Subject

Cultural Policing

2 records filed under this subject

The Power of the Female Gaze: Women’s Role in Kalabari Masquerade Performance

Masquerade traditions across the Niger Delta are often portrayed as exclusively male-controlled institutions, with strict rules prohibiting women from participating as performers. However, among the Kalabari people of Rivers State, the role of women in masquerade culture particularly in the Owu and other water-spirit masquerades, is far more nuanced. While men physically don the masks,…

Odinani in the Delta: The Traditional Kalabari Worldview and Deities

Although the Kalabari people are Ijo-speaking and culturally distinct from the Igbo, their spiritual worldview shares deep similarities with broader West African cosmologies including elements often associated with “Odinani,” the Igbo term for the traditional religious order. In the Niger Delta, the Kalabari developed their own sophisticated religious system rooted in water-based cosmology, ancestral reverence,…