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By Young Erhiurhoro
In this digital and computer age, there are so many cultural changes affecting many communities in Africa nay the Urhobo ethnic nation either for good or bad. No doubt, many of our cultural values, beliefs and traditions are gradually fizzling away from many Urhobo and Isoko communities as a result of the uncontrolled civilization and foreign pressure upon our people especially this present generation. One of such cultural values and practices we want to talk about in this article is, Urhobo cultural festivals.
From time immemorial, almost every community or kingdom in Urhobo land has one or more cultural festivals they usually celebrate at strategic periods of the year to honour one deity or another as part of our cultural and religious beliefs. For instance, Uwheru kingdom celebrates Ade wrestling festival to honour Onidjor deity, Unenurhie community celebrates Ohworhu masquerade festival to honour Ohworhu deity, Ughelli kingdom celebrates Iyerhi fishing festival, Ewu kingdom celebrates Ore festival and host of others. It was the same story in all the communities and kingdoms across the entire Urhobo nation.
I want to point out here that, the Urhobo cultural festivals are key parts of the Urhobo culture. We can only be identified by other tribes and ethnicities in the country by our myriad of cultural festivals we do celebrate from year to year. Celebration of cultural festivals is not only common to the Urhobo people, but to other tribes across the country. If we are to define culture to the understanding of our young generations, there is no way we can remove the celebration of cultural festivals and we then assumed the definition was complete. If we completely remove cultural festivals from our total ways of life as a group of people, indirectly we have lost our identity and historical foundations as a group of people in the African continent.
At the moment, like what I have observed as a media practitioner and cultural analyst over the years in my community and in other communities across the Urhobo nation, our cultural festivals are at the edge of extinction. This is also a pointer and reference to a research conducted some years ago by a group of language experts under the United Nations educational programme that, few years from now, Urhobo and Isoko in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria would lose all their indigenous languages and mother tongues. In fact, this is glaringly the era we have found ourselves now . Many Urhobo children especially those born and raised in urban areas of the country and other parts of the world look with disdain on those that speak the Urhobo language as being uncivilized, unlearned and stark illiterates. This new thought and mentality has now spread to the rural and the core Urhobo communities. As it’s today, none of Urhobo children in our rural communities want to speak their indigenous languages again, let alone participate in the cultural festivals of such communities. What a shame and a change!
Succinctly, there are some reasons breeding this ugly trend affecting the cultural foundations of the Urhobo people. One of such reasons is the influx of pentecostal churches and prayer ministries in every community in Urhobo land. We thank God for the introduction of Christianity to us by the British missionaries in the 18th century. However, this foreign religion, even as good as it’s has badly affected the Urhobo culture in diverse ways. It has created a new thought in us with the way we handle many of our cultural values, beliefs and practices nowadays. Our ways of practicing Christianity in Urhobo land has helped to brandished all Urhobo cultural values and practices especially in the celebration of the Urhobo cultural festivals as being fetish and idolized. Yes, like what I said in the introductory part of this discourse, the Urhobo cultural festivals are celebrated to honour one deity or another in the various communities. But this shouldn’t be enough reason as a man of God or a pastor to outrightly condemn the celebration of cultural festivals in your community or place of operation. This is where so many people are getting it wrong in the practice of the modern Christianity.
A second reason for this sudden change is our educational system in the country. In our educational curriculum, we have subjects like National Values or Social Studies at the primary and basic level, while History at the senior and higher level. These are really quite appreciative in our curricula development over the years. Unfortunately, these subjects mentioned above did not touch the history, cultural festivals, beliefs, traditions, practices and the general ways of life of any Urhobo community or kingdom. Therefore, from childhood to adulthood, Urhobo young people especially those of this generation are not taught about these cultural festivals, the value and importance of these cultural festivals to the Urhobo people, the reasons why we should participate, protect and promote these cultural festivals in our various communities and finally, the reasons why we must keep these cultural festivals from sudden extinction. This is a kind of reproach to the Urhobo nation, even with our many trained academics and professors in the field of education.
A third reason for this cultural fallacy confronting the Urhobo people is the surge of globalization and civilization, blowing fiercely around the Urhobo nation. These two ephemeral and sociological tools are gradually weaken the historical and cultural roots of the Urhobo people. Like what somebody said recently in an interview that, this android phone has taken place of almost everything in our daily lives. Our children don’t even bother to ask their parents and elders about their family and community history. Those of them that are still students don’t have time to read their books. They are always on top of the screen at every time. Even those of them that are Christians don’t have the hard copies of the Holy Bible any more, rather they can read it from their android phones at will. These are nothing, but the effects of globalization and civilization working against us in this part of the world. In the same way, it has affected the celebration of our cultural festivals. The android phones have replaced all the cultural festivals too. And this is an edge to extinction soon.
Conclusively, if we agree that, our cultural festivals are part of our culture and we can’t easily allow them to go into extinction just like that; then we should provide ways to revive, reform and restructure the Urhobo cultural festivals. One of such ways to revive the Urhobo cultural festivals is the direct contributions of leaderships of various communities across the Urhobo nation. Community leaders in Urhobo land must put on their heads that they are mandated by virtue of their positions to protect these cultural festivals from extinction. Therefore, they should make moral and financial support available to make sure that, their cultural festivals are organized as at when due without hitches.
Secondly, the leadership of the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) as the major socio-cultural organization of the Urhobo people should encourage all Urhobo communities and kingdoms to organize their different cultural festivals by also organizing in its annual national activities or programmes, “Urhobo Cultural Festivals Competition”. Different prizes and awards should be initiated and designed for winners in this competition. By participating in this yearly competition, it will definitely revive the dead spirits of our youths and children in participating in the different cultural festivals of their various communities.
Thirdly, globalization and civilization have a great role to play in reviving the Urhobo cultural festivals. For instance, information technology can be used to restructure our cultural festivals by removing anything that has to do with idol worshipping or honouring of deities. If these can be done, so many of our Christians would love to participate in most of these cultural festivals. Again, by using the modern techniques of telecommunications to showcase our different cultural festivals, it would definitely make our cultural festivals colourful to watch and beautiful to the eyes. Also, documentaries of these our cultural festivals by media experts and historians should be aired from time to time in our various radio and television stations. This will be very important to those children and other Urhobo people in urban areas to catch a glimpse of what the Urhobo cultural festivals are all about.
My Urhobo people, should we allow this fierce whirlwind of globalization, civilization, acculturation and foreign pressure blowing in every community or kingdom in Urhobo land to wipe away the cherished Urhobo cultural festivals?
Young Erhiurhoro;Kjc is a reporter and a member of the Urhobo Historical Society.
