Two lecturers at Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka,
Professor Christopher Orubu and Dr. Emmanuel Biri, have
condemned the demonization of Urhobo culture under the facade
of Christianity.
Both lecturers, speaking at the first Ughievwen Cultural Carnival,
staged at Otughievwen, headquarters of Ughelli South Local
Government Area, said the trend was robbing Urhobo nation and
Ughievwen Urhobo in particular, economic oppor-tunities to sell
its culture and heritage to the outside world.
Professor Orubu stated that as a people, Ughievwen of Urhobo
evolved with peculiar cultural practices and heritage giving its
sons and daughters a self- identity that cannot be sustained by
any borrowed culture.
He said: ”Our four pivots of chieftaincy, Adeh, Eboh, Igbun-Otor
and Igbun-Eshovwin, which have been handed down from
generations have exclusive entertainment carriages in various
festivals, which were the envy of non-natives, who throng the
community from far and near to share in the fun.
Demonization of culture
“Today, in the name of Christianity, these attractions are fast
fading away. We demonize our culture on the notion that they are
fetish, but even the Pope has entered shrines, not of Christians,
and acknowledged the sense of faith in God by adherents of the
deities worshipped in such shrines.”
In a separate lecture on The Past, Present and Future of the
Ughievwen People, Dr. Biri of the Department of Mass
Communication, DELSU, said that some of the core cultural values
of Ughievwen Urhobo, being so demeaned in the land, were being
celebrated with growing global recognition in other climes.
Biri asserted: “The Epha (celebration of bare breast maidens),
which is Urhobo’s appreciation of the purity in women, is
gradually going into extinction on the notion that it is fetish and
obscene.
“But in Swaziland, the same heritage has become an annual
tourist attraction visited by several people from around the world.
“In Ughievwen, ancestral worship has also been condemned as
demonic and fetish whereas in Japan, the second largest economy
in the world, ancestral veneration remains a valued culture.
“Japanese, including the most highly placed, go to venerate the
graves of their dead parents, decorating them with flowers.”
Why we organized carnival
Chief Enyote Gbogbo, who headed the team of organizers of the
event, told Niger Delta Voice: “The pains expressed by the DELSU
scholars underpin the motivation for originating the Ughievwen
Cultural Carnival.
Gbogbo said: “We noticed Ughievwen will have no sense of
identity as a people if our cultural values are being rubbished and
discarded, no matter the excuses.
“To revive the dying culture, we have decided to bring the various
cultural celebrations into one big annual carnival.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/01/delsu-dons-christians-stop-demonizing-urhobo-culture/

Hmmmmmmm.

i support culture