After Christmas Carnival.

Good day "readers" and how is the season so far? It has been going down really awesome and I hope everyone is having a memorable celebration from Christmas.

This article entails the "After Christmas "celebration which has already started and has been memorable all the way. The Christmas day was amazing, boxing day beautiful and people of Amaeze are yet to see and witness another beautiful Carnival. A day in which people from around the world visit Amaeze to cheer and celebrate with them. A day of joy and happiness, the Amaeze Cultural Carnival.

This carnival starts after Christmas, through December 27th till 30th. A three day thrilling and never miss event for everyone.

Once after Christmas, every other preparation and the most talked about is this festival in the little town of Isollo.

HOW IT GOES

#day 1.

• Amuma-onwa (masquerade)

A the tradition demands, the ancestors will be informed on the d.day before the villagers. This is done by the chief priest at midnight. Once it is 12:00Am at the midnight, he sounds the ogene (gong). By this time, sacrifices to the gods are made to protect them and see them through the event. After this, the night masquerade raids the time. The amuma onwa night masquerade.

This masquerade has a very old history, it only shows up at night as it's tradition demands and they come out in big number and can be seen everywhere in the village. No one else is allowed to come out and see this masquerade if not initiated. If anyone dares this instruction, it now left the person and the gods to settle their matters. This tradition has the believe that; the amuma onwa will be the first to be present for the carnival. Sent by the gods to welcome the day. It also symbolises that the carnival can begin in support of the gods.

After the masquerade are done, they leave a mark at the village square for all villagers to know that the carnival will hold. After this, the elders will bring a Thanksgiving gift of appreciation which is taken by the chief priest.

• Sounding of ekwe. (Wooden gong)

The ekwe has many uses in different occasions but for the carnival, it must be sound. It is the town criers duty to see this done .

The ekwe is sound very early in the morning at the sight of sun rise 🌅. This tradition kicks off the carnival children are seen rejoicing and the women singing their song of the carnival as they assemble to see the gifts presented by the elders and well wishes. Cows, goats, fowl, yams and many more are common to be presented.

#day 2

• The contest

After this, they dismiss to make food and prepare for the next activity which features local wrestling, dance competition and other primary contests which are performed by children and women.

The secondary contest is the grand finale and it for the elderly men of different tribes and culture.

After this primary contest, the winners are awarded accordingly, the children sample their masquerades too on this day.

Newly born babies and below one year old babies are taken to the river and shown to the gods of water. At the river, each child is dipped into the river with the belief that; water has no enemy. Therefore, they can travel to any part of the world without having or making enemies.

#day3

Grand finale.

This is the most happening day amongst the three days carnival. On this last day, the magic expectation of this day required that the sun will shine at night. Humans never walked on the day they were born, but on this day, the strong will stand and the man that walked the day he was born will arise.

This is an exchange of power to win a cow by the first runner up. The second person wins a ram and the third, a fowl.

The entire village assembles on the village square, the visitors, foreigners and well wishes, traditional rulers of different places are all present to witness the event and magic.

The chief priest ties a fat cow to a tree with a thread. Yes! A thin and tiny thread. He performs some incantations and annoyed that, anyone who has the most entertaining magical powers, will untie the cow and become the champion.

Numbers of contestants with different magic lines up to entertain the crowd and impress the gods with their powers.

Some pour water inside a basket, some throws a cutlass up and it hangs with magic, some light up water and people see water burning like a gasoline.

Different magical entertainment. After the Display, then they line up to untie the cow. On the process, only one person whom the gods chooses can possibly untie the cow. Same goes for the ram and fowl until the winners emerge.

Everyone celebrates with them as the news spread everywhere and that calls the carnival to end.

This tradition has remained from the days of their forefathers and becomes more entertaining yearly.

That is the after Christmas Carnival of Amaeze in Africa.

Thanks for reading.

Written by J.matty