Danfo Nuptials

by Yemisi Aribisala

A preacher, who is both native speaker of the Yoruba language, as well as beautifully eloquent in many of its dialects, says that there are three kinds of marriages. The first is Ọ̀sìnkín, the Yoruba gold standard, where all protocols are attended to with deep respect, and dowry estimates calculated so the bride is not commodified but prized in terms of appropriate bijouterie. Or as Molara Wood the Yoruba intellectual broke down for me: akin to fresh corn no less. 

The Ọ̀sìnkín is a young beautiful bride, Iyawo olele, carried in the proper way. Because in Yoruba we talk of carrying the bride. She is beautiful in the height of her season and in idealism that compares her to all beautiful fresh and new things. Iyawo dun l’ọ̀sìnkín or ọ̀sìnkín dun ni iyawo are words in a song we sing for brides at weddings. Fresh corn at the peak of harvest, right around now between September and November, silk veil turned moody copper, hawked along southwestern Nigerian streets, is advertised with loud calls of ọ̀sìnkín agbado!—buy fresh, new succulent delicate corn. 

The second kind of marriage is Dandawì, which has a wonderful kindred in Cameroonian patois: Camwestay. Dandawì is, Who’d you get pregnant for you stupid lass…well might as well pack your things and move in with him because no one is going to pay your dowry now. Camwestay, means Come and let’s stay together like the Al Green classic, only a cappella with insult song interludes. It means, common law wife with no dowry, well maybe later the dowry will be paid, maybe not. No new wrappers but grudging trousseau. No Okuru kaka (traditional marriage rite of the Okrika-Ijaw people) because you are too heavy to walk through the town. The incidental music to your life becomes Cardinal Rex Lawson’s “Sawale”…Greetings of ‘Iyawo’ [“bride”] are interspersed with “Ashawo” [“sex worker”].