Àgó: A Feminine Purification Rite in O ̣̀ .wo ̣̀,. Oǹdó State, South-West, Nigeria
Àgó: A Feminine Purification Rite in O ̣̀ .wo ̣̀,. Oǹdó State, South-West, Nigeria

Summary/Abstract: In Yorùbá land, raising a child is the continuation of giving birth to the child; a large part of the child's early training is the mother's direct responsibility. Every woman wants her child to prosper to make the father and the entire family proud. A woman does anything she can to see that she achieves this role. This study, therefore, describes the performance of Àgó; a feminine purification rite in Ọ̀wọ̀ , Oǹdó State, South-West Nigeria to depict how Ọ̀wọ̀ women use the rite to save the lives of their children and make them prosper in life. The paper adopts womanist theory (the totality of feminine self-expression, self- retrieval and self-assertion in positive cultural ways) and sociology of literature (an attempt to understand the interrelationship between literature and society) for the work. Findings show that mothers who give birth to children with the same sex three consecutive times perform Àgó. The confinement given to mothers alone emanates from the societal notion that it has assigned that role to women. In this specific cultural setting, women seem to play a role in caring for their children's lives through the performance of the rite, in which, sometimes also the other parent is present. Furthermore, the Àgó rite appears as a collective event, in which the entire community is involved.

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