Sunday 23 May 2010

attending a naming ceremony

close up of my locks. I just swept it all to one side and added a red rose.









I was attending a naming ceremony. In Ghanaian culture, the proper attire for this is white,black&white (with more white than black), blue&white etc. As long as the white in your cloth is the dominant colour, you're fine. White signifies new birth, Joy, Hope, Thanksgiving. So I wore my 'whitish' cloth, and added some red shoes/ accessories to complete the look. This cloth I am wearing is older than I am. It belonged to my GREAT uncle. My dad gave it to me when I was in Ghana, saying 'this belonged to Papa Boahene'. I was really excited, that I'd got a piece of history. I had it made into 2 outfits. (Arashia's got the identical outfit LOL). My mum told me the name of the cloth(but, I forgot it). Every African print in Ghana means something as do many colours. It's from waaay back in the day and they dont make them like this anymore. Suprisingly, it in pristine condition.

The parents of the child wore white kente. I'll post pics of them as soon as I get it. What I loved about this naming ceremony was that it was christian through and through. Instead of calling on ancestors, and pouring libation to dead spirits,we called on God. The name of a person is very important and this baby's name was prayerfully recieved from God. We pronounced blessing on him that he may be brought up in nuture and admonishing of the Lord, that his name would be written in the lambs book of life, that he would be the source of great joy to his parents and a blessing to all around him and a credit to God our father.

4 comments:

The Woman Inside said...

Your cloth is so beautiful and I really like the shape of the dress on you. Your hair also looks fab, the red flower is a nice touch.
I can't wait to see pics of the ceremony, it sounds like a wonderful tradition.

Naturally Sophia said...

Thanks for sharing a part of your culture with us. It's beautiful and so are your locks.

anthia-ofo said...

Thank you for the compliments. Glad to share.

Robyn said...

Girl, I love the dress... Nice, Very Nice! :)
and Thanks for stopping by my blog....