The Traditional Story
In my little village, Nkporo,
We celebrate the Iza Afa Festival
And the Most Magnificent Igboto Nma Festival.
The two are more than four hundred years old,
Our forebears told us that it began with
Their ancestors who immigrated from Heaven
When Chukwu was sharing the earth to broken Humans.
They got their teethless share of the earth and
There the magical festival began to grow teeth.
It is celebrated in the Eight Villages of Nkporo
But, not at the same time nor the same earthless year;
On that day of the treasured celebration, everyone is a nobody and somebody,
The wind would howls in sweet poetry,
the trees would dance back and forth in a blissful form,
And the papers and leaves go up in merriment.
Then the open windows shut with a clapping hands
Welcoming the house roofs which rattles with songs.
The most dreaded guilty masquarades come out,
Helter skelter, the lost children run here and there;
As their homes skip and elude them in the square.
The Villagers feel nothing but the joy of excitment in the air,
As the dusty sand fill the tensed atmosphere.
The houses clear and the streets is filled with people.
Then, the men and women of the festival comes out
All glowing and shining like the sun in their ragalias.
A bright flash takes the entire village,
The whistler whistles by in an unknown tone,
The Igboto Nma people are excited and joyful too
Because they would soon stop the payment of taxes
And levies among their age Grades.
Their responsibilities in the village ceased as they drop the heavy knife on the village square.
But the new responsibilities now lies on
The shoulders of the Iza Afa age Grade
Who are now being initiated into a new phase of Life.
The Igboto Nma clans leave a legacy to be remembered for in the innocent virgin community.
The sky in joy makes night of the day,
A noise that deafened comes from all the corners of the land,
Then the Eze Aja blesses them all and pray for long life and prosperit.
The rain makers keep the rain far off,
The fortune teller and the diviner dances all
Through the day and night,
At the end of their rituals at the village square,
They all goes to their tents and celebrate till dusk.
Food and drinks are abundant till the next day,
It always a day to reckon with in Nkporoland.
Copyright © John Chizoba Vincent | Year Posted 2015
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