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One consequence of the Igbo cosmology or worldview is the fact that a young person goes through a number of developmental stages before being regarded as an adult. Many psychologists have advanced theories regarding these physiological and intellectual changes that take place in a given young person (Uba, 1985). Regardless of the developmental model one prefers, adolescence is generally regarded as a time of special developmental significance. Adolescence is the last of Piaget’s four intellectual stages of man (sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational; Flavell, 1963). Rites of passage, or puberty rites, are formal presentations of adolescent boys for initiation into adulthood. Iwa Akwa (cloth-wearing) is part of the activities in which adolescents engage as part of the ceremonies that confer on them the status of adulthood. The initiation marks the passage of an adolescent from the social status of a boy child to the social status of an adult. An initiate thus goes through a social transformation in which he gives up one (lower) identity for another (higher) identity.
Van Gennep (1960) stimulated interest by opining that the universe is governed by a periodicity which has repercussions on human life, with stages and transitions, movements forward and periods of relative inactivity, so that rites of passage include life crisis rituals like rituals to mark transitions into different phases of human life like birth, social puberty, marriage, fatherhood, advancement to a higher social class, occupational specialization, and death. Rites of passage also celebrate time and events. Metuh (1987) observed that rites of passage are found in all societies but tend to reach their maximal expression in small-scale, relatively stable, and cyclical societies, in which change is bound up with biological and meteorological rhythms and re-occurrence rather than with technological innovations. Iwa Akwa does not only concern the individuals; it also marks changes in the relationships of all the people connected with them by ties of blood, marriages, and political and economic associations. As Turner (1970, p. 7) put it, their “big moments become the big moments of others as well.” The research has made use of the documented, interview, and observation methods of data gathering, which allowed the researcher to access the work of authors in similar areas, observe the celebration of this rite of passage and gather raw data from making adults of the research communities.