The Culture of Utugwang

THE CULTURE OF UTUGWANG PEOPLE

Culture is defined as the arts, customs, ideas, nation, people or group. It can also be seen as the total way of life of people.

Am indigenes of cross river state, Obudu local government areas, and my ancesstoral background is ukutia village and is utugwang by tribe.

Ukutia is headed by paramount rulers called Chief JD Agba.

LANGUAGE

WE  have two types of language, namely the general language which every one hears, the second language is the men language  which only the men hears and understand, women do not understand.

MARRIAGE

 When a young man reach the stage of manhood and he want to settle down, there are certain things to follow up, firstly the father would ask him if he is ready to marry, and if he can be able to take care wife, if the answer is yes, the father says okay .The father would then provide all the necessary things for the Marriage.

Also when a girl is ripe for marriage ,an intending  suitor would come and introduce himself  along with his kinsmen, the purpose of marring the girl ,they bring along  with them palm  wine and kola nut .and if   morning they girl agree to marry him , then they would fix a date when he would come and pay  her bride price, which include fifty liters of palm wine, gallons of palm oil, kola nut, and then farming for the parent of the girl, after that they would fix a date for the traditional marriage. On the day of the traditional marriage, they parent of the girl would cook for people to come and eat and also drink and celebrate with the couple, the groom would buy a goat, kill it and share it to the elders.

Also when a woman gives birth to a new born baby, on the seventh day, early in the morning, the parent would bring the baby out and pray and bless the baby and give the baby a name, and they would share kola nut and drinks to people.

And when a young girl grows, she is always with her mother doing house hold activities and doing some cooking when it is necessary, she also goes to the stream early in the stream early in the morning to fetch water.

Also the boys are also by their father side, going to the farm and also teach them how to tap palm wine, going for hunting and farming activities etc. We are not hostile and not harsh, we welcome visitors.

If there is any dispute in the family, it is taken to the paramount ruler; if any is found guilty he would be charged to pay a certain fine.

    Further more when a married  then went and be following other men ,  her husband would fall sick , the husband people would go to a native doctor to confirm  what is wrong if  they found out that she is cheating her husband with some one else. On reaching home she would be taken to the village square to confess, if she confess that is true, she would be ask to point out who she is seeing outside, if the man also confess that is true he is to perform a sacrifice of bringing a dog, take it to the forest, kill it and then cook it there, when all that is done, her husband would be well again but if she did not confess her husband would die.

CEREMONIES

We also celebrate new yam festival which usually comes up every first Saturday of September yearly which attracts visitors from various places. On the festival, the pound yam, roast yam for the ceremony, it is the ruler that would open the festival by eating the pounded yam or the roasted yam with palm oil before anyone can eat. And if they have not celebrate new yam festival and someone went and harvest is and take it to the market to sell the person would  be taken to  king and would be punished according to the law.

     There are period we have cultural festivals which attracts  visitors  from various surrounding  villages and it goes with merriment  at times it takes seven good weeks .After seven weeks , they offer sacrifice to their ancestor or gods for the peace that community or the land .

FOOD

My cultural foods are Akpu [made from cassava], Eba, pounded yam and eguisi soup ,beneseed soup , ubamu soup,   Etor [local beans] cocoyam ground nut soup , vegetable soup.

WATER

Usually the community drink from the stream, which no body would contaminate it and if found that person would be charged, also fishing activities can never take place there unless in a big river.

DANCE

Cultural dance has being in existence with the type of dresses the wear, they instrument used are drums and flute and the specific type of dance which is in existence up till today. Young men and ladies are trained how to perform this type of dance and the best would be the one to lead the group anything such ceremony occurs.

FARMING

The  people of ukutia are hardworking and are farmers. When the Europeans came they brought formal education, the lazy ones there were sent to school because the thought that instead for the lazy ones to stay at home they were sent to school and the hardworking ones goes to farm to farm and cultivate large piece of land.

            We grow different s types of crops, they include cassava  ,yam ,groundnut, palm trees, plantain, banana, cocoa, cocoyam bambaranut, , beans, water yam etc. Our farming  takes place on five to seven years interval on a suitable land, we also farm  in the dry season.

NOTABLE PLACEs

We have the high mountain, the obudu cattle ranch etc.

MARKET

There  are days we do not go to the market ,market days falls five days of every week, which is udama.

MASQUERADE

During festivals masquerade usually comes out to entertain people the masquerade have  a specific cloth that the wear . Masquerade in my village is called Akpo juju. But there is  a particular masquerade that women do not see , if they see the masquerade , something bad would happen to them.

When the masquerade  comes out , and a woman is at that place, she turns her back or goes to a place where she can’t be able to see the masquerade.

BURIAL

There are special  days they do not bury people . When an Uti [paramount ruler] dies, women do not see him, only members of the council of chiefs wear black sack cloths through the burial period, they usually bury him in his room.

     But when an ordinary person died , he will be buried in three days . Recently that there is mortuary, that would preserve the body until when they want to bury  the corps . If any die he would be taken to the  mortuary , the attendant would  give them two weeks to come and carry the corps ,if they do not come , the attendant would look for them and when he finds them ,they would pay a fine  and give kola nut  and palm wine . And if they want the corps to stay long, they will still pay additional money [fine] till they day you want to come and carry the corps and bury.

     Utugwang people are friendly and interact with neighbors’, friends; both boys and girls visit their friends and also play at night especially at moon light.

PERCEPTION AND PRACTICE OF FAMILY PLANNING AMONG FEMALE STAFF OF UNIVERSITY OF JOS, PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1              BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Family planning is a process of controlling the number of children among couples. It is a lifesaver for millions of women and children in both developing countries including Nigeria and it is one of the most cost-effective health interventions. Family planning, according to Smith, Ashford, Gribble and Clifton (2009) increases survival, improves the health of millions of people and helps achieve national goals.

Family planning helps women to avoid unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions and child bearing that will threaten their own personal health and that of the children. Family planning involves two concepts – contraceptive use and family planning services which is used by couples to bring about healthy sexual relationships among them without fears of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (Osakinle, 2003).

It is also estimated that among the total pregnancies each year in South and South-East Asia, about one-third are unplanned or unintended (Hossain, et al., 2005). The reasons for such huge number of unplanned pregnancies in South and South-East Asia, include low contraceptive use, methods failure (both users' and technological faults), and high unmet need for contraceptives. "Unmet need” means that, women want to limit or space future pregnancies, but are not using a contraceptive method, or have no access to the method (Hossain, et al., 2005). Sixty six percent of women with unintended pregnancies in developing countries do not use contraceptives, 14% use traditional methods, and only 20% use the modern methods (Singh, et al., 2003).

The family is the basic unit of the community and of reproduction. The national population is largely influenced by the individual family’s reproductive behaviour. Hence, the impact of population will be felt at both family and national levels. At the family level, the greatest effect of high fertility is on the health of mothers and children. Studies have shown the risk of maternal and infant illness and death is highest in four specific types of pregnancies’ before the age of 18 and 35, pregnancies less than two years apart and after the fourth birth, all of which are prevalent here (Document of the World Bank, 1993).

Practice is something done habitually or customarily (Webster, 1980). According to Simpson and Weiner (1991), practice is a habitual action-custom. Hornby (2001) opined that practice means to do something regularly as part of one‟s normal behaviour. The various methods of family planning can be categorized as; the traditional methods, which involves the use of native objects such as charms, amulets, rings, fluid from dead bodies and other things for birth control purposes, while modern family planning methods may be broadly grouped into two classes, namely: spacing methods and terminal methods. These methods are further categorized into three sub-categories namely, non-appliance, appliance, and surgical methods. Oreachata (2007) referred to non-appliance methods as non-manipulative methods of family planning such as pills which are taken orally to prevent pregnancy.

However, some research results show that most Nigerian couples are non-contraceptive users (Suleiman, 2000). Some of the reasons for the low rate of contraceptive practice according to Ikechebelu et al (2005), range from factors such as “the fear of side effects, husband’s objection, religious and cultural prohibitions”. The Nigerian population as at 2010, was estimated to be about 158 million by the population reference Bureau Washington USA, with fertility rate of 5.7 and 42 birth per 1000. Nigeria is ranked the 8th most largest in population in the world behind China, India, United State, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Bangladesh followed by India and Japan (World Population Data Sheet, 2010). It is also on record that whenever a Nigerian woman gets pregnant, she has a 1 in 13 chance of dying, mainly due to the poor utilization of modern family planning methods (Umar, 2010).

1.2              STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Unplanned pregnancy has rapidly emerged as a social issue that severely deteriorates the quality of life of parents and children. There is a mention of about 179 million pregnancies annually out of which 79 million are classified as unplanned and also unwanted, a figure considered to be equivalent to the annual global population growth. The increasing population growth in Nigeria draws its root from the low contraceptive use prevalence and this have shown people want to  have more than three to four kids and hardly can they cater for them. Some of the children who are suppose to be in schools are found wondering around the university premises wondering around instead of being in school.

The desired family size among the Nigerian women was estimated at 6 on the average from the national demographic health survey 2008 studies, which means there is every tendency for most of the women to have more than 6 children in their life time considering the problem that it is easier said than done. This is because achieved family size is greater than desired family size, a gap remains between stated desire to control fertility and actual practice. The practice of contraception remains an important problem in the society as many unintended pregnancies each year have been reported.

For these reasons, it becomes necessary to study the perception and practice of family planning among female staff of university of Jos in Plateau state. It is relevant to find out the perception of female staff of the university of Jos on the use of contraceptive, how knowledgeable they are in various methods of family planning available and how often do they practice it? How does female staff of university of Jos first come to know about family planning and what is the level of cooperation between partners in their practice of family planning methods and what are the benefits of family planning?

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