Otughievwen festival celebrates ancestry in Delta State
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People of the Ughievwen Kingdom in Delta State, Nigeria, gathered for their annual Otughievwen Festival to celebrate their ancestry and give thanks for fertility.
The festival blended Christian prayers with traditional Urhobo customs, beginning with Christian songs in the Urhobo language.
Professor Chief Godini Darah, chairman of the festival and a literary icon, led prayers and urged Urhobo leaders to preserve their cultural heritage for future generations, and also called for an end to gas flaring in the oil-rich Niger-Delta region.
Darah explained that the Ogba-Urhie festival, meaning “The Mighty Power of the Waterways,” allows the Ughievwen people to remember how their ancestors travelled by raft from present-day Bayelsa State to their current settlement centuries ago, guided by what they believed were marine forces. The celebration included traditional music, dancing, and offerings of food and animals at the Ogba-Urhie shrine. Attendees also saw a display of ghwre-pha, hand-woven mats historically used to decorate rooms for young women after circumcision rites.
Darah had previously taken one of these mats to the British Museum in London for documentation and continued scholarly interest. The festival concluded peacefully, with no reports of violence, a contrast to a recent incident at another community festival in the state.
