Seclusion 599to be observed by the girls at puberty among
old communities of Akamba, Baganda, Zulu,
Tanganyika, Nyanja-speaking people of Central
Africa, Wagogo, Lake Nyassa, Zambezi, Lower
Congo, and so forth.
Pregnancy
Seclusion of the pregnant woman takes place
at different stages of pregnancy among African
communities. Although it takes place at crisis
moments in the life of the pregnant woman in
some communities, particularly when there is a
threatened miscarriage, some communities seclude
their women at a particular period of pregnancy.
Among the Igbo community of southeastern
Nigeria, seclusion takes place after about the fifth
month of pregnancy. It covers about 28 days (7
Igbo weeks) when the woman assistant smears the
body of the pregnant woman with chalk every
fourth day. The pregnant woman is clothed in her
best wrapper on the final day. She goes to the mar-
ketplace with a calabash that contains a coconut,
a piece of meat, and 16 cowries. The young boys of
her family meet her at the marketplace, where
they collect the coconut and break it. She is given
some of it to eat while she offers them the
16 cowries. The pregnant woman parades the
marketplace and distributes the pieces of coconut.
She is offered gifts in return. She comes back
home to distribute the remaining coconut to the
children in the family.
Death
Among the Yoruba and Igbo people of Nigeria,
a woman whose husband dies remains in seclusion
for a period of between 21 and 40 days, during
which time she does not bathe. In Igboland, the
widow goes into seclusion after her hands have
been washed with water by the husband’s senior
sister. The sister rubs the hands with an unbroken
egg and throws it away into the “bad bush.” Also,
on the first day of the market day after the man’s
death, the head of the widow is shaved by the
deceased’s sisters. At the end of 1 month, there is
a ritual cleansing, including the sweeping of the
room where the widow stayed. The mat on which
the widow sat and the dishes used are carried
away at night into the bad bush. The widow goes
to a stream early in the morning to wash herself,
saying, “I have washed away all the evil of the
death which killed my husband.” For the Igbo and
Yoruba widows, a partial seclusion follows, which
involves the wearing of garments of dark color for
a period of 1 year. The clothes are then discarded
and sometimes burned.Power and Renewal of Hegemony
Installation of the Monarchs
Installation of the monarchs among the indige-
nous peoples requires that the candidate go into a
period of seclusion, during which he or she under-
goes traditional ritual ceremonies of empowerment,
which marks him as the head of the community. He
or she learns the traditions of the people, the myth
of origin of the community, and the taboos associ-
ated with the authority of his or her royal throne
that are only known by the chief priest of the com-
munity. The number of days varies according to the
customs of each community.Annual Hegemonic Festivals
It is also a commonplace phenomenon for
most traditional rulers to go into seclusion, par-
ticularly at the beginning of the annual hege-
monic festivals that mark the origin of the town,
which are usually connected to certain hiero-
phantic experiences that the original settlers are
claimed to have had with a deity, usually
described sociologically as “the idol of the tribe.”
Such a festival defines the people’s group identity.
A good example is the Ooni of Ifè, the monarch
of the city that is regarded as the cradle of
Yorùbáland. The commencement of the Olojo
festival is marked by the Ooni’s 5-day spiritual
retreat when he goes into total seclusion in the
next room to the legendary Are crown, the crown
that he puts on only once a year as the keeper of
the seal. During the 5-day period, he will neither
eat nor drink, nor talk to any mortal including
wives, children, friends, subjects, or the palace
staff. He would be expected to be communing
only with the Yoruba deities, performing annual
traditional rites for peace, security, and stability
for his immediate community, the Yoruba people,
and Nigeria as a whole.