Igbo Marriage

Kelechi means "Give praises to God." Chigozie means "May God bless." Both are great Igbo names and as is traditional with Africans, even the names of kids and the circumstances of their birth are centered around the Godhead. Igbos are mainly Christians. They are also traditionalists. We are cradle Catholics. RM

Books by Rose Ure Mezu

Women in Chains: Abandonment in Love Relationships in the Fiction of Selected West African Writers (1994) / Songs of the Hearth (1993) /

Homage to My People (2004) / A History of Africana Women's Literature (2004)

Black Nationalists: Reconsidering Du Bois, Garvey, Booker T. & Nkrumah (1999) Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works (2006)

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An Introductory Note

By Rose Mezu

These wedding photos (above/below) are presented as part of a cultural education of life in the cultural towns of Africa. They are intended to offset and counteract the usual dismal, poverty-ridden, and disheartening images normally shown to black American audiences about life in Africa. Like every other place, Nigeria, or any country in Africa for that matter, has several faces -- poor, median, and rich. My circle is not too rich but in-between and quite representative.

A wedding, of course, is a festive occasion and people -- men and women -- are at their best in terms of dressing. But that's Nigeria for you -- extravagant, grand and colorful. You will love the country if you do really visit -- go round the states I mean, not just Lagos and Abuja -- but perhaps, Owerri, Emekuku, Aba, Enugu -- some of the Eastern Igbo townships. The country is oil-rich, even if the bulk of the wealth is in a few private hands because of bad leadership at both the national and state levels. That is why people are trying in this election year to promote political parties with more ideological convictions such as APGA (All Progressive Grand Alliance) that has a more ideological orientation even if largely Igbo. What America is to the world, Nigeria is to the black world, a kind of Mecca.

The scenes here are from Emekuku -- a town in Owerri, Imo State of Nigeria. The bride is my third daughter and she is Dr. Kelechi Rosemary Mezu-Nnabue. She is a Doctor of Optometrist completing a second doctorate in Public Health. Her husband, Chigozie Nnabue is a mortgage banker and he is from a town about thirty minutes from our home in Emekuku. They met here in Baltimore and have since returned to the US.

The wedding is Catholic (Emekuku is the seat of the Catholic Church in this region), but it was preceded by a cultural traditional wedding in my compound called Mezuville in Emekuku. This ceremony brings the respective families and communities together in love and harmony. These invitees will act as witnesses to this marriage and they will work together to ensure the stability and longevity of the marriage (even if turbulent) in years to come.

In the cultural wedding scenes, the guests are welcomed as they arrive and are seated amidst traditional music. As you can see, guests -- invited or uninvited -- are free to come. No one is ever driven away and one does not need an invitation to come. There is food for everyone – a kind of an open house. There are dance groups and musicians drumming to keep the mood happy. It is all very festive in this tropical, warm, sun-kissed region of Africa. Consider, that you were snow-bound, chilled to the spine here in Baltimore at that time. The contrast is very glaring.

Then, the Mother of the Bride makes her entrance (that's me in blue) with her entourage - fellow women and her peers, sisters and friends and dances round the ceremonial ground, being greeted and feted by the guests. Money is sprayed at all the occasions -- Naira (Nigerian currency), dollar, pound sterling, Deutsch mark, and what have you -- it is all part of the gifts to the couple on that occasion. Other gifts in kind are given too. People know it is expensive to stage such a wedding and the money goes to help offset the costs somewhat - though it never gets anywhere near what it actually costs. However, it is all a happy occasion and well worth the expenditure. It has been under preparation for over a year and the people concerned are saving for it.

Then, the nubile bride comes in with her maidens - peers, classmates, relatives and friends - and does the nubian dance of the bride. She next goes to her father - pater familias (it is all so patriarchal!) - and kneels showing obeisance and respect and he gives her a cup of Palm wine -- symbolic gesture -- and charges her to go look for her husband who is hidden somewhere in the crowd by his friends. So now she does the dance-of-the-maiden searching for the groom and her attending maids are all the while on the lookout for him. IT IS A LOT OF FUN AND GAMES! She will find him at last, offer him wine and claim him as her groom and will bring him to her father who then blesses them as they kneel before him in respect for his blessings. Thus, the father has married them in the traditional manner before the assembly of friends, relatives, and the greater community.

The Church wedding followed three days later. This usually may take up to a year or never depending on the strength of the Christian faith of both the couple and their families. We chose to do the Christian Church Wedding three days apart. We are Roman Catholics and this wedding was solemnized in the Assumpta Cathedral of Our Lady (Blessed Mother of Jesus) of Assumption at Owerri, capital of Imo State in the South-Eastern region of Nigeria. We are Igbos -- one of the three major tribes in Nigeria.

After the wedding, the photos are taken and the scene shifts to the Concorde Hotel, the International five-star hotel that is an Owerri landmark for the wedding reception. Close to five hundred people attended. It was a happy, colorful event, followed a few days later with the full wine-carrying ceremonies of another daughter, Olachi (God's Jewel) who is a medical doctor. Ola gets married at end of year at Emekuku, Owerri around about the same time and in the same fashion her sister did.

The "plaque scene of mother and father passed" are portraits of my husband's late parents. We took our grand children who are visiting Nigeria for the first time to see where they are buried in the family compound. My father-in-law who was called Clement has the Chapel of St. Clement built directly above his grave. Of course, you know that traditionally, we reverence our ancestral dead. Their memories are always with us and they are never quite forgotten. As Diop put it, "the dead are not really dead, but with us still." We loved them and try to keep their memories alive.