Festivals are special occasions celebrated by a specific group of people within a period of time in remembrance of the past. Festivals can be categorized into religious, traditional and so on. Homowo festival is that traditional festival you should be in a haste to watch to feel an energetic and beautiful cultural display of the Ga people of Ghana.
Homowo Festival: Why You Must Witness This Festival?
Celebrated by the Ga people in Ghana, homowo festival is celebrated annually in the month of August and usually takes duration of month from start to finish. Historically, the Ga people who are found in the Greater Accra region of Ghana went through a severe famine as a result of lack of rainfall for cultivation of their crops. The seasonal rainfall that failed led to the dying of crops that were planted and as such, there emerge a great hunger among them.
Prayers were said and the season switched to normal giving out rainfall. They continued their agricultural activities and the following year bounty harvest were produce. They begun to jubilate over the excess of food and started to jeer at hunger. In this regard, the Ga people started to celebrate the homowo festival. In the Ga language, ‘’Homo’’ means hunger and ‘’wo’’ also mean woo or hoot. So homowo means hooting at hunger.
Homowo festival begins with maize planting since it is used in preparing their food used in the festival celebration known as ‘Kpekple’. After the cultivation, various traditions and rituals are performed on the daily basis. Each day has its own activities to perform whilst some are out door for public viewing, some remain indoors.
In observing the eve of the festival, noise making and playing loud music is banned except approved traditional songs. The food prepared are carried out and sprinkled to the whole town by the chiefs.
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The vital part of the homowo festival is the carrying of the ‘’Sise’’. The traditional priest carries herbs soaked in water and moves around the town. People move to them to get a sprinkle of the water as it is believed to be effective in answering their wishes.
On the last day of the festival, the various main streets are blocked as exhibition of talent, skills and all form of side attraction are welcomed to grace the occasion street jams, dancing, biking and what have you.
Business and commercial activities also go on as it the right time for making more sales to most sellers. Meanwhile, the various groups in the town dressed colorfully in their regalia and some in fancy dress trod in the streets singing and chanting traditional songs expressing their excitement seeing a new year.
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