Osun-Osogbo festival: Embracing tradition, blazing new paths

OLUWOLE IGE reports the display of Yoruba culture and tradition during this year’s edition of the Osun-Osogbo festival. Dignitaries and adherents of the Osun River goddess, both within and outside Nigeria, thronged Osun State to celebrate the festival, adding glamour and a fresh dynamism to the event.

For the adherents of the Osun goddess of fertility and wealth, local and foreign tourists, including traditionalists, the month of August, each year, always brings with it great expectations as thousands of people converge on Osun groove for the annual commemoration of Osun-Osogbo festival. This has been an annual celebration that unites both Nigerians and tourists thereby bringing to fore the rich preserve of Yoruba culture and tradition. The month of August for adherents attracts large population of individuals, groups within Nigeria and the Diaspora to the ancient city of Osogbo.

Expectedly, this year’s celebration only upped the competence of the organisers as mammoth crowds in various garbs thronged Osogbo, capital of Osun State as the city centre played host to dignitaries from all walks of life, with different sociocultural groups as they put up impressive displays to complement the dynamics of the festival. The collage of attraction of this year’s edition of the Osun-Osogbo festival included drumming, dancing, musical performance, display of elaborate costumes by worshippers of the Osun goddess, among many others.

Among the cultural groups that graced this year’s festival were the adherents of the Osun goddess, who adorned white attires, with other traditional accoutrement such as beads. Others who were not left out were members of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) and other cultural groups.

Many descendants of the Yoruba nation from Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Spain, Canada, and the United States, mostly tourists, thronged the groove on Friday for the grand finale of the festival dedicated to the Osun deity. The goddess has been reputed for her potency in giving children to the barren and granting other requests brought to her by her adherents who usually besiege her domain for blessings.

Apart from serving as a veritable means of boosting the economy of Osogbo, each year the celebration is held, Osun Osogbo is also explored as a traditional channel of cleansing the city and creating effective platform for cultural reunion of the people with their ancestors and founders of the Osogbo kingdom.

As usual, this year’s two-week long activities commenced with the traditional cleansing of Osogbo, referred to as ‘Iwopopo’. This process is followed up in three days by the lighting of the 500-year-old sixteen-point lamp called ‘Ina Olojumerindinlogun’. This was subsequently followed by ‘Iboriade’: an assemblage of the crowns of the past rulers, which was presided over by the Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun. The Osogbo paramount traditional ruler offered prayers for blessings, with the active participation of ‘Arugba’ (a female virgin who carries the traditional calabash), Yeye Osun and a committee of priestesses. The Arugba has constantly been regarded as the key feature of the Osun-Osogbo festival. She is a votary virgin who bears the Osun calabash on her head; the calabash contains symbols of sacrificial materials with the intent of appeasing and worshipping the Osun goddess.

According to the dictates of the people’s customs relating to the festival, the Arugba is not only seen as a virgin maid any longer, she is regarded as the bridge between the goddess herself and the adherents. Worshippers thereafter offer prayers and symbolically cast all their problems on her as she bears the calabash and leads the mass of people on her path to the river bank.

Historically, the intriguing story of the Osun-Osogbo festival started over 700 years ago when a group of settlers led by a great hunter, Olutimehin, settled at the bank of the river to escape the famine in their former dwelling place. Findings from historians indicated that Osun, the water goddess, was said to have appeared to Olutimehin and requested him and his group to move up some bit to higher ground, which is the present-day Osogbo town.

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Osun revealed herself to be the goddess of the grove and of the river. She promised to protect the group and make their women fruitful if only they would offer the annual sacrifice to her in return. The group agreed and vowed to offer sacrifices annually to the goddess if she would honour her vows. Interestingly, the annual ritual had gone behind the precinct of just offering sacrifices to a river goddess, as it has succeeded in becoming an international celebration of cultural events attracting people from all over the world to Osogbo.

Considering the growing local and international attention the Osun-Osogbo grove has elicited among some of the sacred forests in Yoruba land, and in recognition of its global significance and its cultural value, the sacred grove was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

Retrospectively, events of the 1950s gave a graphic detail of how the Osun-Osogbo grove was subjected to wanton neglect as traditional priests abandoned the sacred forest thus giving way to prohibited activities such as fishing, hunting and felling of trees in the grove until an Austrian, the late Susanne Wenger came to halt the desecration.

With the encouragement of the then Ataoja of Osogbo and the support of the local people, Wenger formed the New Sacred Art Movement to challenge land speculators, repel poachers, protect shrines, thereby kick-starting a long process of restoring the sacredness of the Osun-Osogbo grove back to  its traditional status. She rebuilt the abandoned shrines again and re-modelled the gods in sculpture and ceramics, representing over 75 cultural gods in artful representations.

While speaking during the grand finale of the festival, the Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola assured that his administration would continue to support cultural festivals with a view to enhancing the social and economic development of the state, noting that providing critical support and creation of enabling atmosphere for the tourism sub-sector were capable of shoring up the revenue generation drive of the state government.

Represented by his Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dr Olawale Adebisi, Aregbesola maintained that his government was keen on the sustainability of the Osun-Osogbo festival due to its potential for providing the needed platform for the export of Yoruba traditional heritage where cultural exploits in the state can be showcased to both local and international tourists.

According to him, “the Osun-Osogbo festival also provides avenue for the largest gathering of youths; so it provides a channel for transfer of culture and tradition to the younger generation. It also brings about economic development as tourists who come for the festival would lodge and spend their money which improves the state economy.”

Aregbesola, however, tasked the chief host of the festival, the Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun to use the occasion to pray for the nation and Osun, specifically for the peaceful conduct of the September 22 gubernatorial poll. Aregbesola said the traditional ruler should offer prayers with a view to supporting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) win so that the developmental strides in the state would continue.

In her remarks, the Special Adviser to Aregbesola on Culture and Tourism, Mrs Taiwo Oluga, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Culture and Tourism, who was also the chairperson of the occasion, sought for more collaboration from relevant stakeholders to promote culture and traditional heritage in the state.

Addressing thousands of adherents and worshippers of the goddess, Oba Olanipekun commended the partners and sponsors for their contributions towards the success of this year’s festival especially corporate bodies, royal fathers and Nigerians from within the country and the Diaspora.