Dipo Today

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The girls enter the ritual house where they shed all of their clothes and their ritual mother will dress them anew. The only thing that the girls will wear, is a single band of carnelian beads. A red piece of cloth will hang from this strand, which symbolizes the blood of menstruation. The color of the stones and fabric is believed to keep away the bad spirits to which the girls are the most vulnerable.

            All of the girls will also have their heads shaved except for a little patch on the back of their head, marking a new stage in their life. The little patch left on their head, will be shaved off when they are done with the whole initiation process. This is the first stage for the girls. To mark this stage, they wear a cord of plan fiber around their neck. This stage is called Dipo-yo.

            In the first three weeks the girls are secluded from the rest of the community. The morning following the day which their heads were shaved, they follow their ritual mothers to the river to bathe. This isn’t just a purification ritual, it also teaches the girls the correct way to cleanse themselves. After they are done with the bathing, they receive a special meal of water-yam, porridge, and palm oil which their ritual mothers prepared for them.

            The climax of the Dipo ritual is when the girls are brought to the scared rock to test their virginity. During this ritual they replace the red cloth with a pure white one. They also have a piece of calico around their head and across their chest. During this whole ritual the girls must remain silent. They have a leaf in their mouth which is supposed to help them remain silent and bring their thoughts inward. Their ritual mothers follow the girls to the sacred rock, all of them are carrying a special stick called dimanchu. Dimanchu means “to make you a woman.” Before they start their way to the stone, the girls are splashed with chalky water to ward off the evil spirits that they could encounter on their way to the rock.

      Once the girls arrive at the rock the priestesses will inspect them to see if they are pregnant. The priestesses splash the girls with a blessed chalky water; if the young girl is pregnant the unborn child would tremble within which the priestesses would see and therefore be able to tell that the young girl is pregnant.. If a young girl would start to menstruate right there when she is splashed with this holy water, the rock will get even more power. The girls are test in the rock one by one. When a initiate passes the test she is run out by her guardian mother.  This represents the chaos that used to exist. In the past there would be men from other tribes waiting to kidnap a newly initiated young girl. Preventing this, the guardian mother had to run the girl home has fast as she could so that she could be protected by their families.

           Girls arrive home excited; they have completed their initiation process. Now they will be able to demonstrate to their family, friends, and future husbands what they have all learned in the three weeks that they were gone. For the celebration the girls dress up; they were many different color beads, a headdress called cheia, and beautiful cloths. Mothers beam with pride that their daughters passed the initiation. The girls are now accepted into the Krobo society as women. 2.