Contest: One Picture And One Story - Week #15

Hello everyone in steem for Pakistan community, writing about the one picture , one story for week 15 and this will be my first time joining on this post.

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My one picture, one story for this week will be about The Masquerades. I was opportune to take pictures of this masquerades and their band members during the Cultural representation in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. With the preservation of cultures and way of life, the Government wanted the people of the state to know more about their culture and why some things were done.

During my childhood, I had gory images of the masquerade, it was used to make us afraid whenever we did anything wrong. You will soon know why I was afraid.

When we were young, we had stories of the masquerade being an institute of discipline and authority in our environment. Whenever someone steals, fights another, or does something bad, the masquerades were summoned to the person. This is done especially when the particular person who did wrong refuses to accept the call to the village square.

A masquerade or masquerades will be sent to fetch the person. The person will get flogged and disciplined by the masquerades. There were also fierce looking masquerades and ones that were very dangerous. These stories about the masquerade kept us in check. Whenever we get to see them, we would run and hide indoors so that the masquerade won't catch us.

Even when we didn't do anything wrong, it became something we started being afraid of. Once when I was a little kid, I was stubborn and my uncle called the masquerade to come and discipline me, I cried and pleaded with my uncle not to take me to the masquerade. I wanted to show to my uncle that I was a changed person. I didn't want the masquerade to catch me, so I started behaving well. Though it is a funny story now but I think it helped me to stop being stubborn.

Masquerades are actually used now to show the people about the cultures of our locality. How the masquerades were the policemen of our ancestors and how they did their work diligently well without being corrupt.

Though I used to be afraid of masquerades but I came to understand why the masquerades came into existence and what they used to do.

I never got afraid again. Instead I tell kids about the story of the masquerade.

Cultures like this one should be preserved for the younger generation to learn about them. It will help them see reasons to respect instituted authorities and never be corrupt. Because the masquerades were disciplined, fair and brought justice to whoever did wrong.

This is the story about the Masquerade.

Thanks for reading my post.

I invite @vudeme123, @basil20 and @imohmitch to participate in this contest.

Cc,
@suboohi