Hello Hive

Culture and traditions is one beautiful thing that we have enjoyed in it's different forms and in various parts of my country. The diversity of culture makes so many things interesting and keeping the citizens in unity. While some culture has favoured us for a long time now, I am begining to see a review of some cultures and traditions altering some changes that was totally necessary in order to save our generation from some of the mitigating effects of these inherited cultural practices.
These changes are totally relevant because some cultures are really so harsh that the punishment for some offense is an immediate death sentence. Truth be told I am in support of some cultural practices while the other ones that contains death sentence should be abolished.

Students dressed the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria

In the countrys school curriculum it is necessary that a student must learn at least a single Nigerian language of the three recognized language of Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba Learning the languages means that you learn both the history and cultural background of the people and I can tell you that while I was in school I learnt about the Yoruba culture, language and traditional way of life including writing an exam in a language that is not my mother tongue. Luckily with this I was able to learn an additional language and traditional couples with the one I have known earlier coming from my own state. Currently I speak about two of the three recognized language inclusive of the mother tongue from my parents. I speak Yoruba and Hausa fluently with the intention to learn Igbo if possible.

Out of these three major languages it is totally difficult to get stranded if one travels to any part of the world because there is a 90% possibility that you will find someone who speaks and understand any of this language.

Embracing our cultural heritage is something that should not be taking likely like the governments have done in the past scraping out some of these things from our schools.
While some of our children have traveled to the western countries and explored the world we can see traces of the misbehaviours they bring back home and this can be traced to them been detached from their cultural heritage.
In most Nigerian culture children prostrate or kneel down to greet their parents, there is usually a strong discipline orderliness and respect for elders which we do not see in Nowadays children. Children are not permitted to talk back to elders and children are taught how to take care of their parents when they are old. Alot of the children who are exposed to western cultures no longer engage in this practice and only a few of them knows the importance of keeping their home trainings.

It is a good thing now that cultural activities and a special day to celebrate culture has now been strongly included in the school curriculum. On such days we dress the kids in cultural attires and parents are invited to teach and watch their kids in cultural display and practices.

Back to my culture one each of the cultural Heritage I will love them to uphold/abolish can be read below

• Celebrations of the new yam festivals.
  It is a crime for anyone to eat yams before the day of this celebration in my home town. It has been a culture in the past to celebrate and appreciate the goods for bountiful harvest each year before we begin to eat the meals. This is really commendable and should be uphold because it is more than just celebration of harvest, family's come together in this occasion and everyone far and wide travel home. We get to see each other and get dressed in our lovely cultural attires for this celebration. It is our moment and period of home coming. I can't imagine what will happen to the state if this culture is abolished. During the festival different yam delicacies are made, from roasted yams, to boiled yams with palm oil and pounded yam with delicious soup. We eat together, dance and sing our cultural songs. The love and bond shared on this day is often felt and we take care of each other wellbeing.

Although picking the western religion of Christianity I wish that the aspects that contains sacrifices to God and some diabolical actions be reviewed.

Marriage rites

An Aspect of culture I do not wish to be uphold in my culture is one that forbids the ladies from marrying husbands from other tribes.
Often times any individual male of female that gets married to their partners outside of the state are usually treated as strangers. This fosters disunity among the tribes in Nigeria and regardless of our different cultural heritage we are still one. The marriage rite and relationship should be reviewed.

Burial rites

The burial rites in my state is usually outrageous instead of mourning over the death of a loved one they turn this into celebrations and rejoicing that a soul has gone to meet with the ancestors. This often turns into a avenue for drinking, smoking and immoral acts. This celebration can go on for days and demanding for huge finances from the family of the deceased to cater for the bills and burial celebration expenses of food and drinks.
Any individual who fails to celebrate the death of their loved ones in this manner of often cut off from the village. A review of this might be of help to the present generation.

To conclude this, Nigeria is rich in cultural heritage and diversity, some of these practices keeps us in good health including the types of meals and natural medicine(herbs)that we take, because some of these food are home grown and without adverse health effect but now these days it is difficult to find women who know how to prepare some of our traditional meals, I hope that all this knowledge will not be lost after this generation of older people that are keeping us passes on .

All images are mine and a product of celebration from my sister's school cultural day.

This is my own contribution to the #aprilinleo prompt and I hope that you have learnt a thing or two from there. I invita @zion-francis, @ayomiku @johnny023 and all of you my friends to engage and participate fully in this contest by clicking on this link

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