This weekend we travelled to the south east of the country to attend a
wedding. Paul, a fellow Dutch VSO-er in Ilorin married his Nigerian girlfriend
in her village. For us as VSO-ers, the perfect chance to go to a traditional
Igbo wedding.
Saturday morning we left our hotel with two minibuses. As the wedding
took place in a state where they do sometimes kidnap foreigners, each bus had a
policeman with a huge weapon on board. At the wedding some guys in army
uniform, also with weapons, were present. So we were well protected! In
general, the people who get kidnapped in this area are mainly the oil workers
and contractors, the people who are rich. It is a way to generate income, not
to make a political statement. So as volunteers, we were pretty safe.
The wedding itself was a great event. An uncle explained it all to us. Kola
nuts seem to be an important element in weddings for the Igbo. As a religious
scientist, it was interesting for me to see how old and new traditions are
mixed. The kola nuts are for sure a tradition that goes back to far before
Christianity arrived in Nigeria. Now a priest is blessing the kola nuts, so
here the old and new beliefs simply mix into something new!
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| palmwine |
After the final negotiations among the men of both families, the
ceremony started. First the mother of the bride was entering the party,
together with her sisters and friends I suppose. She was dancing around all the
public who were throwing money to her. After she made her entrance, the bride
came in together with her sisters and friends. Again they were dancing around
and people would spray money on them. Also Paul and his brother and friends
(us) had to dance around. Then the bride came again, in another beautiful dress.
She was carrying a cup of palm wine to offer her husband. After he accepted it,
the father of the bride was officially marrying them. Then they had to dance
and it was our turn to spray money on them.
Just like at a Dutch wedding, the couple also has to cut the cake. It
looked like a big jar of palm wine and kola nuts again. Also here, the new
tradition of the cake is matching the old one of kola nuts and palm wine. I
love this mixture of old and new traditions. I suppose I will see much more of
in the next months.
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| Cake! |
