RESURRECTING IGBO CULTURAL VALUES THROUGH FOLKLORE: ‘EGWU ONWA’ AND ITS COMMITMENT TOWARDS SOCIETAL ETHOS

Abstract

Folklore, a fundamental aspect of the Igbo traditional culture, refers to the traditional art, literature, knowledge and practice that are disseminated largely through oral communication. Long before our societies transited into global villages, egwu onwa- moonlight activities were rich sources of not just entertainment but education and training of the younger generation. It remained a repository source of knowledge that deepened and transmitted the grandiose cultural values, worldview and cosmologic outlooks of the various societies.  A nightly activity, ‘egwu onwa’ ranks among the treasured aspects of folklore not just among the Igbo people in Nigeria but many other societies in Africa. That was many decades ago before the invention of cinema, gramophone, radio, television, and internet services. This paper reopens conversation on moonlight games and it’s socio-cultural cum philosophical imports in Igbo societies. Through a field research and samples of moonlight games collected in Nise, a town in Awka South LGA of Anambra State, in the Eastern part of Nigeria, the study reexamines these moonlight activities in the light of their communal importance and seeks to reestablish their relevance in our present day society motivated by the dearth of moonlight activities. The study concludes on the glaring need for recourse to moonlight ideological and philosophical underpinnings in coping with the prevalent social order and declining societal ethos.