There comes a time in the life of every village girl when she is no longer a girl and yet not quite a grown-up woman. It is at this stage that her parents prepare her for the ceremony of ‘ coming of Age.’ In the Calaber and Rivers Provinces of Eastern Nigeria, these ceremonies are performed in Fattening Rooms.
Fatteningn Rooms are, as the name suggests, places where girls are delibrately over-fed to make them grow fat. But a fattening Room is more than that. It is the place where the tribe’s conception of an ideal woman is artistically produced. For the people of calaber, the ideal woman must be plump; for a plump girl is considered beatiful and healthy, and obviously of wealthy parentage. The girl is therefore overfed by professional elderly woman. The food consist mainlhy of pounded yam, cocoyam, plantain, vegetables and frsh fish.
Whilst in the fattening room the girlsw is not allowed to do any hard work. She does not even bath herself in the stream. The elderly woman either bath her or supervise her bathing. Sometimes she is fed like a child. She is not allowed to play any vigorous game which i8nvolves runningt or jumping, or to have any excitement.. Beauty is believed to consist not only of a plump body but also a smooth skin and graceful movement. So the body of the girl in the fattening room is always rubbed with cam wood(a red bark) and special white chalk and even sometimes cold ashes. These give her body a smoothness and a glow which most cosmetics cannot give. She is also taught the activities which give grace to the body, like balancing a pot of water on her head and walking up-hill.
She is taught how to walk gracefully like a lady. Calabar people say walking is not just a question of lifting one foot and then the other; the soldiers do that and the camels too. But when the girl in the fattening room walks across the yard or compound, she makes spectators sit up and watch, spell-bound. The girl is also taught indigenous dances and the culture of her people as well as the history of her family and tribe.
The elderly woman also teach, but do not allow, her to cook all the various delicious dishes for which her people, like the French, are famous. Infact, the girls in the fattening rooms are so meticulously cared for, that the early missionaries to Nigeria suspected that the girls were being worshipped as goddesses, and that the fattening rooms were places where a peculiar pagan rite was practised. But the room did produce and still produce some of the most beautiful woman in the world.How do the girls themselves see these fattening-room ceremonies today? Girls like to go through the ceremonies provided they are kept on longer than six weeks instead of the traditional two years. At the end of the ceremonies she will receive many costly gifts from her parents, relatives and friend.
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