dipo in a krobo village
Many of the traditional designs were copies of old European trade beads such as Chevrons, drawn beads and gooseberry beads. The art of bead making is a highly skilled craft typified by the famous Bodom bead.
Glass bead making is done by both men and women in this more egalitarian society. Bead makers have infinite creative license in their designing and have adopted their techniques to produce such things as doorknobs and buttons.
Dipo is a young woman’s coming of age ceremony. The Krobo people value the feminine spirit and the Queen Mother has significant political power. Traditionally, a young girl would spend up to one year with a priestess learning to become a wife and mother within the Krobo society.
Nowadays, the ceremony takes 5 days and girls as young as 5 and 6 years old take part ensuring that their virginity at the time of the ceremony is intact. Absence of chastity will surely be discovered by the shaman priest causing shame and requiring additional sums of money to purify the young woman.
The girls participate in many rituals with the high priestess. On the first day, the girls are bathed, heads shaved and only a rough string necklace is worn as they parade through town. Each day more decoration, jewelry and clothing are added until the final night.
A couple of years ago I was invited to attend the culminating night of Dipo in a Krobo village. As the sun went down, the girls, their sisters, aunties and mothers helped prepare the girls for this important night. Their bodies were painted and their shaved heads had mounds of black mud lovingly arranged. Each girl was dressed in the richest Kente cloth their family could afford and beads handed down from generations of grandmothers.
The girls and their entourage moved through the village streets in the darkness to the Chief’s house crowded with relatives and musicians. The families of each girl sat together surrounded by piles of fabric wraps and baskets full of strung beads.
The Dipo dance is a slow graceful one, the girls barely moving, their hands and hips swaying to the music and drums. At the end of each song, each girl returns to her family group, the fabric wrap replaced by a new one and beads added, until by the end of the evening, the girl could be wearing up to 25 kg. Some of these fabrics and beads are family heirlooms and others are rented just for this ceremony. This continues all night long, and as it progresses, the littlest ones have trouble staying awake. They take turns napping in a nearby lap. Somewhere around dawn, the musicians stop, the fabric and beads collected and the exhausted girls return home officially pure, chaste and ready for marriage.
Each year it becomes increasingly more prohibitive for families to include their daughters in this ritual. Dipo can consume 20% to 50% of a families’ yearly income.
