Ovia Osese: An Ancient Ogori Maiden Festival Stomping Into Modern Times

Arriving Ogori, I was confronted by a masked figure dancing on the street ahead of a group of children  who were drumming and singing. My fellow travellers smiled knowingly. It was all part of the annual maiden festival that has made Ogori nationally and internationally renowned. It is called the Ovia Osese festival and has […]

Arriving Ogori, I was confronted by a masked figure dancing on the street ahead of a group of children  who were drumming and singing. My fellow travellers smiled knowingly.

It was all part of the annual maiden festival that has made Ogori nationally and internationally renowned. It is called the Ovia Osese festival and has been held since…well since Ogori came into existence several centuries back. That is what everyone in Ogori believes.

For every Ogorian – as they call themselves – this festival, which survived colonialism and the invasion of new faiths, is paramount, such that members of the community are drawn home from wherever they may be (one Ogori chief had to make a marathon all-night trip from Dublin, Ireland through Accra, Ghana to arrive in time for the grand finale).

The importance of this festival is summed up by the Regent of Ogori, Chief Amos Akintola who says, “If any girl fails to perform it, no one will care to marry her.”

The festival is a week-long event, involving initiation rites that prepare young Ogori maidens for the journey into womanhood.

Throughout the week, the whole community is in a festive mood. Community events such as sporting challenges take place while the maidens are in training. Families whose daughters are to be initiated are expected to be generous during the week. There is a party atmosphere in most of these households and it is not uncommon to see groups of women in uniform ankara dresses (aso obi) moving from one place to another, or busy around huge coocking pots on open flames. Canopies are set up and guests are entertained with food and drinks while festive music fills the air.

But who are these people and why are they, in this 21st century, initiating their daughters into womanhood?

Forgotten origins

The Ogorians are found in the hinterlands of Kogi State, particularly in Ogori-Magongo Local Government Area. Their neighbours, the Magongos also have a similar but less elaborate initiation festival.

The Ogorians speak Yoruba and bear Yoruba names but they actually have a language called Oko, (pronounced Or-kor). A group of people believed to have originated from the Yoruba ancestral home of Ile-Ife settled here and developed the town, nestled among verdant hills, where they sought protection from the intertribal wars of the old days.

Cushioned among these hills, these people have evolved a culture they are very proud of. They even have an Ogori anthem and virtually everyone, young and old, knows it by heart.

Christianity has taken a firm foothold in the land and this year’s Ovia Osese festival coincides with the centenary of the first church in Ogoriland. Western education has also made significant inroads and it is said that “every other house in Ogori has a professor.”

Interestingly, the Ovia Osese festival has been intricately woven into the very fabric of this culture such that life without it is unthinkable for the natives, so much so that no one seems to remember quite clearly when and how it all began.

Chief Akintola, the Regent of Ogori could only say the festival has been going on for years, but the chief is old and could not have any clear recollections of the past.

Elder Rueben Tunde Osiako, who is 70 and had initiated his daughters before, travelled from Lokoja to witness this year’s festival. He seemed perplexed when I asked him about the origins of the festival, as if it is a question no one actually asks.

Finally, he says, “We met it, our forefathers met it.” And for most indigines, that knowledge is just enough.

“The origin of the festival dates back to when Ogori became a community several centuries ago,” Professor Olugbemiro Jegede says. He is one of the most famous professors from Ogori and has been the Vice Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and currently is the Secretary-General, Association of African Universities. But that was as far as he, too, could go on the origins of the festival.

In my quest for the origins of the Ovia Osese, I ran into a politician, a native of Ogori, who was introduced to me simply as Honourable. He recalls having documents that suggest the festival started with one of their ancestors whose daughter got missing at the age she should have become a woman. And so the initiation rituals started in remembrance of that missing girl. He even backs up this assertion with an interpretation of the song sang at the festival which says, “Now that I should be happy, I am sad.” This, and the really mournful mien of the maidens during their special dance, seem to lend some credence to his claims. Honourable, however, could not recall where he had stashed the documents.

There have also been suggestions that the rites started when a young girl’s chastity was questioned and she was subjected to certain rituals to prove her innocence. When she was eventually cleared of guilt, her family celebrated. This, it has been suggested, made other families celebrate the chastity of their daughters on attainment of womanhood.

New faiths, old traditions

“In the olden days, we didn’t use to come to the arena like this,” Mrs Felicia Ebun Aladuge, who chaired this year’s festival, said while cultural troupes performed in the background.

It was at the Ogori Civic Centre where thousands had assembled to catch a glimpse of the Ivia (the maidens), who had undergone the necessary training and were now due for public presentation.

Time has forced the hands of tradition and this Ogori custom has survived largely because it has been able to adapt.

When Christianity first came to Ogori a century ago, the new faith was at odds with the old tradition and frowned heavily at the initiation rites.

Prince Tony Animashaun, President of the Ogori Descendants Union (ODU) explains: “The church felt the word initiation suggests they [the maidens] would go through some kind of rituals that are contrary to the Christian faith, but there is no secrecy. It is simply a way of training our women to appreciate their puberty, recognise themselves as women.”

Eventually, that crisis passed with the tradition making concessions. All aspects of the rites that were considered inimical to the Christian faith were struck out.

Quite close to the Regent’s house stands a mosque built in 1940 for the small Muslim population in Ogori. These Muslims do not seem to have any qualms participating in the initiation rites.

In fact, the 50 maidens or so initiated this year all had to be registered with religious institutions in Ogori (for this year, nine churches and the Muslim Community Central Mosque). The girls were between the ages of 15 and 26. At the completion of the initiation, the maidens will return to the churches or  the mosque for thanksgiving.

Other aspects of the festivals have also undergone significant changes. From a family affair, initiations have become a community affair, and the credit for this has been taken by the ODU.

“It used to be a family affair but since the coming of the Descendants Union, we have taken it away from the families and made it a village affair,” Prince Animashaun explains proudly.

This move, the organisation and dedication with which the Ogorians pursue this tradition, has brought in a major sponsor and has made the festival a huge event. Telecom giant, MTN, has been sponsoring the events in the last couple of years.

Traditionally, the maidens used to come out naked, adorned only with beads, now modernity has clothed them with asoke.

Other activities have been added to make the event more appealing, especially to the younger generations. On the eve of the grand finale, there is a beauty pageant where Ogori girls strut their beauty in a variety of attires for lucrative prizes from the sponsors.

There is also a volleyball competition, mountaineering and other traditional sporting activities, such as ayo and catapulting are held in the run-up to the festival. Trophies are presented at the end of the week to the winners.

“We thank God that with the coming of education, there have been more innovations in the ceremony,” Mrs Aladuge sums up.

Becoming an Ivia

To qualify for the initiation, the girls should be at least 15 and of good moral conduct. Ogori tradition prides itself for producing decent young women who would later on become bastions of some family.

“If any girl gets pregnant before she does this, she would never come through this process; she will be rejected by people. It is a way of sanctioning people, it is a way of making sure that discipline is maintained,” Prof. Jegede explains.

For a week, these maidens are camped by the Iyodina, a chieftain of Ogori culture. She trains them in the ways of women and how to keep the family. Prof. Jegede tells us exactly what happens:

“They are taken through training as to what it means to be a girl with strong moral standing, trained to respect families and cultures, trained about what in-laws are all about and how to respect them, trained about food, trained in the arts and the aesthetics. The Iyodina presents the maidens and they don’t come to this place [the arena] until she has certified them, and she, in fact, takes them through some trainings herself, she quarters them in her place and makes sure they understand what this is all about,” he says.

Such trainings used to take longer, but the times have affected this aspect as well.

“In the past, it used to be for three months, but our girls now are in school and they can’t stay and have that training for three months,” Prince Animashaun explains.

In fact, some of the maidens don’t even turn up. Of the 50 listed this year, only 17 were eventually presented.

“It’s not a must for the ivia to be present, she could be abroad but she will be recognised,” Mrs Aladuge offers.

This does not in any way suggest a weakening of this tradition. The enthusiasm shown by all members of the community, old and young, shows the festival is taken quite seriously.

“No family worth its own salt will give out its daughter in marriage without the girl going through the celebration of womanhood,” Prof. Jegede says.

Among the youths, these strongly held beliefs are showing signs of weakening, however. John Akande is a young Ogori man. His take on the issue is slightly different.

“In the olden days they used to enforce it, but with the coming of Christianity, some people don’t even do it,” he says.

John is engaged and his fiancée has already been initiated. When asked if he would have married her otherwise, he answered in the affirmative.

Despite his claim, to most Ogorians, the idea of a woman not being initiated is simply unthinkable.

The significance of the initiation has greater impact on the society as a whole.

“In ogori one thing that is a very rare is divorce. The rate is very, very minimal compared to other places and it is because of this, because it shows girls how to hold together their family, they know when things are tough; what they should do and, of course, there is the family they can fall back on,” Prof. Jegede concludes.

The maidens’ dance

After displays by invited cultural troupes, young girls clad only in yellow shorts and bedecked in beads file into the arena. Their skin is covered in red clay which gives off a pungent smell. They swing their hands in time to a haunting song and then form a circle. Three girls take turns to dance in the centre of the ring. These are the Ibusuke, the forerunners to the Ivia.

Finally, the Ivia file out after the Ibusuke have done their bit. The young women, with asoke strapped around their chests and decorated with beads filed out in the same fashion as their forerunners.

Their expressions were mournful, their postures grim, but there was a regal quality about their strides. Their oke dance was in tune with soulful chants. It was almost as if they were mourning the loss of their childhood days.

“I am happy,” Amuruwaiye Elizabeth says grimly, “it is an important day for me and my family. I am happy.”

They seemed determined not to smile, even when one of them was chosen as the best. Having received her Miss Ogori trophy, the ivia’s resolve was however broken by the announcement that the sponsors have awarded her N100,000. She yelped and raised her trophy above her head, a rare smile showing.

It would seem that for years to come, the Ovia Osese festival will hold this smile, having bent to the wind of change to survive. Next year, they are planning it bigger. The Ogori League of Professors is planning an international symposium to coincide with the festival. Perhaps, then, the forgotten origins of this remarkable tradition will come to light.