Cultural Festivals As Ceremonial Occasions of Reconciliation: The Situation of The Apoo Pageant of Ghana

Cultural festivals are primarily once-a-year situations that are made use of to mark a historic event that transpired in the life of a individual group or culture. In the course of these legendary ceremonies, associates of the society get the prospect to fulfill and settle their variations. Long phrase disputes, at loggerheads among the culture customers, are settled during these commemorations. This is a big need that need to be glad throughout the ceremonial event to be sure to the ancestors who are perpetual advocates of peace. Such is the scenario of the Apoo festival celebrated annually by the individuals of Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Area of Ghana. The literal indicating of the Akan term Apoo is to travel away. Therefore, through the pageant observance, heated arguments and all kinds of disputes among culture associates have pushed absent, as it were, to produce a serene atmosphere of peace and unity.

The require for the commemoration of the Apoo competition was necessitated by one of the Techiman chiefs barely a century back. The leader realised that immediately after their migration from Drobo in the Gyaman district in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana to their ancestral settlement at Techiman, there had been great disputes amongst the ruling class and the people. Other disputes existed amongst culture associates. This resulted in personal grudges from a single a different, disturbing the friction of peace and unity that existed amongst the people. As a result, the chief of Techiman, alongside one another with the elders in his classic cabinet instituted the competition observance as a system for reconciling the individuals via the settling of age-long clashes.

Through the occasion, sacrificial choices are executed in the Amanfo sacred grove found at the coronary heart of Techiman in the Brong Ahafo area of Ghana. It is a historic gazette forest tract that is thought by the people to be the permanent dwelling area of the spirits of their ancestors. An oral tradition among the people reveals that 1 of the Techiman chiefs bodily entered the ground and died in the course of a war with the Asantes of Ghana. Hence, the stays of this past Techiman chief who is said to have played an instrumental part in the formation of the Techiman ethnic modern society as very well as other chiefs and elders in the culture. Sacrifices are presented to them to find their support for peace and unity amongst the folks. This event carried out at dawn on the first Friday of the 7 days-extensive competition observance, formally marks the graduation of the commemoration.

Culture associates parade the streets of the Techiman vicinity rattling the personal grudges among their fellow society customers chattering it by means of tracks and dances. It is a public outburst of displeasure of steps of modern society associates that did not auger perfectly for a further and has been the cause of the dispute current amongst customers in the neighborhood. These general public accusations are uttered by aggrieved persons for a week. Throughout these days, the elders in the conventional council as effectively as heads and elders in families, notice intently and pay attention attentively to the general public rants of displeasure of persons in opposition to their fellow associates of the culture. The elders and family heads just take diligent observe of folks possessing the disputes and the concerns behind all those disputes. When the week for the public confessions by way of songs and dances expires, the main, elders and loved ones heads contact the aggrieved functions and settle the disputes amicably no matter how Herculean it may perhaps be.

The united people today, then engage in a culture fanfare and feast through the grand working day of the Apoo festival on a Saturday. The ancestors are ultimately extolled by sacrificial choices and prayers for bringing peace and unity among the individuals of Techiman.

This vintage illustration of the Apoo cultural competition demonstrates how these annual commemorations rampant among different ethnic societies and teams in the planet can be tapped as platforms for guaranteeing peace and unity. Considering that cultural festivals are activities of good pleasure and just about every member of the culture avails themselves, it is a feasible platform for settling all types of disputes that mars the world-wide peace that humans seek. Organisers of cultural festivals ought to integrate, consequently, if it is lacking in a distinct cultural festival, an avenue for resolving disputes among the ethnic society that commemorate it. This would go a extended way in making certain, advertising and marketing and preserving the peace that exists among different cultures and people today.