PASTORALISM IN SELECTED SONGS IN UMALE FESTIVAL OF ILAJE-ETIKAN, ONDO STATE, SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Pastoralism has been conservatively conserved to continually connote style of teachings or writings that characteristically follow the manners and styles typical of a pastor or shepherds in Christocentric contexts. Conversely, available literatures point to the fact that Pastoralism can equally be adapted to song texts found in rituals and secular festivals which have been found to embody homiletic contents that serve similar purpose as pastoral sermons. Irrespective of the catalogue of researches conducted on masquerades festivals and the various renditions therein, the songs in Umale Festival of Ilaje-Etikan folks in the littoral parts of the present day Ondo State vis-a-vis their examination along the wavelength of the polemical praxis of pastoralism have not received adequate academic attention. This, thereby, justifies this research. Data for the research are collected through direct or first-hand observation, purposive selection of Umale Festival songs and analysed through the binoculars of Walter Goldschmidt's model of functionalism. The theory is considered suitable because of its advocacy for the examination of an indigenous practice vis-a-vis its functions among the people. Findings are revelatory that songs in Umale Festival of Ilaje-Etikan are sermonic in contents and serve similar purpose with the homilies of foreign religions;. Ritual dances in Umale Festival underscore symbolic gender representation and can be "loan-shifted" to various contexts for the purpose of value re-engineering. The paper, therefore, recommends quotidian accentuation of the songs for the purpose of value re-orientation, with emphasis on the didactic ones; especially in this postmodernist era where morality ebbs out daily.