Sheltering from the pitiless sun under large blue umbrellas, several dozen young Nigerian women sporting colourful dresses paraded to the rhythm of drums in a mass wedding on Friday — an annual rite held in western Nigeria.

This tradition of the mass Awon marriage, organised in the small town of Shao in Kwara State in October, is linked to local mythology.

The story goes that a young hunter from Shao once met a strange woman with a single breast near the river named Awon.

After spending several days with a man from the village, she asked the villagers to set a day each year to commemorate her visit by marrying all girls of a suitable age, to ensure the prosperity of the community.

The goddess then disappeared.

Once dressed in their wedding finery in the palace of the local ruler, the young women parade through the streets of Shao before the mass wedding is blessed by the priest of Awon.

“All the women in my lineage also did it, so I have also determined that I will also get married in the Awon rites… Awon is a deity of fertility. She always blesses everybody with babies as much as you want, like me, I want many children,” Adebiyi Abosede, a 25-year-old nurse, told AFP.

“From my teenage years, I have decided to carry on the tradition of Shao because they told us that anyone who gets married with the Awon rites can never be barren, and we have also seen it from the past,” said Adewale Afusat, a 31-year-old hairdresser.

“And we want to honour it so that it doesn’t go into extinction.”

Jimoh Azizat, a hair stylist, added: “I particularly wanted to be part of the Awon wedding because I always see how colourful it is, and my mother too did it many years ago.”

Elegantly dressed in their finest gowns, the new brides were feted by dancers and musicians in a ceremony that attracts tourists from around Nigeria every year.

AFP