Oguaa Fetu Afahye Festival
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THE TULIP TOUR GUIDE TO GHANA Festivals The Chale Wote Street Art Festival It is an alternative platform that brings art, music, dance and performance out of the galleries and onto the streets of James Town, Accra. The first festival took place in July 2011, following a series of discussions about creating DIY [do-¬it yourself] community projects by participants at our Talk Party Series. Our partners for the festival include Dr. Monk, AfroGallonism, and the Millennium Cities Initiative – AMA Project Management Unit. Our vision is to cultivate a wider audience for the arts in West Africa by breaking creative boundaries and using art as a viable form to rejuvenate public spaces. The CHALE WOTE Street Art Festival challenges both artists and community-¬based audiences to connect through art. The festival includes street painting, graffiti murals, photo exhibitions, interactive installations, a food and fashion marketplace, live street performances, extreme sports, African film shows, street boxing, a fashion parade, a music block party, recyclable design workshops and much more. More than 200 Ghana-based and international artists take part in the event every year. In 2016, over 30,000 people attended Chale Wote Homowo Festival (May) It is celebrated by the Ga people of the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The moral of the festival is to commemorate the period in their history when there was a serious famine in the land. The festival is very glamorous and showcases a great deal of traditional values of the Ga people. Legend has it that there was a period in the history of the Ga Kingdom, when there was a severe famine. There was no rain and the people were in great starvation. The people instead of sitting down and wallowing in self-pity, rather embarked on a vicious cycle of food cultivation and as they were rewarded with a bountiful harvest. They therefore celebrate the Homowo, to hoot at hunger and rejoice in their harvest. A Month before the celebration, there is a ban on drumming and noise making in the Greater Accra region. The calendar of the feast which is usually in August is made by the Dantu Priest. The festival starts when the Dantu priest celebrates his grand custom of feasting and making of concoctions for royal family to sprinkle on them to ward away evil spirits and protect them against diseases. One interesting aspect of the celebration is the twin’s day. On this day all twins in the town are dressed in white calico, and paraded around town. This is a show of pride and is very glamorous. There is a boat race between the Asafo groups (Traditional warriors); this is just to add to the excitement of the celebration. There is a special meal for the celebration. This meal known as (kpokpoi) is made from maize and eating with palm nut soup. The paramount chief of the Ga traditional area, the Ga Mantse, goes round the town sprinkling the food on the ground. This food he sprinkles are said to be for the gods, as a show of appreciation to them for keeping the people safe and making see another year. Natives who have travelled return home and family issues are discussed in every household. Disputes are settled and there is a merry making. There is also a grand durbar of the chiefs and people of the region. The King delivers his annual speech and advises the people to do what is right and live in harmony with one another. The chief priest pours libation and prays for the people. The king sits in state and receives dignitaries amidst drumming and dancing. The grand durbar marks the end of the celebrations. The moral of the Homowo festival is to show to the people that with hard work and determination, they can succeed in everything they do. Just as their ancestors did, in the face of hunger and starvation, they didnt just sit down, but worked hard to overcome the famine and starvation and that is the spirit of feast. Hogbetsotso Festival (First Saturday in November) Hogbetsotso Festival is a festival of the people of Anlo in the Volta Region of Ghans. The theme behind this festival is to mark their journey from their former home in Togo, to their present settlement in Ghana. History has it that before coming to their present settlement. The Anlo lived under a cruel and wicked ruler, King Agorkoli of Notsie, somewhere south of present day Sudan. The Anlo people devised a way to escape from the town. They were led by a brave warrior known as the Red Hunter. Notsie was fenced with a mud wall, so the Anlo women were told to pour water on one side of the wall anytime they had to dispose off any water. This made the spot soft, and the people were able to break the wall and escape. To avoid being caught, they "walked backwards" so as to confuse their pursuers and even legend has it that “The Red Hunter” turned himself into a rat and walk over all their footprints to make them look old. When they got to their present home, they created the festival Hogbetstso (Festival of Exodus) to mark this event. The festival has a host of other celebrations associated with it. There is a period of peace making. During this period, all outstanding disputes must be resolved. The aim is to bring the people together to live in harmony with each other. There is also a general cleaning in the town. The whole town is swept, gutters cleaned, bushes are cleared and everywhere is kept clean. The cleaning which starts at the estuary of the Volta River, goes on until it reaches the Mono River in Benin. This cleaning exercise is all inclusive and everyone in the town is supposed to take part. The people of Anlo believe that if they keep their surroundings clean, and they live in harmony with each other, no evil can befall. They believe that their ancestors lived in harmony with each other all throughout their journey and that is what helped them to arrive at their destination. Therefore if they also want to be able to live in harmony, they must love one another. The cleaning continues for days until everywhere is well kept. The highlight of the Hogbetsotso Festival celebration is a grand durbar of the chiefs and people of the town. There is drumming and dancing and merry making. The dancing is the most intriguing part, with the very popular Borborbor dance which is very intense and fun filled. Aboakyer Festival (First Saturday in May) It is a bushbuck hunting festival celebrated by the people of Winneba in the Central Region of Ghana. The name ‘'Aboakyer'’ translates as ‘hunting for game or animal’ in Fanti dialect as spoken by the people of the Central region. The institution of the festival was to commemorate the migration of Simpafo (tradition name given to the people of Winneba). The people migrated from the North-eastern African town of Timbuktu in the ancient Western Sudan Empire to their present land in the central coast of Ghana. The journey from the North-east to the Western part of Africa was led by two brothers. The people believed that a god, who they called Otu, had protected them from all dangers during their migration and to show their appreciation, the people consulted the custodian of the god, a traditional priest who acted as an intermediary between the people and the god, to ask the god for its preferred sacrifice. To their astonishment, the god asked for a human sacrifice, someone from the royal family. This sacrifice went on for some years but was later stopped as the people were no longer interested in human sacrifices. A request was made to the god to change the sacrifice type, as they believed that sacrificing royalty could eventually wipe out the royal family.The god in return asked for type of wild cat to be caught alive and presented to it at its shrine. After the presentation, it was to be beheaded as a sacrifice. This was to be done annually in a festival. Before the festival began the people settled the god at a town called Penkye. After the resettlement, the god became known as Penkyi Otu, to signify the final home for the god. To mark the festival, the people sought out the wild cat, as had been prescribed. Many lives were lost in the process as the animal was to be captured live and transported to Penkye. The people made a second appeal to Penkyi Otu to provide an alternative to the wild cat. That appeal resulted in the decision to accept a mature bushbuck. This festival is celebrated in May and it is a major event in Ghana. The people of Simpa passed on this history to their descendants in the form of songs, and sang it in their war chants as well as told it during moonlit nights in story form. This oral tradition went on until the colonial Europeans arrived on the coast of the Gold Coast and with them the English language. Scholars then translated the oral story from the language 'Fante' to English. The festival is celebrated on the first Saturday in May. On the first day of the festival, the two Asafo Companies (warrior groups) in Winneba take part in a hunting expedition. The first troop to catch a live bushbuck from a game reserves used for this purpose and present it to the chiefs and people at a colorful durbar is declared winner and is highly regarded for bravery.The bushbuck is sacrificed and this signifies the start of the Aboakyer festival.