Ilo-Muo Festival in Aguleri: A Study in Ancestor Veneration in Igbo Traditional Religion

Abstract

The ritual Ilo-Muo celebration is a festival for the veneration of ancestors thatacknowledges their role as guardians as well as acts as a spiritual force thatbinds the clans and villages that constitute Aguleri in Eri kingdom. Through themediation of ancestral worship and supportive rituals performed by theadherents of the traditional religion, the stability of the cultural brotherhood issecured. This festival is usually an occasion for jocundity and thanksgivingoffered to ancestral spirits. People appear in their best and give of their best; themeals constitute an opportunity for communion between the ancestors and their“childrenâ€. This paper focuses on how this renewal of covenant relationshipscelebrated in all clans and villages is done to reinforce the ancestral brotherhoodand to show how the Aguleri community uses this festival to uphold itsleadership of other communities. The ritual festival of Ilo-Muo in Aguleri, “thecradle of Igbo civilizationâ€, reawakens within Aguleri and the Igbo diaspora theculture and sustenance of ancestor veneration in Igbo Traditional Religion andcosmology.