ONDO CELEBRATES 2022 OGUN FESTIVAL

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Ondo kingdom has been agog for a week as the people

celebrated the 2022

edition of the Ogun Festival.

The festival is a carnival like event where all the Ondo

indigenes clad themselves in their glamorous clothes and

dance round the major streets.

Ogun adherents and priests offer prayers for protection,

progress, peace and tranquillity.

According to Palace Spokesman, Chief Wole Benson, the

Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom, Oba Dr. Victor Adesimbo

Kiladejo, CFR who is the custodian of the kingdom’s rich

traditions and cultures, expressed appreciation to Ogun

deity , for what it did for the kingdom during their years of

travails.

He enjoined all Ondo indigenes, friends and tourists to

celebrate this year’s festival in peace and tranquillity.

According to Yoruba mythology, Ogun was a King and the

father of Oranmiyan, and the first person to arrive on earth.

He used a cutlass and a dog to clear the road for the arrival

of other deities.

He is also said to have given the finishing touches to the

first set of humans created by Obatala, the Yoruba god of

creation.

The festival is usually held around August or September in

the State.

In Yoruba religion, Ogun is a primordial Orisha in Yoruba

Land.

In some traditions, he is said to have cleared a path for the

other orisha to enter Earth, using a metal ax and with the

assistance of a dog.

To commemorate this, one of his praise names, or oriki, is

Osin Imole or the “first of the primordial Orisha to come to

Earth”. He is the god of war and metals.

In his earthly life,Ogun was reputed to be the first king of

Ife.

When some of his subjects failed to show respect, Ogun

killed them and ultimately himself with his own sword. He

disappeared into the earth at a place called Ire-Ekiti, with

the promise to help those who call on his name.

His followers believe him to have wo ile sun, to have

disappeared into the earth’s surface instead of dying.

Throughout his earthly life, he was recorded to have fought

for the people of Ire, thus is known also as Onire.

The festival in honour of Ogun deity, is celebrated in, Ogun,

Ekiti, Oyo, and Ondo States.

Ogun is the traditional deity of warriors, hunters,

blacksmiths, technologists, and drivers in the Yoruba region.

Followers of traditional Yoruba religion can swear to tell the

truth in court by “kissing a piece of iron in the name of

Ogun”.

Drivers carry an amulet of Ogun to ward off road accidents.

The primary symbols of Ogun are Iron, the dog, and the

palm frond. They symbolize Ogun’s role in transformation,

mediation, and function.

Iron is the primary emblem of Ogun and its altars and

ceremonies display and use iron objects both in Yoruba

areas and across the African diaspora.

Adherents of Ogun wear chains of iron implements.

The festival features the display of knives, guns, blacksmith

implements, scissors, wrenches, and other iron implements

from daily life.

Meat is sacrificed for Ogun.

Dogs are the traditional companions of hunters, but Ogun’s

personality is also seen as “doglike”, aggressive, able to

face danger, and straightforward.

Other sacrificial animals associated with Ogun are the

spitting cobra (blacksnake); its behavior is aggressive and

fearless. Hunters and blacksmiths avoid eating or

witnessing the mating of blacksnakes. Other important

sacrificial offerings to Ogun are the Clarias submarginatus

(a species of catfish), alligator pepper, kola nuts, palm wine

and red palm oil, small rats, roosters, salt, snails, tortoise,

water, and yams. (Clyne: 1997).

Oríkì is a Yoruba cultural phenomenon that comes in the

form of praise poetry, praising either a person, òrìṣà (deity),

or town based on their achievements.

Ogun’s Oriki,

Ògún méje logun mi,

Ògún alára ni n gb’aja,

Ògún onire a gb’àgbò,

Ògún Ikọla a gb’agbín,

Ògún gbengbena oje ìgí nìí mu,

Ògún ila a gb’esun iṣu,

Ògún akirin a gb’awo agbo,

Ògún elémono ẹran ahùn ni jẹ,

mákindé ti dogun lẹyin odi,

Bi o ba gba Tapa a gb’Aboki,

A gba Ukuuku a gba Kèmbèrí.

Translation:

My Ògún manifest in seven different ways

Ogun of the town of Ilara accepts a dog atonement.

Ogun of the town of Ire accepts a ram atonement.

Ogun of the town of Ikole accepts a snail atonement.

Ogun of Gbenagena drinks tree sap for atonement.

Ogun of the town of Ila accept yam seeds atonement

Ogun of the Akirin people accepts ram fur atonement

Ogun of the Elemono people eats tortoise meat for

atonement

The brave that wages foreign wars

He will consume either Nupe, or Hausa

He consumes foreign people, He will consume the Kanuri

too.

Ogun the god of smithy and lord of Iron is celebrated

annually in almost every town and villages in the state. The

celebration is an annual remembrance and worship of the

god of Iron who was believed to be a hunter who migrated

from Ile-lfe to IreEkiti on game search, but he ended up

living permanently at Ire-Ekiti and disappeared into the

ground when some people of the town deceived him with

an empty keg of palm wine. He beheaded all of them with

his cutlass according to oral history and disappeared into

the ground. In Ire-Ekiti, the main festival in remembrance of

the deity comes biennially and usually during the month of

August.

Ogun is believed to be the god of all those using Iron in their

professional work therefore; the deity must be worshipped in

order to receive his favour.

During the festival , people worship their ancestors and with

the believe that the ancestors are on earth again to greet,

inspect and bless their siblings.

These masquerades are regarded as imitations of the

ancestors. Dogs, Palm oil,Roasted yam, Palm wine, Cold

water and cola nuts are the materials used by Ogun

devotees to worship the deity.

Ogun, the most storied of the Yoruba gods, is a fearsome

being: god of iron and war, he is reputed to protect his

devotees.

In Ondo town, Ondo State, the indigenes celebrate his

legend in an annual festival between the months of August

and September.

Yoruba cosmology has it that when the earth was created

and the gods decided to come down from heaven and take

charge of its affairs, the path of the gods were blocked by a

bush. After several tries by the other gods to clear the way,

it was Ogun, wielding his iron machete, who succeeded.

Ogun Festival is preceded by a 17-day preparation following

the sighting of the new moon.

It is the duty of the Ayadi, the ritual specialist of Ogun public

worship, to announce the new moon with the upe, a

traditional trumpet made from a long gourd. He blows the

upe for seven straight days. Nine days after the new moon

appears, which would be two days after the blowing of the

upe.

The Osemawe, the king, sends an emissary to formally

announce the Festival.

Ogun worshippers then begin to gather, and different

communities begin to clear footpaths and repair bridges.

Five days to the festival, households perform a ceremony

called aleho, which includes a vigil and morning celebration.

At this point, processions begin, involving all traditional

professional groups: blacksmiths, medicine men and

women, drivers, hunters, tailors, barbers.

The Osemawe leads the morning procession, wearing a

beaded crown that covers his face.

The Festival is an opportunity to bring all his worshippers

together. Their place of worship is Ogbomkowo area, where

Ogun is said to have first arrived and which today is

inhabited by most of Ondo’s blacksmiths, who form the

majority of worshippers.

The blacksmiths, by virtue of working with steel, understand

their work in a spiritual manner. They show indebtedness to

Ogun as the founder of metal.

trumpet made from a long gourd. He blows the upe for

seven straight days. Nine days after the new moon appears,

which would be two days after the blowing of the upe, the

Osemawe, the king, sends an emissary to formally announce

the Festival. Ogun worshippers then begin to gather, and

different communities begin to clear footpaths and repair

bridges.