FIDELITY IN IBIBIO MARRIAGE: THE ROLE OF EKPO NKA OWO

ambdavid (53)in #writing • 7 years ago (edited)

I am an Annang person, a tribe in Akwa Ibom, a state in the Southern part of Nigeria, I wish to use this post to share with my audience, the mundane practise that used to be prevalent in my climes few years back, it's however still going on in other cultures with different names in the Nigerian state.

In the Ibibio/Annang tribal society (Nigeria), the view that wives should be faithful to their husbands received ancestral sanction by Ekpo Nka Owo, the Ibibio ancestral spirits or ghosts of adultery. Ekpo Nka Owo regulated, checked, exposed, and punished infidelity among authentically married women in order to maintain the sanctity of marriage among the Ibibio. Ironically, Ekpo Nka Owo did not check and regulate the sexual behaviour of married men.

A PARADE OF IBIBIO CULTURAL HERITAGE

The author describes the nature and character of Ekpo Nka Owo and the rituals performed to bring a newly married woman under the surveillance of Ekpo Nka Owo. He discusses what constitutes adultery, its effects and the appeasement of the ancestral spirit when adultery is committed, as well as considering the advantages and disadvantages of the operations of Ekpo Nka Owo in Ibibioland. The presence of Christian missions and the development of Western medical science in Ibibioland seem to have negated the activities of Ekpo Nka Owo, and the ancestral cults on which the activities of Ekpo Nka Owo largely depended are becoming a thing of the past.

CAPTION : THE MASQUERADE WHOSE FACE WAS USED AS THE FACE OF EKPO NKA OWO DEITY

But then, I have personally found out that our society frowns more at promiscuous, loose, and wayward women, than it does men of similar traits. For instance, if a young man befriends all the young girls in the neighborhood, everybody (including the women), will hail him as a strong man (whatever that means); but if a young girl or woman is seen or suspected to befriend more than one boy or man (even if they are not resident within the neighborhood), she will be scorned, despised and christened a ‘prostitute’. So it would be laughable, for any woman to stupidly and shamelessly try to argue revenge or any other reason as a defense for her waywardness.

In my candid opinion, the ekpo Nka Owo cult was biased and saw nothing wrong in men's infidelity but only castigated and went after women, it was partial and therefore a form of jungle justice, if a woman who is your wife cheats, get a divorce, you have no right to take her life through any means. Even the Christian Bible talks of adultery being a good enough reason for divorce. The practice was all together barbaric.