The Tradition That Nearly Made me Blind

Tradition and culture have existed for ages, and people have tended to live by this tradition to guide their daily activities. Tradition is a very broad term, and it differs from region to region. The tradition or way of greeting elders in a particular state may be quite different from that of another. This tradition also extends to marriage, work, and entertainment.

It's the entertainment aspect I want to talk about. This traditional entertainment nearly made me go blind. There's what we call Ekpo masquerade. This is a traditional entertainment in most villages and states. It's just that the way of operation may differ.

Masquerade is a form of entertainment whereby people who have been in-depth with native activities like consulting oracles, etc. wear costumes that look comical. These costumes extend from rafters, humour faces, red clothes, or coloured body pigment while walking naked. I'll talk about this traditional entertainment in my village and how it tends to bring about my ordeal.

In my village, masquerade parades are not just for fun but pursue people who get in their way to excite fun and chanting by the people. The villagers love it when the masquerades pursue them, and they run with the speed of light to avoid being flogged. The crowd that usually follows these masquerades to derive pleasure and entertainment is always overwhelming.

Sometimes I ask myself if these people are jobless. You'll see big ass men and women, including children, running up and down with the masquerade and enjoying the parade. Some people buy new shoes and clothes just to follow these masquerades. I wonder how entertaining viewing this parade is. At least if the masquerades are just displaying their costumes, it would make a whole lot of sense to watch, but a situation where they pursue and scare people sometimes isn't funny.

It's funny when you see people run and argue with themselves, but it's not funny when they use this masquerade parade to deprive others of their things. What do I mean? Let me go in-depth.

Anytime masquerades come out in their numbers to parade the village, a lot of people, children, adults, fathers, mothers, and grandparents come out in their numbers too to follow these masquerades.

Now that they are out, they tease these masquerades to pursue them, and when the masquerades do so, they seize the opportunity to enter people's compound to steal things that are outside. I can remember my first experience with them. I dried my shoes outside for the sun to heat. I didn't know that people use these masquerades to invade people's properties.

When they were done parading, my shoe was gone. This shoe isn't up to 2 weeks old, but it was stolen. I cried for the stolen shoe. This made us wiser next time we hear them parade the village. We'll take everything inside till they are gone.

Now to my ordeal... Like I said, they use these masquerades to parade people's homes and still things. There's this woman who planted guava tree in her compound. Anytime these masquerade followers are out, they'll enter her compound and plug her guavas forcefully and run. They'll pretend as if the masquerade is pursuing them, enter and compound, which is gateless, and then pluck and run.

This has been the usual process till the woman got tired of shouting at them. She placed a red robe on the tree to signify danger, but even at that, they didn't fear what she put. They still stole from the tree. This made her cut it off to rest.

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