Ijusu, Umale and Malokun Festivals: Synoptic Praxis.
There are many popular and unpopular festivals among the Ilaje of southern belt of Ondo State, southwestern Nigeria. Some of these festivals are Ijusu (Yam Festival), (masquerades) and MalokunFesivals.Umale and Ijusu festivals are, in the context of this paper, peculiar to the people of Ilaje-Etikan.Umale Festival is the masquerades festival celebrated mostly among the people of Etikan Kingdom in Ilaje Constituency 2 in most cases, towards the end of the year. This timing applies to the celebration of the festival for appreciation to the ancestors for sustaining the people, year-long peace and prosperity. In this context, celebration of the festival has the motive of appreciation and entertainment at the background. Conversely, the celebration of the festival may also have spiritual cleansing, in case of the outbreak of epidemics such as small or chicken pox, pneumonia or others diseases perceived to be spiritual, as the intention of its celebration. In this context, it can come up any time of the year as approved by the monarch of the town, the officiants of the festival and the people.
Odolo and Ikuesan observe that among the people of Ilaje-Etikan, Umale Festival which is also masquerades festival is celebrated as re-union festival between the revered ancestors and their surviving progenitors. It is interesting as the people see each of the masquerades as one of the visiting ancestors of the people who have returned to bless their children or take their pleas and humble supplications to the Supreme creator of the universe. This is exemplified in the way the people give the masquerades and the officiants who follow them money and solicit their ancestral blessings in form of prayers.
The Ilaje-Etikan people have many masquerades troupe but the following are the most popular ones:Luepe, Igbinle,Kalagbile,Okorobojo,Ilebe, Apo-leri, Igodo, Arayelu and Ejiyemi. According to Mebawondu, Ajimisan and Ayenomuro, while Luepe, Igbinle and Okorobojo are regarded as Umalelila, masquerades of grand cultic order, others are regarded as Umalegweere which means masquerades of lesser cultic order.
Ijusu Festival of Etikan Kingdom is for both memorialisation and appreciation. The festival is celebrated in memorialisation of the exodus of the people from Ile-Ife, their ancestral root and their eventual settlement at the present site. It is also celebrated to commemorate the two different epochs in the history of the people. These two epochs are: the period of their stay at Oke-Mafunrangan in the present day Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo in Ondo State, during which they were farmers because they inhabited agrarian habitations and the second epoch is the period of their stay in the present location during which their staple occupation is now fishing because they now inhabit littoral habitations on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. These two periods are symbolically represented by the fish and yam tuber. Yam tuber symbolizes the period of the people’s existence in Ile-Ife and Mafunrangan while fish pan-semioticallysymbolises the period of history at the present habitations of the people. When one hears that denizens of a littoral settlement are celebrating Yam Festival, one is insidiously tempted to ask the question “do they grow yams in the littoral habitats? Why Yam and not Fish or Eja Festival?
However, a close examination of the ritual or liturgical proceedings in the festival shows that yam is a symbolic and totemic object in the festival which is only comprehensible to seasoned indigenes of Etikan Kingdom. The use of fish and yam as staple food stuffs in the festival is a pan-semiotic signification of the blending of the veneration or propitiation of both the deity of the forest (Oluwoko) and the deity of the sea (Malokun). Thus, the festival is a metaphor of using one stone to kill two birds or propitiating two deities in one festival or pious “spiRITUALity”, a tale of worshipping two deities before an altar. In a nutshell, the festival underscores the spirit of memorialisation and appreciation altogether.
Malokun Festival is a commemorative festival, with commemoration, memorialisation and placation as its intentions, is celebrated annually among the Ilaje-Ugbo in appreciation of the bountiful blessings of fruitful fishing season and good harvest of the alluvial treasure from the sea or the Atlantic Ocean called OkunLiri among the Ilaje. The name Malokun is from the words “umale” (masquerades) and okun sea/ocean), umale-okun which means the masquerades or deity of the sea, (Ehinmore, 2022).The festival is celebrated by the Ilaje-Ugbo and other Ilaje communities in commemoration, memorialisationof the exodus and peregrination of the people from Ile-Ife to the present littoral location on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the present day Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State.
Besides being celebrated for memorialisation, the festival is also celebrated for placatory or propitiatory motive, especially when the sea has refused to yield its great catches to the people. In this context too, people pray and place much premium on piety than on gaiety. They use the opportunity to placate the deity of the sea to grant them good fishing season. This claim is validated by Agbudeloye (2022) and Olatuga (2022). This is also done in other Ilajekingdoms and communities since fishing is their staple occupation, but not in elaborately festive mood and with great feast, but not as done by the Ugbos.Adegboye (2022); Adebawo (2022); Agbojule (2022) and Akinbulejo (2022) lend credence to this claim. This is established by Ajimisan (2021) in one of his poems “Exodus” in Forty Testaments for Our Dearest Drifting Dome. The poem is a synoptic narration of the exodus from Ile-Ife, the original source of the people, their several peregrinations like those of the titans and their eventual arrival at the present location.
The festival is celebrated in appreciation of the benevolence of Malokun in not only giving them an oil-rich terrain but also in giving them the sea as treasure and eternal heritage from which to draw wealth and sources of survival always.Ebietomiye (2022) and Iperepolu (2022) lend me credence on this. According to Gbayisemore (2022) and Gbayisemore (2022), the festival is an annual observance in celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the people, appreciating Malokun for his benevolence of giving them a good land, rich in oil and other mineral resources, for feeding them with choice sea foods and by warding off evil from their habitations. One clarification needs to be made regarding my use of masculine gender for Malokun, the deity of the sea, which some other Yoruba subgroups believe to be female. This is another aspect of cultural or mythological stereotypes arrived at by collective consciousness and mutually conceived perception of the people.
Earlier, I wrote in GenderMisconception about Malokun, the Ilaje Deity of the Sea (2019) that Malokun is a male, a lord of the sea and a husband, not a wife, according toIlaje mythology. Some of the ritual songs sung during the festival that show the belief of the people about the gender of Malokun as a male:
Malokun, b’oghowa o- Malokun, deity of the sea, fetch me money
Ji mi teten’uwa- that I may acquire possessions
Malokun, oko mi, - Malokun, my husband
A-yere-luwa- one whose veneration fetches wealth.
The song text above shows the firm belief of the people of Ilaje, a product of stereotype created by the image of the deity conjured up in the minds of the people over centuries of their existence. This same Malokun or Olokun is seen as a mother and benevolent woman among other Yotuba sub-groups and other neighbouring ethnic groups of Edo and Delta. Another text that validates the people’s belief in the masculine gender of Malokunis a part of his praise poetry (panegyric) which goes thus:
Malokunogbolu,- Malokun, the mighty
Otetweere- the vast one
a-fun-ne-ma-hi-ne-ehi- one who blesses without being vainglorious
obaomijuobaile lo - he aquatic lord is mightier than the terrestrial.
Among other Yoruba sub-groups and other neighbouring tribes, Malokun or Olokun is seen as a female, a beautiful and benevolent mother responsible for fertility, wealth, treasure of the sea or alluvial pearls. This may not be an outright misconception since stereotypes are created based on the sensual appeals they calibrate in the brains or minds of the society or culture. To those who see the deity as a female, they are right since their perception of the deity is a benevolent mother figure. To the Ilaje, who imbue the deity with masculine ardour and configuration as a father figure full of blessings and energy, there is also dialectical justification. From Ilaje standpoint, Malokun is emblematically represented with a very huge masculine figure in white flowing wrapper above the chest level, with a long arrow, a very big catfish strapped to the serially serrated pointed end of the arrow which is a local fishing tool among the people.
Exemplifying Gender Stereotypes and OTHERness Politics in Ijusu, Umale and Malokun Festivals: Through Feminist Theoretical Lens.
This aspect of the paper examines the exemplifications or significations of stereotypical objects, their symbolic significance in the festival and how they underscore gender subjugation of the women by the men in the festival and the place of the females in the larger community. Instances of such gender subjugation are analysed in each of the festivals under review below:
In Ijusu and Umale Festivals of Ilaje-Etikan, the women are seen as forbidden figures who must not come near the main arena where the major proceedings of the festivals are taking place. This is seen in the way they constantly re-emphasise the traditional maxim “a ma mu ewurawaekun, owe umale”. This means bringing the water yam, “dioscoriaalata” which is literally referred to as “female yam (obi/abo isu)”.
The stereotypical designation of this specie of yam as personifying women or feminine gender and its relegation to background is a crux of feminist dialectics. It is a relegation of the women to the background in the festivals and it shows the people’s perception of the women as folks that are good only in child-bearing and food industries. The symbolic use of “ewura” in the traditional maxim above is a willful subjugation of the females to the status of second class citizens, good only on bed and the kitchen. This maxim underpins the stereotypical conjecture of the male members of the society towards the females, as folks who are valued only to an infinitesimal, inconsiderable or inconsequential extent in the festival.
Also, in Umale Festival, there are male-orchestrated or institutionalised discrimination against the women, neatly packaged into taboos and abominations. The men forbid the women from touching the Olumoghonne drums (the traditional drums used during the festival) for the purpose of avoiding desecration. The gender question to ask the men therefore, is “how come the touch of a woman can desecrate the drums, but the touch of a man that comes out the vagina of a woman, purportedly believed by men to be the source of impurity, cannot? Again, in Umale Festival, the restricted major roles assigned to women are acting as “votary-wives” of the male masquerades, only to appear but not to be heard and chanting ekiki (praise poetry) of the kingdom and those of the masquerades. This chanting by the women can be heard or permitted only when the drumming and singing of the men become diminuendo. As soon as the men begin singing and drumming, the chanting of females is drown in what reeks of gender chauvinism, deliberate super-imposition of the voices of the males on the females. This is symbolic of the pervasive gender subjugation that permeates the larger society as being characteristically phallus-centred.
In Ijusu Festival, the chauvinistic reference to “ewura” above is more emphatic. During the festival, nobody must cook or present “ewura”, attributed to women in the entire community. This is because it is symbolic of the feminine gender in softness or weakness as stereotypically held by some people. Only “ako u/isu” (male yam/ dioscoriarotundata) is permitted to be eaten brought near the arena called “Ogwalila” among the Ilaje-Ugbo and Ilaje-Etikan. This taboo further sanctions the enshrined bias of the males against the women. Symbolically, the yam and fish are deliberately chosen by men because they both possess the straight and masculine shape of the erected phalluses. After the cooking at a location outside the main traditional arena, the women bring the cooked foods to the men who remain in the arena playing and praying, with the women doing the bulk of the job.
Even, when the women bring the foods, the men bar them to the entrance of the arena because it is a taboo for them to enter the arena. Thus arises yet another question which is “how come the body of a woman can desecrate the supposedly hallowed abode of the ancestors (even though the ancestors came out of the vagina of women, the organ stereotypically believed to be the source of their supposed impurity), but the body of the males that came out of her body cannot?”. In the sharing of the foods, males always take the lion share and give just little quantity. This gender-based cheating andthe subjugation of the women in “the politics of democratisation of dividends of the festival” in the festivals are synonymous with the gender disparity in the democratisation of democratic dividends in Nigerian politics. The women constitute the largest percentage of the nation’s voting force and vote more than men during elections but are shortchanged during allocations of offices, appointments and political opportunities.
In Malokun Festival of the Ilaje-Ugbo, there are some instances of female subjugation by the men. Most of the activities in Malokun Festival are carried out at the shrine of Malokun and the sea where women cannot ply, out of fear. This restriction of the females from the main melting point of spirituality is another instance of gender dichotomy against women. The gendered and stereotypical subjugation of the females during Malokun Festival of Ugbo Kingdom subsists in the willful and disdainful restriction of the folks from the main melting pot of spirituality in the guise of taboos. During the festival, it is a taboo for females to step their feet on the supposedly hallowed and consecrated ground of the Temple of Malokun and mingle freely with the votaries, believed to have been consecrated prior to the festival. Interestingly, there are no women among the votaries, the composition which betokens the patriarchal constitution of the festival as well as its larger society of origin.
The Ilaje-Etikan and Ilaje-Ugbo societies are characteristically androcentric and founded on ancestral patriarchy. As a way of showing this, Agbejoye, a prince of both kingdoms, who researched into Malokun Festival in 2016 admits that “females can only come to the open space at the front of the general “Ogwa”, the traditional arena but, must not come to “Ogwa Lila”, the innermost part of the traditional arena because, if they do, they will be submerged by the “Oro” deity. The Oro deity or cult and the male-instituted taboos are tactically and strategically packaged as trado-cultural tools of enshrining and enthroning masculine domination and subjugation of the feminine as though they were divinely ordained to be so. Thus, Malokunand other festivals are also tools for the consolidation and enforcement of the hegemony of the male upon the females. As a way of dominating the females, the males kill the fattest of the cows, usually male ox, share it and arrogate to themselves the lion share, cook it in the inner arena where only males are exclusively granted ingress and bid any man not to take the meat home. Even if they do, their wives must not taste it.
Examining the use of settings and stages in Malokun Festival, Agbejoye (2016) aptly submits that:
There is a limit to the extent the audience can go, just like we have in modern theatre. An audience that is not an initiate, for instance, cannot go to the “Ogwa Lila”, where the rituals (in the festival) are being performed. Also, the female folks are culturally and traditionally barred from going near the shrine, let alone going into it. This, therefore, accentuates the androcentric nature of the traditional institution that Ugbo Kingdom operates. No matter how ritually versed a woman may be, she is not to boast in it, let alone going into the shrine. If she dares it, the cultural implication for such action is death (55).
For the reason above, women are barred from active participation in the festival. They only go to the extent to which men approve and nothing more. Where a woman drifts or strays into the shrine, the penalty is ritual killing orchestrated and spearheaded by men, even though the woman had just slept with one of the men the previous night. During the recessional stages that characterise the end of the annual festival, women do not come to the innermost chamber of the arena where the remaining meat and foodstuffs garnered during the festival are shared. During this stage, issues about the date, contributions and other issues regarding the fixture of the next celebration of the festival are decided in the absence of the women who are critical stakeholders in the festival. They will only here about the outcomes from their husbands and sons who are initiates.
Ola, Stephen Ajimisan
Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State.
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