Procession Ceremony at the Dipo Festival

Dipo rites are one of the most popular, yet criticized, puberty rites and practices in

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

, yet is one of the most attended events in the country, receiving huge numbers of tourists. The rite is performed by the people of

Odumase Krobo Krobo Odumase is a town and capital of Lower Manya Krobo Municipal District in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The Presbyterian Boys' Senior High School was formerly located here. Prominent sites The town is a proposed site for the construction of ...

in the

Eastern region Eastern Region or East Region may refer to: * Eastern Region (Abu Dhabi): Al Ain *Eastern Region, Ghana *Eastern Region (Iceland) *Eastern Region, Malta *Eastern Region, Nepal *Eastern Region, Nigeria * Eastern Region, Serbia *Eastern Region, Ugand ...

of Ghana. The rite is performed in April every year. It is used to usher virgin girls into puberty or womanhood, and signifies that a participating girl is of age to be married. Parents, upon hearing the announcement of the rite, send their qualified girls to the chief priest. The girls, however, have to go through rituals and tests to prove their

chastity Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains from sexual activity that is considered immoral or from any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for exampl ...

before they qualify to partake in the festival. On the first day of the rites, the girls' heads are shaved and they dressed in cloth around their waist to the knee level. This is done by a special ritual mother, and it signifies their transition from childhood to adulthood. They are paraded through the community as initiates (''dipo-yo''). Early the next morning, the chief priest gives the initiates a

ritual bath Ritual purification is a ritual prescribed by a religion through which a person is considered to be freed of ''uncleanliness'', especially prior to the worship of a deity, and ritual purity is a state of ritual cleanliness. Ritual purification ...

. He pours

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an Sacrifice, offering to a deity or spirit, or in Veneration of the dead, memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of Ancient history, antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures t ...

to ask for blessings for the girls. He then washes their feet with the blood of a goat which their parents presented. This is to drive away any spirit of

barrenness In biology, infertility is the inability of a male and female organism to reproduce. It is usually not the natural state of a healthy organism that has reached sexual maturity, so children who have not undergone puberty, which is the body's star ...

. The crucial part of the rite is when the girls sit on the sacred stone in order to prove their

virginity Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereo ...

. However, any girl found to be pregnant or not a virgin is detested by the community and does not entice a man from the tribe. The girls are then housed for a week, where they are given training on

cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...

housekeeping Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running and maintaining an organized physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as cleaning, tidying/organizing, cooking, shopp ...

, and

childbirth Childbirth, also known as labour, parturition and delivery, is the completion of pregnancy, where one or more Fetus, fetuses exits the Womb, internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section and becomes a newborn to ...

and nurturing. The ritual mothers give them special lessons on

seduction In sexuality, seduction means enticing someone else into sexual intercourse or Human sexual activity, other sexual activity. Strategies of seduction include conversation and Sexual script theory, sexual scripts, paralanguage, paralingual featur ...

and how their husbands will expect to be treated. They learn the Klama dance, which is performed on the final day of the rites. After the one-week schooling, they are released and the entire community gather to celebrate their transition into womanhood. They are beautifully dressed in rich

kente cloth Kente refers to a Ghanaian textile made of hand-woven strips of silk and cotton. Historically the fabric was worn in a toga-like fashion among the Asante, Akan and Ewe people. According to Asante oral tradition, it originated from Bonwire in th ...

accessorised with beads around their waists, necks and arms. With singing and drumming, they perform the Klama dance. At this point, any man interested in any one of them can start investigating her family. It is assumed that any woman who partakes in the rites not only brings honour to herself but to her family at large. The ritual is done to initiate young women into knowing their responsibilities before stepping into marriage.

References

Festivals in Ghana Culture of Ghana Rites of passage {{Ghana-stub