Conclusions

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elderly women and the girl-friends arrive, the husband will embrace his wife with a pair of dry fishes. The mother of the initiate does the same. Then the man will shoot his gun at the compound entrance to welcome his wife.

Mbam added that, after this, the couple will go to the elders and uke. They will sit in a circle around the opho. Within this circle is the kola dish ukpara with dried meat, tobacco and kola, a calabash and a stone for the tobacco. The uke instructs the couple to touch the basket of the opho with his right feet twice and with his left foot too. The woman does likewise. They hold their hands together during this ritual. This feet-ritual is an assurance that they have received the blessings from the ancestors and All. The uke says: "you are now wedded as husband and wife. Go and live in peace. "Everybody, including the couple can now go home. The materials (matter) of the blessings are left outside till morning.

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two (2) yams, soup ingredients, fish, cow-skin and one foreleg of the goat. This food the women cooked will be sacrificed to the stones; they put some po::ridge "onu" and pieces of fish on the fireplace .The couple is not allowed to eat the sacrificed food but other people around are free to eat it. After the cooking the old women will wash the stones; so that the couple now can cook their own food on it. After pouring the water over the stones "ago mini" and some ashes are put on it, the foot-riti.al is done; the husband puts his right foot two times on the cooking place and then the wife. The old women then go home and the couple will stay and sleep there. They will go home the next morning and will leave the stones there forever. From that moment the we man becomes "nwanyi okpo epfu", which means a fully married woman, she is now ushered into full womanhood. She has immediately been incorporated among the women.. After the akpo epfu the hair of the woman will be ritually (symbolically) shaved "ada attwo ."ishi", otherwise she is not allowed to carry anything on her head, like water, firewood etc.

If a woman commits adultery, after the ritual, Ali can punish her with madness or sickness or the children will all die and open their eyes after death. The earth has to be appeased and the woman cleaned in the ceremony called removal of the three cooking stones "akpofu epfu". A woman who has committed adultery cannot eat together with her husband again till she has performed this akpofu epfu ritual. The relatives of the woman will gather in the compound of the husband, tie the woman up and beat her till the husband is satisfied. The remarriage ritual will be performed and is very simple: together with an old woman the woman soes to another place, even in another community onu egu

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ozo. There the man on whose compound the ritual is being carried out will be given some money. He will strongly blame the woman for the bad thing she has done. Then they can return; the ground is now appeased. No stone is touched in the akpofu epfu ritual. The next day she has to do what is called pouring of water, "awushi mini"

with her husband in her own village and that restores the marriage (remarriage).

For the boy's ritual circumcision, (Ubvu Ogerenya), Mbam, who is occupying the traditional stool of Izzi-Unuhu autonomous community, stated that in the olden days boys also went through the physical circumcision "ubvu nwata" and the ritual circumcision "ubvu ogerenya". Nowadays these rituals still happen in sonic places or communities or clans, though the actual circumcision had taken place as infants. They (the initiates) ritually rub their body with red and yellow cam-wood and go around through the village almost without clothes for some months. They do not have to do any work. The relatives have to feed them very well and to slaughter some goats for them.

When they finally come out of the circumcision period afu Vubvu, they are led to the playground like girls.

The boys prepare on Nkwegu day; they select a child thai will assist them as escort attached to each of them. They wear no clothes except the towel anamu and the boy will put wood fibers egwo around his waist. They will rub their body with cam wood and so-look completely red. The next day Ophoke the elders are invited on the compound. They are offered a gallon of palm-wine, tobacco, four (4) kola-nuts, and dry bush-meat. They

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will invoke the ground "ali" and ancestors and the gods to bless the person ago opho.

Then they go with many children to the playground. They will lead yon singing and playing "upyi".

Nwoke I'ete uswe; hoo; hoo hool

Pfua ntu; g'anyi eje I'egu; hoo! hoof hoo! Putukumu!

They go to the playground and go around there, at every entrance to the playground they put dry meat on the initiate's mouth, but the children flock around him to snatch it away so that he will not get a bit of it. They return to the compound through another route (road) different from the departure route. When they arrive to their compound, and after a brief ceremonial welcome, everyb3dy who accompanied then-disperses to their different homes.

In conclusion he asserted that in the olden days the afu I'ubvu ritual for members of the

"o-gbu~ishi" human head title holders' in the society was done differently. The elders and members of the society will gather in the morning; the elders will invoke the earth and the ancestors,- etc. He would dress as a warrior in a wrapper and rubbed with white chalk "ndzu" and then in daylight be led to the market or playground. All the way he would demonstrate his power and how he defeated his enemy and captured his head. The O-gbu-ishi members will bear their "staff "mgboro" and wU loudly praise him. In the market they will drink and after wards process in honour to their home. Nowadays boys are usually circumcised as infants and there ire no circumcision rituals later on anymore.

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Also girls are already circumcised at young age, yet the rituals and the periods of seclusinn has become much shorter (the whole period may be only one week or at most about two weeks)

Reasons why the rituals for girls are being preserved while those for boys have almost gone into extinction could be the importance of the ritual for the health of the children she will bear; the gifts that the husband has to give to the in-laws and his wife: the psychological effects of the ritual to help the girl in taking the role of a woman from then onwards.