Traditional Retirement/ Long masquerade (Ekpe Aka) In My Hometown, Ndi Ebe Abam, Nigeria

Hello dear lovelies, yesterday being 29th of December 2022 is one of the busiest in my life. It is the biggest day and year in my hometown as it was set aside for both traditional Retirement and the Long masquerade (Ekpe Aka). What are these and how are they done?

Traditional Retirement

This is a ceremony that marks the retirement of certain age grade or group from active service in the Village. It is just like retiring from public service or civil service. Those who retire no longer take part in any financial involvements or physical work that is done in the village as they are considered aged.

The age at which one can be retired ranges from 57 to 62. This age range is determined by the members. It all starts as what is known as age grade, more like a club and it is usually formed at the age of 47 or a little less. People who are of the same age bracket group themselves. They decide to include those that are younger and older as the case maybe. Whoever that is not of the exact age that wants to join pays certain amount of money before they can allow the person to join them.

When they start newly, they are not yet recognized but they will keep pushing until after the age grade that are due for retirement retires, then there will be opportunity for recognition.

Preparation And The Retirement Ceremony

Before an age grade is approved to retire by the chiefs, they will be given a certain project to carry out that is will bring development in the city. It could be to build hospital, school, hall, or anything at all. It is usually a huge project. So if it takes them 10 years to complete, that is when they will be approved to retire.

This particular age group built the chief palace as their project and this current king is already residing there.

This year's retirement ceremony is very huge and loud because even the Traditional Ruler or the Chief (Eze) of my village is part of those that retired today. They include most prominent men and women in my village and most of them are my Uncle's, Aunties, step mother and Step Sister.

The pictures above are my Uncles and aunties. Even the chief of the community is my uncle.

What An Individual Is Expected To Do If He/She Is Retiring

The person is to make whatever financial contributions that are imposed on him or her

The person will have to prepare a special dish with large amount of chewables like meat, fish but they will have to be very big. The women will prepare soup and Garri, including rice while the men will prepare yam and rice. You are to take whatever you prepared to the riverside where the ceremony is done and prepare a place for you to seat down with the food. That means that the person will go out there with his or her chair and table, along with the one that will cover him or her with umbrella.

The most important aspect of the food is the soup that includes molded melon

	this is the melon, it has been grinded and prepared, after cutting it to the desired sizes, it will be cooked properly before it will be added to the soup

The individual will also dress by the Riverside because they will all bathe in that River and then dress for the occasion. And then wait there at their stand for their elders to come. Their elders here are those that retired before them. They will first of all come to their individual stands and dish the foods they came with as much as they want. They will take the biggest portion including the biggest fishes and meats. They will do that to all the retiring persons before you will finally retire. You dare not prevent them from taking whatever they want from your food else, you will not retire.

After this is done, then, the remaining foods will be made available for anyone who wishes to eat to eat. You are free to go to any stand and request for food and no one will refuse you. Trust people, they ate and ate and ate. That is the fun of it. You can mix the whole food as one and eat. It was really very interesting.

When this part is completed and all foods are exhausted, then the retiring persons will match in procession to the village square. But there will be little stoppages along the way as some men and women will block the road for the retiring persons to give them some cash before they will allow them to continue with their movement.

At the village square, the chiefs will stop them, bless them and give them some instructions. They will equally seat for a while and then proceed to the final destination where they will also seat and conclude everything as a group.

Next, they will all disperse to their various huts which they already built with palm fronds and wrappers preferably Georges.

	this is a typical traditional Retirement hut

They will be their to receive and entertain their visitors along with their music. People can then visit them and give them gifts and presents.

This big event climaxed by 3pm to give way for the biggest masquerade which is done every 2 years.

The Biggest Masquerade Or Ekpe Aka, which is Long masquerade

This is another big event that is not done anywhere in Nigeria apart from my village. No one is allowed to take pictures of this masquerade else, your device will be smashed.

How it is prepared is what I don't know but all I know is that, they usually hijack a little slime boy of about 4 to 5 years but the child must be very slim. Then they will use the boy to form the longest masquerade. After taking the boy, I don't know what they will do to him and he will stop talking for the moment he is carrying out.

They will fix the little boy up above to wave to the music when played. Then, they will prepare the masquerade in a way that one person will carry the long boy and then they will use a square like hit to cover whatever is inside which is not known to us. Then they will dance around. You will see the little boy but how he manages to wave in rhyme to the music remains a marvel.

People from nearby villages come around to watch the show and everywhere is crowded.

	this is me at the village square
	this is my brother, dressed according to the occasion. If you are to be free to join the big masquerade, you must tie the wrapper around your waist like this

I was there live to witness all these unlike other years. It was all fun.

Some videos I was able to record despite network challenges