AFRILOWEEN

Yeah! It's Halloween time!

OK, just in case many of us don't know what Halloween is, here is a background to what Halloween is all about.

Halloween festival 

Halloween or Hallowe'en  also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31st of October of every year, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of All hallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain; that such festivals may have had pagan roots. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, disguising, attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror movies. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods.

Well, I'm in no way talking about Halloween as the title of my article is AFRILOWEEN. I went on social media and I saw how this FESTIVAL is so much celebrated. Yes, I believe it should be celebrated because it is a well known (famous) festival celebrated as a western cultural heritage and value. But the question is, how much value we (Africans) place on our own cultural heritage? We always see the festival of the Western world clean and undefiled, yet we paint our own culture black and undignified!

The Western world have more suiting words for their own culture making us buy it without probing nor questioning. The witchcraft we have today here in Africa is called Sorcery in the western world. We call them herbalists, they call them sorcerers.

Africa is a continent with so much cultural heritage that are too beautiful when beholding their sights, most especially here in the part of the world, Nigeria. We always celebrate western culture and always see ours (culture and festivals) inferior, archaic and undignifiable.

We always label our very own cultural heritage as occultic when we are suppose to celebrate it with passion in our possession. The likes of New yam Festival of the Igbo people, is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people held at the end of the rainy season in early August.

New yam festival 

The festival is practiced throughout West Africa (especially in Nigeria and Ghana and other African countries and beyond, symbolizing the conclusion of a harvest and the beginning of the next farming cycle. The celebration is a very culturally based occasion, tying individual Igbo communities together as essentially agrarian and dependent on yam. Now, we hear of this, many label it fetish and occultic.

Take a look at another festival here in Africa, Eyo festival, popular amongst the Lagosians. The Eyo Festival, otherwise known as the Adamu Orisha Play, is a Yoruba festival unique to Lagos, Nigeria.

Eyo Festival 

In modern times, it is presented by the people of Lagos as a tourist event and due to its history, is traditionally performed on Lagos Island. But this has occasionally been termed occultic since it belongs to the masquerade family. And who says masquerade is fetish? The Halloween with the costume is what? There one hundred and one other festivals here in Africa that beautiful and eventful, like osun-osogbo festival in Nigeria, AfrikaBurn in South Africa, Chale Wote in Ghana, Lake of stars in Malawi, Reed Dance in Swaziland, amongst other.

It's high time we started seeing and placing more values on our culture, traditions, and beliefs. I'll be left with no choice to say this, the Ooni of Ife demonstrated this when he made Prophet Naomi his latest olórí (Queen), which in it simplicity connote tradition is not religion. It is simply a way of life of our people before the advent of Christianity or Islam.

Reed dance Festival 

May God grant us the insight on our cultural values beyond religion, modernization and civilization.

My Africa; My culture
My culture; My heritage!

Happy Halloween, Happy AFRILOWEEN!