To me, culture is the way of life of a group of people which encompasses their behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept. Hence, these are passed down from generation to generation. Culture is what makes us who we are, it is our strong foundation from which we build ourselves and grow in aspects of our lives. Also culture can serve as our first teacher in life from which we get our initial knowledge, wisdom and experience from.
I was born into Yoruba culture which is very vast and goes from the Northern to the western, eastern and southern. I am particularly from the southwestern region of Yorubaland in Nigeria. We have lots of cultural values that we follow and that guide our way of life, but I will be talking about a few and also will tell you the ones I don't agree with together with my reasons.
Respect the elderly ones
This particular cultural value was the first I learnt as a child, to respect elderly people regardless of anything. In Yorubaland, respect is very valuable and it is much demanded from young ones to older people. This one is one of my core principles as a person.
Giving legal Tender (cash) with your left hand.
Yoruba people frown against this because they believe when cash is handed to you with your left hand from the giver will bring bad luck and misfortune to the person. So money is always given out with the right hand and if you give out money with the left hand heheh, your hand gets spanked.
Sweeping at night
Sweeping at night is prohibited from where I come from. They said when you sweep at night, you sweep your blessings away or into the hands of Evil spirits. So no one expects to sweep at night and it must be avoided by either sweeping at late afternoon or you leave it till the next day.
Leaving your hair at the barber's shop or salon is a taboo.
From where I come from, we regard the hair a vital part of the body that should not be messed around with or treated badly without concrete reason. If you leave hair they said you are leaving behind part of your destiny. So it is forbidden to leave your hair at the salon or barber's shop.
Helping the old with luggages
I was taught that whenever I see an old person carrying luggages, I should immediately help out by carrying the luggages. They say it brings blessing into your life and the old person gets to pray for you.
Killing white dove is a taboo
According to what I was taught, when a white dove is sighted, it means good news is on its way. So whenever a white dove sighted, it must not be sent away, killed, captured and no stone should be thrown at the dove.
Sacrifice of animals
When the king is about to be crowned, animals are sacrificed to appease the gods. Who makes the sacrifices? Ayadi (king seer or maker). So when Ayadi ushers the God, he must sacrifice dogs (aja) and tortoise (aghon) which some other Yoruba called "Ijapa‟. Dog is believed to be the gods favourite‟s meat, thus it is used for the sacrifice.
Women are to be handled with care and adorned with jewelries
Source from a friend
Women are handled with care. Hence, the husband is supposed to protect her, provide for her, decorate her with jewelry, make sure all farm produce is brought home by him, and make sure there is water supply in the house because water is regarded as the most important tool a woman needs to keep the home clean and well organized.
Apart from these cultural values, we have our traditional attires which are Aso-Oke, Smiyan, Etu, Alaari among others. Also we have our traditional foods which include pounded yam, cocoyam, cassava, rice, Bush meat, Okro and vegetables.
The cultural values I don't agree with are killing of animals for sacrifice and sweeping at night. I don't agree because killing animals is wrong, they are living beings too and they have a right to life. Then sweeping at night, I don't adhere to that because I am a religious person and everything of mine belongs to God.
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