Hello everyone, I am from the Bini tribe in Edo state. The people of Edo state share the same ancestors with the people of Yoruba, History says they were brothers. Although the traditions of both people are not alike.
According to Wikipedia, The Edo or Benin people are an Edoid ethnic group primarily found in Edo State, Nigeria. They speak the Edo language and are the descendants of the founders of the Benin Empire.
I will be sharing some of our traditions, what we believe in, basically how things are done in my state. Some of them are specific to some tribes while others are general.
The most important figure to the people of Benin is the Oba Of Benin. He is the supreme head and everyone is expected to abide by whatever he says. It does not matter if the President says one thing and the Oba says another, the people of Edo state will always abide by what the OBa says.
The successor to the Oba must always be from his bloodline. In other words, his first Son is usually the Heir to the throne and if he does not bear a son during his lifetime which is almost impossible since the Oba always has 7 Wives(unless he does not want to). In a case where there's no son the throne goes to the brother but whatever happens, the throne does not leave the family.
Mostly the Oba is not allowed to see his first son until death - The father and son do not see each other, the son is mostly sent abroad so there is no chance of "mistakenly" seeing the father - it is forbidden. I think the present Oba has changed that rule though, I'm not really sure.
When the Oba dies, the people in the palace announce the news by saying "the ground has swallowed a white chalk" - this is said in the native language though. Whenever we hear news like that we know it is time for every male indigen to shave their hair completely regardless of age and the women are expected to wear their hair in a bun.
This is because a ritual will be done before the Oba can be buried - when you hear ritual be rest assured that the lives of people are at stake (in case you don't get it, I mean they will bury some people with the Oba and none of these people must be indigenes). So if you are not from Edo and the Oba dies when you are around, please go home or stay indoors.
Enough about the Oba, let's move to other things. In benin, a wife is not allowed to cheat on her husband for whatever reason, to the extent that a man cannot jokingly call a married woman "my wife". it's a taboo.
Also, the woman is not allowed to cook for her husband with the money she collected from a man who pronounced love to her. If she does this her husband or children will die in such a way that the family will know it's because she was unfaithful.
I don't know if this next one applies to everyone or just my tribe, but a woman shouldn't laugh with a child before he grows teeth. It is believed that this will make the child speech impaired - stutter when he's old enough to talk. Also, don't show a newborn a mirror, it will cause convulsions.
There's also this thing we do when we go to the bush with friends or family. If they are on the other side of the bush and we need to call out to them we do this by saying "oh eey".
It is believed that there are spirits around and if you call out to your friend by name, chances are a spirit will answer instead (we all know that may not end well).
The people of Edo value respect and character over money. So if you're marrying into the tribe, either marrying their son or daughter, they don't care the amount of money you have or don't have. What they want is respect and good character.
There are a lot of other things I can't mention with this one post but I hope I've been able to give a little insight on my tribe and the things we do.
I invite @iamchuks to participate, here's a link to the original contest.
Thanks for stopping by ❤️