Fokuo Festival in Ghana
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008Another event we went to in Ghana was the Fokuo Festival. This is a religious ceremony in a small village. The basics are that there is a high priest that sends up the wishes for the year to the heavens, then there is a celebration once the results come back. That celebration was very interesting and consisted of elephant guns being shot into the air, a chicken sacrifice and lots of drumming, drinking, and dancing.
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The charcoal on the men was collected from the fires of several of the wives. It was ground up and mixed with water and spread over their bodies. A small loin cloth, made from the bark of the homaben shrub, called danta was also worn.
I think the children in this neighborhood don’t see a lot of white people, so they would touch my hand to see if it felt the same as theirs. We created a few videos of the drumming and have a picture gallery of the event.