Cultural traditions are the way of life of people that has been passed down from one generation to another within a community. This traditions are ways we use to identify a particular group of people.

Join me as I uncover some traditional customs from my village, the date is been celebrated, the place the traditional festival is carried out and a whole lot more that will be covered in this challenge.

Before going ahead, I’ll love to invite @eurogee, @smyle and @nesydahlia to be part of this challenge.

We have different cultural traditions that we celebrate in okrika, Rivers state. But I will be talking on our masquerade festival. This masquerade is classified into two sections. We have the peaceful masquerade and we have the violent masquerade.

The entertaining masquerades

The masquerade are the ones that brings a lot of awards to our community whenever they are doing Rivers State traditional carnivals and they are so good at dancing. We have a lot of them but I’ll be mentioning the 3 popular ones.

• Pioru: this masquerades are made up of 5 different people. They are beautiful dancers with their glaring and shiny costume that attracts onlookers. They are more into entertainment than any other masquerade and are mostly called up on events or cultural festivals and lots more.

• Piri-angala: this masquerade is always stationed on a 3 legged static stick that it’s pinned to the ground. The sticks are as high as 3 - 4 storey buildings. The masquerade climb to the top, jumping from one stick to another to showcase its dancing skills. The masquerade while dancing will bend the stick to any place of his choice, so people can see him dance clearly, yet the stick won’t break.
  While at the bottom of the stick, there is a traditional herbalist, invoking, libating and chanting to prevent the stick from breaking or the masquerade from falling to the ground. Foreigners prefer to call it black magic. Lol

• Ogwein masquerade symbolizes a mermaid spirit that mysteriously appears during the raining season when the sea becomes calm to dance on it. This masquerade dances on the river without sinking. They hardly play this masquerade because of how expensive it is to organise. It’s played during the coronation of a king or the death of a great personality in okrika.

Violent masquerade

This one’s is been played in the early hours of the morning and ends by 11am. Then they play the second round in the evening. It’s starts by 4pm and end by 7pm. In my own opinion, people love this scary ones more because you’re always on the run. A masquerade can come out from anywhere and chase after you. Your adrenaline is always pumping because of fear of been flogged by the masquerade. So, if you are not interested, you stay in your house and watch from your balcony. They have different colors of masquerade in this category but the popular ones include;

• Blackie: This is the most fearsome of all the masquerades. Whenever he comes out everyone runs to hiding because it chases everyone. If you’re good at running then you can come out let it chase after you. It wields a machete and he uses the side of the blade to flog people. This blacky masquerade is the mother of them all. There is a chain tied to the waist of the masquerade and it’s held by few people to restrain it when it’s been possessed by the spirits. Once it gets to 6pm, it’s know longer restrained by any chain and the face of the mask is off. The masquerade is now free like a bird. Your best bet is to stay indoors or feel free to enjoy the fun, if you as fast as Usain Bolt.

• Danger: Like the name implies, the masquerade is dangerous but not as brutal as the blacky. It’s red in colour. This one doesn’t chase everyone is only those that wants it to run after them that it goes after. This masquerade uses canes and is very fast since it doesn’t have any chain to restrain it.

This festival is always celebrated December period at different communities in okrika land. During that period, all the people that have left for the cities, do come back to have some good time at their home town. To catch up with family and friends they left behind. So, there’s no other better period to celebrate the masquerade festival than December. For the ogwein, pioru and piri angala masquerade they’re played on special occasions.

The ogwein masquerade is mostly carried out on both land and river. It dances it’s way from the river down to the land.

While the pioru and piri-angala is held in the village square. These three masquerades are more of the entertaining of masquerades.

For blacky and danger, everywhere is there playground. They can come out from anywhere at all and chase after you. So, you have to be alert at all time.

I’ve not participated before but I’ve seen when they are making up the masquerade and also wearing them the costumes. Besides, as a Christian, we believe it is fetish because of the incantation and chants involved after wearing the mask. Before you wear the mask, there are lots of libations and invocation of spirits poured on the head of the mask.

Well, as much as I don’t participate in the organization in the masquerade, whenever I’m in my home town, I watch them. Sometimes I go for the dangerous masquerade to chase after me. Especially when I want to sweat a bit.

Yes… celebration of this traditional masquerade usually involves different people from other communities that comes to watch their performances. This event provides opportunities for people to come together to interact and relate with one another, thereby promoting peace and unity. It’s also give individuals a deeper appreciation for their cultural heritage and some sense of pride for the okrika tradition.

Yes… this tradition has one way or the other promoted tourism especially those masquerade that are peaceful. Like piri-angala and the ogwein has attracted a lot people from far and wide. They want to see how a masquerade will climb a stick as high as a 3 storey building… bend it to whatever directions while it still maintains balance dancing on the stick.

The ogwein is another tourist attraction. A lot of people come far and wide to see the mystery behind a masquerade dancing on water. The costume are so beautiful and colorful. On land, it has its beautiful maidens that comes to dance along with it.

image source: taken with my phone