Dancers stun audience as they devour live animal at
NAFAC
WA, Nov. 24, GNA - A group of dancers from the
Sissala East District of the Upper West Region
stunned the audience at the on-going National
Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC) at Wa on
Thursday, when they took turns to eat a live goat as
they performed their traditional "bayile" dance.
When the dancers
appeared in the inner perimeter of the festival
grounds with the live goat to do this rare show,
those who had never seen the dance before, found it
difficult to believe that the animal was brought for
a raw feast.
Many of them were
therefore scared and dumbfounded when the dancers
followed each other to bite the flesh of the goat
and suck its blood until it was dead.
They continued to devour
it before the Master of Ceremonies stopped
proceedings and beckoned them to their stand.
According to indigenes
from the area, hunters usually perform the dance on
the death of a prominent chief of the area.
The group performed
along side other cultural groups from the Eastern
and Volta regions, which took their turns to
showcase their indigenous dances and drama
performances to the admiration of the public.
Cultural troupes from
the Volta Region demonstrated their crowd pulling "agbadza"
and "agboko" and "borborbo" dances, while the
Eastern Region exhibited their prowess in "fontonfrom"
music, "kete" and "adua" dances and other
performances from the Krobo area of the Region.
Mr Kofi Dzamesi, Volta
Regional Minister, called on Ghanaians to use the
nation's culture to enhance its socio-economic
development.
He spelled out the cultural and linguistic diversity
of the Region and said the Nkonya-Alavanyo and
Peki-Tsito conflicts which were well known
throughout the country were now virtually past
conflicts.
He dispelled the wildly held view that the Region
was composed entirely of Ewes, saying, it was a land
of contrasts, with 16 languages and 41 dialects and
had the largest pool of artisans in the country.
Mrs Susana Mensah,
Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, said the country's
current political and economic predicaments were its
own making and not so much of the colonialists and
neo-colonialists.
"We are all culpable as a result of our own
mismanagement, greed, corruption, incompetence and
negative tendencies.
She said it was culture
that should determine the types of goods and
services, which consumers might want to procure and
therefore inform an investor to be attracted to that
particular sector.
GNA
