Ekuechi festival

The Ekuechi festival is usually celebrated every end of December by the Ebira people in the central senatorial district of Kogi State, Nigeria. This festival ushers in the last month of the year. And guess what? Without mincing words, 99 of every 100 Ebira women both young and old never like and still do not like this festival from its inception to the present time. Why? Because it is a period where they would be locked inside the house usually between the hours of 6pm to 7am of the following day, and that repeats itself everyday for as long as the festival lasts in the district. Again, the question is why? This is where the myths come in.

Growing up as a very young male child, I recall that my brothers and I will always be filled with the inexpressible joy of having the power to be outside in the evening while our mother and sisters would be under lock and key, restrained from the realities we enjoy outside the house. That was what I met, and the popular answer to the begging question is that even an old woman would be spiritually affected by this reality that a boy of 2 years old is immune against. If you even ask most of the women folks why they are usually partially enslaved during the Ekuechi festival, they have no answers. Over the years,  iIt became dawn on me that it was a gimmick or rather a strategy to demonstrate the patriarchic nature of the African traditional system, that is, a way of manifesting the preponderance of this all powerful man over the women folks. 

Popularly believed myth has it that after creating man and woman as husband and wife, one day God sent for the man, but he was too busy to honour the call. Instead, God opted for the wife. God gave the wife Irakwo (an egg-like object that contains the secrets of life and has the capacity to manifest supernatural powers) for her husband. On discovering the contents and being fascinated by them, she did not give it to the husband, but hid it in her uterus and later swallowed it. She thereafter became powerful, performing supernatural feats like turning into any animal and changing back to a human being. She could instantly grow wings to fly around in astral travels, and also capable of all sorts of mysterious transformations. Her husband became envious of her powers, and in sympathy, God enabled the husband to create the Eku masquerade cult from which women membership and participation is greatly discouraged, as a counterforce to the power women possess.

The real origin of the festival is a tradition secret which originated as a necessity. When witchcraft crept into Ebiraland, it was the women who reigned supreme in the cruel craft and they cheated the men by it. Many people were being killed by them especially men. In retaliation, the men also set up the Eku cult to dread the women. Women are made to believe that Ekus who perform during Ekuechi are ancestor spirits raised from the dead to come and admonish, warn and punish evildoers in their songs and rituals.

Therefore, the central point is that the concept of Eku was purposively initiated as retaliation, a counterforce and a clap-back on the women folks for the supposed witchcraft they practiced years ago. A critical look would suggest that a woman who secretly peeped on the masquerades at night only have the tendencies of being spiritually attacked if the cult members of the masquerade can identify the woman. This implies that the identification of the ‘culprit’ makes the job easy. However, developments have it that most of the masquerades have so much endowed their clothing spiritually, such that even without knowing they are being peeped on, the spirit does the work. The work is to jealously turn the skin colour of the woman into pale white, before she dies finally, especially if the spirits are not appeased on time. There is then an exemption to some special women folks known as the Onokus, more like the guardian angels of the Eku cult. Onokus are born, not made. So only few get to become Onokus.

There is therefore no gainsaying the fact, that with current experiences, Ekuechi is one of the traditional festivals of the Ebira people that will never go into extinction, despite the civilization and the rate at which the majority of the Ebira people have embraced Christianity and Islamic beliefs. The mystery behind the sustained and unalloyed firm hold on what some people would call barbaric, primitive and devilish cultural belief has remained a bone to crack. This is a festival where rich Ebira men would travel home from wherever they are to grace; the military folks would come with their combatant colleagues to guide; and youths would keep timetables of the celebration distribution according to districts, so as not to miss.

Finally, during performance in the night no camera is allowed to make any coverage, there is tight security everywhere to make sure everyone abided by the rules.