By Uduma Kalu
it's Iri Ji, New Yam Festivals in Igboland, and Ohafia, the land of mights and mighty men, is ablaze with festivals.
It should be a Guinness world record,
I mean this land of twenty six towns, each with at least twenty traditional cultural troupes- dibia (medicine guild), warriors of different guilds, secret society troupes numbering over four, yam guilds, yam custodians, wrestlers, mgbada (xylophone) players (over twenty) depending on a town's number of compounds) and dancers, cultural displays women dancers, age grade carnivals, akurumba and akurumba masquerades, perhaps the largest display of masquerades in one single day, numbering over five hundred alone in Isiugwu Ohafia, obamba, erinma, Oji onu, owu, ohuwa, ojojo, di bu ugwu, elders procession, akpan, oshimoshim, ndi Uzo, Ndi nta, hunters, ikoro dancers and players, etc and finally, the embodiment of the Ohafia, the amazing Ekpe masquerade, not Ekpe Society, roving and raving over the land with a frenzy only the fieriness of the leopard can express, wild and gentle at the same time, glittering among the crowd in the sun. Such beauty. Such spectacle. Such colours. It's amazing.
For three months, Ohafia, beginning every August till October, this warriors' land showcases its colours and crowd, giving you truly the meaning of the word 'Carnival', the Igbo word taken and embellished in the Caribbean- the cultural procession. The crowd alone is amazing, yes, it's eye popping. .
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