Coming of age is a universal trend, but differs in different societies. What
one calls a celebration of feminism might be another’s initiative of gender
discrimination.
The Niger Delta tribes are scattered abroad and in some of these tribes, the
Iria ritual is practiced.
Some of the groups that practice the ritual include the Iyankpo group, the
Ijimkorobo group, the Alagbariye tribe from Ebeni, and the Saugeye group.
The Iria Ritual is accepted to many tribes in the Niger Delta, with some
forms of the ritual practices harsher than the others. It typically involves
adolescent girls who are between 14 and 16 undergoing rituals that
prepared them for marriage. In some places, these girls ser to be bare-
breasted in front of the crowd for inspection. The goal of this is to
guarantee that their virginity is intact.
The young girls also get to visit the fattening room where they are well fed
with body nourishing meals, especially pounded yam mixed with pounded
plantain.
In the fattening room, the ladies are pampered and are all set to dance half-
naked at the village square. At the end of their stay in the fattening room,
they are transformed and seem to be more beautiful. Their bodies are at
that time painted in different colours for the dance.
In time past, it was alleged that if one did not pass through the Iria ritual it
would be extremely difficult for her to conceive a child. One of the joint
belief amongst the people is that young women in their teenage age gain
attachments to water spirits and so, they gather at dawn to chase the
spirits. After this, a senior male member of the tribe strikes the girls with
sticks sending them back to the village.
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