Culture is the way of life of people. My culture mean the culture am practicing presently. Culture is in different forms. Just like in Nigeria presently we have different cultures namely the igbo, hausa Yoruba. I want to talk about my own culture which is the Yoruba culture. Yoruba culture is a very unique culture that has their way way of doing things different from other cultures. Each culture is unique in its own way. The Yoruba culture have its way of greeting, dressing, types of food they eat, the kind of festivals they hold and names they call their children and their kings and rulers. Yoruba call their kings “OBA” and they call their chiefs “IJOYE”. The foods Yoruba cook are as follows: Efo riro, ila, iyan, amala, lafu, ekuru, orunla, etc are the native food of the Yoruba culture. The Yoruba culture have different ways of dressing which differ in male and female genders, the men wear: agbada, dansiki, kembe, etc. while the females wear: iro and buba, kaba, etc and they also have traditional beads they use to compliment their dressings. Yoruba culture promotes modesty in dressings. Examples of the Yoruba festivals include: Egungun festival, yam festival, osun festival, etc The egungun festival is a very paramount festival in the Yoruba culture. Yoruba parents name their children in the Yoruba language. Examples of Yoruba names are: Alake, Ajoke, Agbeke, Aduke, Aweke, Awele, Adigun, Adunni, Akanni, Alani, Adufe, Alamu, Atoke, Ajike, Ajabe, Ajadi, Atanda, Ayanfe, Aremu, Abefe, etc mostly the names starts with “A” in the Yoruba accent. My culture is something I should be proud of because that is my background. Let me quickly teach you few Yoruba languages.
Adupe: This means “I am grateful.”
Duro : This means “stand.”
Joko This means “sit down.”
Soro: This means “talk.”
Kosi: This means “it is not available”
Wa: This means “come”
Lo: This means “go.” And lots more.
Ket me quickly talk about Yoruba wedding ceremony. It is always very interesting because of the order in which the wedding program goes. The wife is called “IYAWO” and the husband is called “ OKO” so I will be using them interchangeably as I keep writing. The first part is the INTRODUCTION CEREMONY; when the iyawo will bring her man to the family and the oko too brings his family to her place, they meet one another, know one another, exchange pleasantries and introduce themselves to one another with the oko and iyawo dressed beautifully in our Yoruba culture dressing way. They cook in the introduction ceremony, gist and talk together. So the second part is called the ENGAGEMENT CEREMONY, this is also interchangeably called the “THE TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE” because this is the Yoruba culture wedding exactly whereby the man brings the bride price of the wife and the family of the wife collects it, they ask the husband to go and prostrate with his friends accompanying him to his wife’s parent asking for her hand in marriage and they will pray for him and sit him on their laps and snap with him, the wife also will go to her husband’s parent and kneel before them and they will receive her, sit her on their laps and snap with them. And then they both go to their parents and sit on their laps too and snap with them. In the Yoruba wedding, the husband pays a lot of money, he will pay money for wife transportation, money for wife dancing, money for different funny things but they are just the fun part of the wedding though. So they cut their cake, feed each other and snap a lot of pictures together. During the entrance, the husband enters the auditorium before his wife and hen just sits there eagerly expecting his charming and lovely beauty queen. *smiles* Yoruba culture is a very good and interesting culture. I AM PROUD TO BE A YORUBA. ARE YOU PROUD OF YOUR OWN CULTURE?
**christ's own**