Custom · Traditional to present · Fact and tradition
No matching image yet, so this page uses a plain title card instead of a photo.
In the hills of southern Kebbi, the harvest ends with a festival whose name means "he has protected". Girls dance the last dance before marriage, boys put on skin kilts and run to farm for the families of their brides, and old rival villages meet again in the wrestling ring.
Zuru lies in the south-east of Kebbi State. It is one of the state's four emirates, home to about half a million people, and it takes in the local government areas of Zuru, Fakai, Danko/Wasagu and Sakaba. The name Zuru comes from the people of Azugru. When the Daily Trust visited in 2011, its reporter described them as one of the few communities that had held tightly to the culture handed down to them and still thought it worth celebrating in public.
Their best-loved celebration is Uhola. In the Lelna language, the word means "he has prevented" or "he has protected". The idea behind it is simple: the people give thanks that the Protector has kept evil and disaster away from them. It comes after the harvest, some time between December and March. It is a thanksgiving to God for a good harvest, and a prayer for more good years, wealth and health to come.
Uhola also marks the end of the farming season and the start of a new year. The people of Zuru are known as brave, hard-working farmers, so it makes sense that the first of the festival's three days is given over to an agricultural show. After that come the more colourful parts: the Yadato dance, wrestling, the Golmo race, bicycle races and archery.
The festival itself is old, but in 1993 the Zuru Emirate gave it a new shape. Each clan now holds its own contests, and a committee watches to pick the best dancer, the best archer, the best Golmo runner and the best cyclist. Those winners then meet in a final, and the best in the whole emirate are chosen and given prizes.
On the festival day, boys and girls set out in a long procession of singers, drummers and well-wishers. They move from the farm settlements, called C'bela, to the head village of each community, called Ile. Along the way, people use songs and poems to air their complaints, poking at bad behaviour and praising courage and good conduct. At the town square, the chief priests of the clans call on the gods for a good celebration. Then each young celebrant goes first to greet the chief, before showing off their skill in the Golmo contest.
Uhola is not only about crops. It is also the time when Lelna boys and girls cross from childhood into adulthood. The chairman of the Uhola committee, Alhaji Muhammad Yawa Dankarma, the district head of Ushe, explained how it works.
For girls, and for boys too, the key moment is Yadato, a word that means the act of the final dance. It is the last dance before marriage. Once a boy has danced Yadato, he can enter Golmo, the age grade that prepares a young man for marriage. It is also the time when a boy is taken into M'gilla, the stage of manhood.
Golmo is hard work. In the old days, the chairman said, a young man who wanted to marry had to serve his future in-laws for five to seven years. That has now come down to farming on their land for two years in a row. At Uhola, a Golmo young man comes out in traditional dress, with no shoes, wearing a kilt of animal skin. He may have to cover ten to fifteen kilometres on foot, and wherever he is going to farm, he must run to get there on time. That is where the Golmo race comes from.
The chairman did not hide the harder side of the old custom. In the past, he said, girls had to dance almost naked during Yadato, as proof that they were virgins. People believed that a girl who could not dance Yadato at Uhola had either lost her virginity or caught a sexual disease.
Each Yadato begins at the home of the boy or girl who is ready for it. Each one chooses a drummer, called wane, who sings the praises of their character and their family. A rich family shows it, in the colour of the day and in the gifts handed out to friends.
Then there is the wrestling. Men from each community come to show their strength, and the old pairings are part of the fun. Zuru traditionally faces Pani. Rumu faces Dabai and Rikoto. Shenchi meets Ushe, Ribah meets Chonoko, Isgogo meets Dago. The rule is plain: whoever presses his opponent's back to the ground is the winner.
Hunters have their own place. They dance a kind of mime, a little drama showing how they move through the bush and catch their game, with all the tricks of their craft. That is why archery has become a fixed part of Uhola, to find the hunter who can hit a target from the greatest distance. There are other dances too, with names such as C'canga, S'geta and hev'sgomgomno, each one a test of how well the body can move with the music.
And because Uhola follows the harvest, farming skill gets its own show. The threshing dance, D'bii, is performed by strong men, mostly from Kyabo in Danko chiefdom. Its songs praise hard work, strength and skill on the farm.
The festival brings people together, the reporter wrote, both the Zuru communities at home and those living outside the state. It brings visitors and it keeps the old ways alive by passing them on. People in Zuru had begun adding other places to the festival for visitors to see: the Isgogo slave market, the Girmache shrine, Tar'd Wawanta in Rumu, the Zwin-Gorge valley, the old town of Ukulu, the Dombo Gomp spring and the Karishin hills among them. What they still hoped for was a proper festival village and the facilities to turn Uhola into an international event.
