Kúlítɔhɔngbó 27-Day Ancestral Cycle and Feast
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Mi ɖò xwe Kúlítɔhɔngbó ɖu wɛ̀! We are celebrating the feast of Kúlítɔhɔngbó!
Today we celebrate the cyclical 27-day festival of Kúlítɔhɔngbó! This is one of our most important calendar celebrations as this is the time when the portal to the most potent and elevated ancestors is most opened and accessible. It is a time of spiritual and cultural power. This is based on our ancient yet revised authentic azanlilɛn (calendar) whose base goes back to over 6200 years ago. The word Kúlítɔhɔngbó itself means "portal of the ancestors".
It was observed long ago that the elevated ancestors used a repeated 27-day cycle to make their presence and power most available to us on a larger collective scale than on the personal ancestral veneration scale, and more than other times. On this day, every 27 days, special rites and rituals are done for the ancestral collective of your own blood lineage to empower those that acknowledge the love, benevolence and role these ancestors play in our lives. The key word is "portal". This is when the door is most open between our world and the ancestral world.
Additionally, the Ɛgbɛ Egúngún (Ancestral Society) does collective ancestral ritual for the New Afrikan community on this day. We use this cycle to do the continuous work of healing our bloodlines from the various mishaps and tragedies (self inflicted and from the outside) that still plague our families. If it plagues the family then it plagues the community. Thus, making the work of nation building and sovereignty that much harder.
Kúlítɔ́ Nùwíwà - Ancestral Feast
Finally, after appropriate prayer and ritual, we partake of a big ancestral feast of foods and offer gifts to invoke and perpetuate the loving and divine energy of our Ancestors for ourselves and families. This is reciprocal in that our offerings and appeasements in turn energize their celestial essence. To get the maximum out of this day, we encourage people to cook/supply at least 9 food dishes acceptable to their ancestors. People are encouraged to visit family graves and keep maintenance.This is a perfect time to engage in the rites and rituals that elevate and console restless ancestors spirits. On this day some will parade their ancestral agan (the masquerade depicted in the accompanying picture to this write up). This can be done within a building or in public.
This is a time to reinforce our lineage bonds that the enemy-parasite attempted to cut us off from during the Nawonkuvo (Afrikan captivity and all the tragedies associated with it...Jim Crow, Civil Rights Movement, white mobs and lynchings, outlawing and persecuting Afrikan spiritual practices, prison industrial complex, kwk). Invite close friends and family over to elevate the energy and participate in the feast. You never know how this could help jump start someone else's journey back to their ancestral traditions.
Note - Certain of our ritual days are considered especially ganji (suspicious) when they fall on a certain day of the week and/or during a full or new moon. Kúlítɔhɔngbó is especially ganji when it falls on an Akɔzangbe ("day of the clan"), which is the 5th day of our week, and/or falls on a full or new moon. Akɔzangbe is on the same day as Thursday on the European calendar week but is not synonymous with it.