#club100 || Travel contest 22th edition || the cultural festival of my people; the " ILLA-OSO " festival|| 15% to @hive-111293

Good day lovely steemians, hope your day was good , I'm here again to Share another wonderful and exciting content with you all. In today's post , I will be telling you about the cultural carnival / festival of my people . It's so interesting and glamorous, I know you would definitely love it.

I'm from the Igbo tribe and ethnic group of Nigeria. Particularly I'm from Bende in Abia state but currently reside in the city of portharcourt in Rivers State, all in Nigeria.

Although I stay far away from my state and home town , I never fail to visit my hometown every year around the month of December,this is because the month of December is when we have our annual cultural festival which we call "ILLA-OSO" .

This festival is usually very interesting and beautiful. It attracts people from different towns and cities to my hometown. The name of my hometown is "NKPA ". People of NKpa in different countries come down for this festival, it is so cherished and loved by my people and is therefore taken very seriously.

The festival as I was told by my dad has been going on from time immemorial, it is a reminder of a great war that was fought by our fore-fathers and a day to remember and celebrate fallen heroes of the war.

Although there is no particular day for this festival, it is usually done in the month of December.
On the day set aside for this celebration, the people of NKpa are expected to dress like our ancestors did, the youths would tie our native fabric across their waist leaving their chest bare
and the women would use same kind of fabric to cover their waist and breast portraying how the females dressed.

Everyone dressed for the festival would move in a procession from the boundary of my hometown to the center of my town dancing, singing war songs and chanting.

The procession is done in accordance with the formation of war of our ancestors.
It is led by a group of men carrying what is called in our local dialect as "ota" meaning shield, it is said that the men carrying this shield forms a blockade while the soldiers at the back throw stones at their adversary.

The next squad which forms the bulk of the army carries long wooden sticks as their weapon of war. it's funny to think that these were there weapons they used for war at that time .

Then the last set are the women, I was told that back then the women would come at the end of the war with hopes to find their family members alive and to celebrate and sing praises to the soldiers after a victory .

This festival would end at the Town square (Civic center), where everyone would gather to dance , drink and take pictures.
Although I didn't really partake in the last festival. The pictures I used were the one I took at the event

I love this festival celebration and do not miss it at all.
Cultural festivals and celebration like this is really important because it promotes unity and oneness and it teaches us about our history, ancestors helps us appreciate ourselves and our achievements

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you really enjoyed this post. I am inviting my friends @zekea , @amaka06, @sokabomb and @vokey to participate in this contest.

To support this community I am also giving 15% of the payout of this post to this community @hive-111293
Special thanks to everyone.