The Yoruba traditional marriage ceremony even though a serious affair, is fun-filled with rich contemporary local music, graceful colours and sumptuous meals. Weddings in Yoruba land are an occasion to show the best of everything – style, outfits, handbags, jewellery and even dancing steps.
In the Yoruba culture, Husbands are seen as the head/crown hence the incompleteness of the unmarried woman. So, when a man approaches the house of a woman to take her hand in marriage, it becomes the affair of the whole village.
Here are some of the unique features that make Yoruba weddings stand out worldwide.
1. Alaga iduro
A typical Nigerian wedding combines at least two ceremonies – the traditional wedding and the religious ceremony.
At Yoruba traditional weddings, the MC’s, almost always women, are known as Alaga iduro’s and everyone who has attended a Yoruba traditional wedding surely knows how masterful these women are with hilarious songs, requests and tasks that leave guests entertained.
2. Funny prayers
The religious nature of the Nigerian society finds expression at Nigerian weddings all the time, with family and friends showering numerous prayers of fertility, prosperity and longevity on the couple. But with the Alaga Iduro’s at Yoruba weddings, prayers often take a humorous twist.
Yorubas believe that it is a blessing for a woman’s buttocks to sit in her husband’s home for long, as opposed to being moved into another man’s or her parents’ after a while.
So, the Alaga’s have devised a model to make this prayer and the whole ceremony more interesting by asking brides to hold on to their buttocks while repeating the prayer after them in a call and response fashion.
Another one is the ‘my back, my back’ chant which is used while praying for the bride’s ability to have kids to strap to her back.
3. Items requested by the bride’s family
Some of the items demanded by the bride’s family include; bag(s) of sugar, bag(s) of rice, alligator pepper, balls of bitter kola, bag of salt, kola nuts. Non-edible items could include expensive materials like lace, several pairs of shoes, wristwatch, a gold engagement ring and head tie.
4. Bride price
There are some fees to be paid by the groom/his family (negotiable) which is used to settle different members of the family. However, many Yorubas do not like to collect dowry or bride price.
The motive behind this is that they like to say that they are not trading their daughters away, so they see no need for the collection of a bride price.
5. Food
Yorubas believe it is a thing of shame to gather people for a celebration and not feed them to constipation. So at a wedding celebration, guests expect the best of food.
Apart from the Nigerian wedding staple foods, – Jollof rice, small chops and the likes – Yorubas have their unique foods, and attending their wedding almost guarantees a taste of amala and ewedu, ofada rice and iru sauce among others.
6. Aso Ebi
No Yoruba wedding happens without aso-ebi where family and friends wearing designated, uniform colourful attires. This part is actually what lots of brides, their mothers and her friends look forward to.
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