Steemit Engagement Challenge-S8W1 | Cultural Fashion by dorismos

_{@dorismos in her cultural attire}

I give my special greetings to the host of this contest for giving special consideration to the use of this contest theme. Most people give little or no consideration to cultural attire as they value their normal way of dressing more. Take a look at how beautifully dressed I look in this attire.

This was our cultural day in school and I was representing my culture which is Ibibio/Efik. We all were beautifully dressed and our dressings identified and distinguished us from other cultures/tribe.

Ibibio is a language that is well-spoken by some states in Nigeria of which the state I reside is one of them. It's often known as a tribe on its own based on the local government. In my state, various local government speak different languages and they have different cultural background and attire.

The way an Ibibio man dress is not the way an Annang man dress. There's this difference in culture, language and traditional history. Cultural attires are worn on special occasions such as traditional marriages, religious occasion, cultural display, etc. Behold @dorismos, looking elegant with her temporary husband in her Ibibio wear.

My specific cultural attire springs from the Ibibio culture where tying of wrappers, wearing of beads, cap, bead shoes, etc are very common cultural attires in my tribe. In this special occasion I attended, I wore a popular cultural attire of my tribe.

From the look of things,I wore a Gele neatly tied, and an outfit called Ndod Iba, meaning two steps. Why it's called two steps is because I wore a blue traditional top and long skirt and still tied wrapper round my waist. I made it complete with a fitting make-up with a silver shoe to fit.

This outfit is one popular traditional wear my culture entails, usually worn for special occasions like traditional marriage, weddings, marriage introduction and cultural days like this. I don't wear it often. I only wear it whenever it calls for.

I've used this attire during the traditional marriage of my cousin. The dress was just on point that nearly everyone's eyes were on me. I felt so embarrassed but proud of the cultural attire though. I kept changing my stance to piss them off.

I also wore this elegant cultural attire for a cultural display in my school last year. The cultural display consisted of different tribes such as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Tiv, and Ibibio. I belonged to the Ibibio culture as stated earlier and my tribe performed excellently well.

They did all the traditional rites of Ibibio culture. We brought masquerade, our tribe's dancing clown. We also danced to the tunes of the local beats by some of my classmates who used drums, woods, tambourine, etc to give us our local beats. I displayed beautifully like a peacock. I danced using all the local dance steps I knew as the queen mother of the culture. My temporary husband danced well too. We were spotted by the eyes of the masses.

We acted dramas, brought goats for traditional rites and also interaction using our native language to the hearing of everyone present. Other tribes did well too. Their dance steps were on point too.

My cultural attire is unique. It defines and identifies me as the true daughter of Ibibio. It also add values to my cultural heritage and make people see the essence of being proud of their culture irrespective of the language, dressing and tradition. This particular attire I wore cost a lot of money.

These are the cost of what my cultural attire that day. When you appear on your cultural attire, you read meaning to your culture and also promote it. There's something outstanding about cherishing one's traditional wear.

Cc,
@patjewell