhabitants speak with the people of the mundane world. The gods told the people that there is a being who steal and the name of the being is ‘Thief-Oy

To say there is nothing in a name is a grossly misleading statement. Everyone has a name; it is our most valuable possession, our only possession that can survive dearth. Names are use to identify People. Even the poorest folks have a name that can live after their death. In Africa, many people change their names for one reason and other. Some countries changed their names following independence Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mali. Just to mention but a few. The Africans have a very strong believed that the names a person bears is sometimes a key to the understanding of the persons, family history and the environment were they were born. A numbers of events dictate the choice of a name given to a child and circumstances concomitant to the situation surrounding his or her birth. Religion, weather, seasons, festivities, wars, conflicts in the family divination, accidents, jealousy, rivalries, just name them. Our African names always have a definite meaning and parents, relatives, and well

Ohogho is a dance in a revolving circle. It is a religious dance. Its troupe belongs to certain physicians-ebo group of Benin culture. The groups are usually strong and healthy senior Eroghae and Ighele age groups. The dancers wear waist gown-ebuluku and dance in circles with gongs or bells in their hands, and around a bowl alight with burning medicinal leaves and splinters of wood. It is a protective dance to ward off evils as the smoke dispersed into the atmosphere, so also epidemics, wars and calamities disappeared, hence in a song “Agha yo Okuo a mai khon, Iyeke a ya rrie”. If one went to war and did not fight, the person retracks backwards. Ohogho dance is considered as an art that forms a part of religious ceremonies. It is danced in a revolving circle and the dancers play clapperless bells — egogo or gongs with gong sticks. Clapperless bell egogo is one of the most common musical instruments of Edo people. It is made of two pieces of iron welded together into a conical shap

Religious culture is a manifestation of an inherent endowment within human nature of an awaken sense of unseen controlling power’s with the emotion and morality connected with such belief. Religious culture is an organized system of belief in supernatural and in certain ways of life which reflect the people’s ideas of traditional belief of God and spirits. Many religions try to explain the world of mankind and contain the belief in another existence. The Edo think of the Universe as being divided into parts-the actual visible world in which people live and the invisible or unseen world of numerous deities, spirits and other supernatural powers. These supernatural beings can be classified into many groups such as deities, ancestors, spirits, gods and powers. Every individual is thought of consisting the living person in this mundane world and the spiritual counterpart in the spirit world. Early civilization endowed objects with superhuman powers by worshipping an object containin

Talking Musical Instruments lie in the tonal quality of most languages, in the fact that the instrument reproduces the tones, stresses and numbers of syllables in the various utterances. Talking instruments do not use a kind of morse system and the talk has often attracted the attention of visitors and observers. Edo talking musical instruments give performers and listeners the opportunity to express and experience a variety of emotions. Some of which are hostility, excitement, psychological relief and to increase dramatic tension at points of climax, but their blasts also express the excitement of the adversaries and hostility. It was said that the functions of music concern the reasons for its employment and particularly the broader purpose which it serves and among the several functions are those of emotional expression, entertainment, communication, symbolic representation, enforcing conformity to social norms, validation of social institution and religious rites. The general p

Ekpo culture is a festival of false appearance of spirits in persons as representative of alternative values within culture and traditional source of opposition to combating diseases and epidemics and emphasises the ritual importance of the people in a society where age and seniority determine status because Ekpo celebrates the young and the healthy. The founder of Ekpo culture was Agboghidi of Ugo a famous warrior from his Dukeshire in Ugo in the present Orhionmwon Local Government Area of Edo State. The culture was introduced by Emokpaogbe, the Agboghidi, the Enogie, who lived in the time of Oba Akengbuda, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Emokpaogbe as a warrior left his shire for many years to go on war expeditions. On his return, he found infectious disease troubled in his dukedom. He became grieved over the situation and fell asleep. In a dream he saw the Ekpo spirit in the shape of his late grandmother. The Ekpo told the Agboghidi what to do to prevent the epidemics.

Eho festival of the Benin culture is a yearly festival usually celebrated in the month of September in honour of ancestral parents. It closes and opens with agricultural rites when the old yam tubers and grains are near harvesting. The Akaba-Ikpoleki festival had already completed celebrations. The Royal parrot hunters have carried out their customary duties, and had traveled back home. The people cheer and say that the parrot hunters have ushered in the Eho Festival of the year. The lyase of Great Benin Kingdom commences the Eho festival, followed five days later by Chiefs and other people of the kingdom. Extended families will gather at their ancestral family homes for the festival. Sons and daughters who had set up homes in other places arrive, followed by their own families. Married daughters also come with their spouses and children. It offers sons-in-law a chance to show their love and devotion to the families of their wives. They would bring bundles of yams, live stocks and

Passage rites of culture mark the transition from one social category to another, such as birth and naming ceremonies, marriage ceremony, initiation ceremony, age grades, title associations and funeral ceremonies. Passage rites such as purifications, consecrations are safety measures that are proposed to safeguard the human persons. The participants also depend totally on the mentality of the environment and the circumstances surrounding the occasion to determine the meaning. The birth customs vary considerably from place to place but certain features seem to be common. There are seldom any stipulations as to where a birth should occur but special care is normally taken in the disposal of the placenta, the child’s end of the umbilical cord-ukhon, and the first hair shaved from his head. Mother and child are usually washed outside the house by an attendant woman and the child is brought in with various ceremonies, such as the beating of flat gourds-Okpan with singing “don’t confus

Akhuee is a seed from the fruit of a climbing plant klainedoxia gradifolia - Akhueebo, and mucuna flagellipes - Akhueekpuru, which is used in a contest for competitive recreation or amusement as a game and sport involving bodily exercise. Akhuee derives its name from the plant bearing it and the game is played on an adhoc pitch Uvien Akhuee made on the ground outside a house or a compound. The players consist of two opposing teams. The pitch consists of akhueebo seeds or akhueekpuru which are stuck to the ground in parallel rows and three paralled columns on either side. The rows are about 30-40cm apart with the distance of the same extent between the columns. In addition to these rows and columns on either side of the game, there are two other seeds similarly stuck to the ground calls the Ogie –Monarch, in the central position at the head of the system rows and columns on the same distance of 30 - 40 cm from the last row. A central line is drawn on the ground separating the two t

Benin City, the ancient Edo Capital of Great Benin Kingdom is still surrounded by a huge mound of earth known as inner wall, as high and as wide as a two storey building six miles long, surrounding the most important part of Benin. Outside this wall is a ditch as deep and as wide as the wall. Both the wall and the ditch were still quite new when the Portuguese first came in 1472 A.D. A massive fortified earthwork entrance gate guarded travelers way in. it was supported by timber and watched by soldiers with swords slung under their left armpits. A heavy wooden door built to specification closed the gate. Normally, a traveler bringing goods into the city would have to pay a toll before the gate was opened. Ahead of the travelers as far as they could see, ran a long street, forty yards wide, full of people, and among them the occasional goats or hen, domestic animals. About a mile ahead, they noticed a huge tree standing by itself, and beyond that the road still ran into distance. T

Taboo-Awua is a prohibition to which an automatic sanction is attached. It exploits an innate in the human psyche and is used to inculcate practical attitudes through dramatic symbolism. There are family taboo-awua egbee, taboo of the deity-awua erinmwi, awua ebo, taboo of guardian spirit, awua ehi or personal taboo of which a person is not comfortable to senisterity or special taboo affecting priests — ohen, chiefs —Ekhaemwen or personal. Purification is required for being surrounded with taboos. A herb called afo is normally used as the purification medicine when the effect is minimal. Ancient boundaries established long ago in the land is commanded by law, scripture Deuteronomy 19 verse 14 “Do not move your neigbhour’s boundary mark” and in the tradition a tree called Ikhinmwin, Eyanton, Egbon, is planted to mark a boundary, and a new village, camp - ago or before building any house. It represents the owner of the land and is at the same time, the place where worship is made to