Purification, Militarism, and Youth Identity in the Obòkun Ritual Festival

Abstract

Yorùbá festival scholarship has extensively documented deity?centred celebrations while neglecting ancestor?hero festivals that dramatise foundational martial narratives. The Obòkun Festival in Ìbòkun, Nigeria, commemorates a warrior?founder who combined healing and conquest, yet existing literature lacks a critical analysis of how such festivals construct youth identity through ritual performance. This study addresses this gap by examining the festival’s triadic structure of purification, militarism and youth identity, arguing that these three elements operate dialectically rather than sequentially to produce gendered subjectivities and ensure intergenerational continuity. Employing ethnographic methodology grounded in participant observation, ritual analysis, and interpretive thick description, the study applies performance theory-specifically, restored behaviour, efficacy versus entertainment, and performance environment-as its analytical framework. Findings reveal that purification establishes the sacred architecture for martial memory; militarism provides the narrative core of ancestral heroism; and hierarchical youth incorporation ensures transmission through observation, apprenticeship and performance. The significance lies in recovering an understudied festival genre, demonstrating youth identity as performative achievement rather than demographic category, and offering an ethnographic case study of indigenous festival adaptation to modern pressures.