Our culture our identity

Wether or not we pass it down or not culture just finds it way to locate who is curious enough to search.

First of all what is culture
culture is an event, belief or lifestyle that is shaped by historic happening in an environment.

Also
Culture is the share of belief, values traditions and practices of a particular group of that has reoccurred over time.

Nigeria happened to be a country with cultural history as beautiful as the sunset, yet with wounds as deep as the ocean,my country has different ethnic group that is different culture and different cultural history.

I myself is welling to pass down my culture to my children because that is there identify that is there way of identification that is the beauty of our history,my culture consist of different beautiful part.

Let me walk you through a little of my cultural practices

From the wedding,to there food, to there attire,to there ways of greating. In short there is nothing not beautiful about the Edo Benin culture.

There wedding attire
The Benin culture has one of the most unique wedding attire, from the adorning of the hair with beads that screen beauty to the single pies of wrapper that is tied around the bride, this wrapper most often well beaded to the tip, and the bride will adorned with beads on both hand, feet, and neck than a white handkerchief that is use to cover her mouth,well the Benin empire is known for royalty, and this handkerchief ritual is done by the royal family, but for that day the bride is considered a princess, and is allowed to do and dress a little like royalty.
Well for the men there are two dressing, either the white big skirt like really big or the red dress,and he is as well adorned with beads as well.

Picture generated by AI

Let talk food
The edo Benin has rich and versatile food lot of them but for some reason we are only known for banger and starch well we have so much more than just that, we have food like

1. Owoh soup which is pronounced as owo served with starch which we call usi
2. Black soup which is omoebe/ewè.
3. Pepper snails and groundnut sauce, mostly served to welcome guest
   4.ukodo which is yam pepper soup, this meal is eaten by all but is a go to meal when a woman just delivers.
   5.igboguru boiled ripe plantain mashed with palm- oil, Onion and smoked fish.
   Just to mention a few.

Greating
For the men when greating an elder, they bow slightly from the waist or prostrate partially touching the ground one or both hand depending on the setting or even.
When greating an oba which is the king the young man is expected to go down on one or even both knees but not fully prostrated

While the ladies kneels while kneeling she keeps are gaze low to avoid eye contact with the elder this shows respect and good home training.

There are a lot to talk about when it comes to the edo Benin culture, is it the masquerade, and the fact that there are once that pass mid night, that no woman or child is permitted to see? or the so sacred river, that no one is allowed to fish from or the believe of not killing snake when you see them as a first time visitor, because apparently They came to welcome you.

My culture is So beautiful I could go on and one and still have things to say, as beautiful as the culture is it would be a shame if I don't pass it down, but there are still cultural beliefs that where kept from me as a child too,that I would withhold, because as beautiful as a thing would be if we look deeper, there are things we wouldn't want to agree with so before there go digging, for the awful culture belief and history I would share the beauty of edo state.