Gender
Okortsoshishi celebrates puberty rites
Puberty rite for young girls and women was performed last Thursday, at Ngleshie Alata, at James Town, Accra, from the Okortsoshishi and Nii Okpe families.
The rites which dated from 1736 were performed to prepare the young girls into adulthood and marriage. The rite was performed for a total of five pubertants.
The young girls were taken through lessons of chastity, cooking good meals, respect for the elderly, husbands and their family relations.
The head of the Okortsoshishi and Nii Okpe families, Nii Ashittey Tetteh, and the Queen mother of Obeyeyie, Madam Elizabeth Abbam Okor, performed the rites after invoking prayers and sacrifices to their ancestors.
Nii Ashittey Tetteh later in an address said the practice originally started from Ada Foah, in 1736 and had since been practised by migrant families who first settled at Ngleshie Alata, at James Town.
He mentioned the migrant communities as Amamole, Okortsoshishi, Obeyeyie, Aplaku, Weija, Nsakina, Manhna, and Afuaman.
Present at the ceremony were families from Ada Tekperbiawoe at large, Rose Dede Okoyora Attram, family secretary, Lemoil Nii Ashittey Attram, and Linguist Emmanuel Amanor Attram.
Nii Ashittey Tetteh appealed to the chief fishermen of James Town, Nii Ayi Todzo and Nii Koye, to allow fish sellers to use the shed constructed for them at the James Town fishing harbour, instead of operating from outside.
That, he said was the standard practice in neighbouring countries. “I will go to court if they refuse to move into the sheds to sell their fish. Rule of law must prevail because government resources were used to construct the shed,” he warned.
By Francis Xah
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