ANALYTICAL STUDY OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE SONGS TEXTS OF EZINIFITE AGUATA WOMEN, ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Music forms part of virtually all activities in the traditional Igbo society of Nigeria, including births, occupations, worship, ceremonies, festivals, children upbringing, social control, rites of passage, politics and so forth. Every community in Igbo land manipulate music to lend voice and sound to their ideology, actions and even spirituality. Women play very active roles in some of these musical activities. This paper, therefore, studies the songs performed by women of Ezinifite in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria during traditional marriage ceremonies in order to enhance the events. The focus of this study is on the songs’ texts. However, mere translation of the texts of these songs which are in Igbo language to English or any other language does not suffice for the true meaning, hence the textual analysis. Also, there is a noticeable gradual decline in number of women participation during the performance of these marriage songs. And this, consequently, poses a great threat on these songs which may gradually lead to their extinction. Data for this research was collected through oral interview and fieldwork. This paper finds out the reasons for this loss of interest among the village women, provides notational document of the songs as well as their textual analysis. It therefore concludes that beyond mere textual translation of a song, there is need to know the culture of the people for vivid understanding the meaning.