How is the Homowo festival celebrated in Ghana?

How is the Homowo festival celebrated in Ghana?

Celebration includes marching down roads and streets beating drums, chanting, merrymaking face painting, singing and traditional dances. On this day there is usually a lot of traffic and roads are usually blocked off to accommodate the festival.

How do the fantes celebrate their festival?

The most important festival in the Fante calendar is the colourful Oguaa Fetu Afahye (the last word literally means ‘adorning of new clothes’), on the first Saturday of September, when local chiefs and asafo companies dressed in full traditional regalia lead processions through the streets of Cape Coast.

How is odwira celebrated?

During the Festival, bowls of mashed yam (some mixed with palm oil and others left white) which have been specially prepared by the Okuapemhene and other stool occupants are carried in procession from the Ahemfi to feed the ancestors at Nsorem.

What is the purpose of the Homowo celebration and why is it important to the Ghanaian ethnic group known as the Ga?

The tradition of Homowo started with a period of hunger leading to famine due to failure of the seasonal rains needed by crops in the Greater Accra Region, where the Ga people predominantly dwell. When the rains returned to normal, the Ga people celebrated by creating the Homowo festival, hence its name and meaning.

What is the biggest festival in Ghana?

Homowo – May Homowo is one of the grandest festivals in Ghana and it happens right in the capital, Accra, every year in May. Its history is one of a season of despair due to famine, which was eventually followed by a bumper harvest of plant food and fish, as such homowo – refering to the act of ‘hooting at hunger’.

How long is Homowo celebrated?

The Homowo Festival is a month long celebration of the harvest mainly celebrated by the Ga people in the Greater Accra area of Ghana. The festival is not necessarily held at one specific time but is usually held near August.

How is akwambo celebrated?

However, most Akwambo festivals share certain common customs such as the ritual PATH CLEARING , a public gathering known as a DURBAR , and family or community reunions. There may also be music and dance performances, soccer games, and parades. In some areas, young people hold an all-night party.

How the Bakatue festival is celebrated?

During the festival, the Paramount Chief and his sub-chiefs and the entire state of Elmina offer the sacred festival food of eggs and mashed yam mixed with palm oil to Nana Brenya, the river god, and pray for peace.

Which month is odwira festival celebrated?

The Akan people of southern Ghana, a West African country located along the Atlantic between Togo and the Ivory Coast, celebrate the festival known as Odwira either in September-October, at the time of the yam harvest, or in December-January, during the planting season.

What is the main purpose of the Homowo festival?

Homowo means hooting at and ridiculing hunger. It is an annual festival to commemorate the day the ancestors won victory over hunger, hooted at it and ridiculed it with songs and dancing.

Why do they celebrate the Homowo festival?

“Homowo” simply means “hooting over hunger” or “hooting at hunger”. The festival is celebrated annually to express the cultural value of being industrious, creative and resourceful—as a way of ensuring the younger generation pick up these rich values of the ancestors.