ONUNU FESTIVAL IN OBUKPA AND ITS PROSPECTS OF INCULTURATION

Abstract

Onunu in Obukpa is an ancestral festival. It is deeply rooted in their cosmology and depicts essentially the symbiotic relationship between them and their progenitors. This ancient feast as a phenomenon which dates back to the people’s primordial civilizations has maintained its liveliness and relevance up till today due to its intrinsic religious significance, inherent positive socio-cultural values and indispensable ethical imports. This paper, therefore, strives to discuss Onunu and its prospects of inculturation. In other words, it seeks to know those positive elements in Onunu which by their natural properties and socio-cultural constructs are divinely related to Christ as remote preparations for his gospel message of salvation. The Holy Mother Church as missionary encounters religions and cultures of peoples such as the Onunu example. The Church in the face of such circumstances, respects and preserves whatever is noble, true and good in every religion and culture. She equally transforms such authentic cultural values into Christianity and plants the gospel values into those cultures. This process is called inculturation. The gains of inculturation are enormous as Christianity “takes flesh” among the people and by that token changes persons, structures, systems and values from within in a positive sense. In this way, Christianity becomes a culture and a civilization with stereological and integral human development dimensions. In view of this, this work recommends that Onunu becomes an index and beneficiary of inculturation process so that both the people and their ancestral festival would belong to Christ exclusively and develop both integrally and extensively guided by Christian options. The methodology employed in this study is historico-descriptive. This means that Onunu festival in Obukpa Religion is described and interpreted in the light of the people’s world view.