Every year in July or August the Yoruba town of Osogbo follows a young woman carrying a sacred calabash into a forest of shrines and sculptures by the Osun River, renewing the pact its founders made with the river goddess Osun.
Photo: Abdulrosheed Fadipe, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nigeria’s entry in this atlas is the Osun-Osogbo Festival, held each year in the Osun Sacred Grove at Osogbo, the capital of Osun State in the south-west of the country. The grove, the largest surviving sacred grove of the Yoruba people, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005.
Ọdún Ọ̀ṣun Òṣogbo
After twelve days of rites — the cleansing of the town, the lighting of a sixteen-point lamp, the blessing of the crowns of past kings — Osogbo follows the Arugba, a young woman carrying a sacred calabash, into the Osun Sacred Grove to renew the town’s ancient pact with the river goddess.
July – August 2027Approximate window