AFRICAN ARCHIVES AS INFORMATION PRESERVATION PLATFORM OF MASQUAERADING CULTISM, RULES AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Africa is blessed with numerous cultural endowments. In every cultural group in Africa, the uniqueness of their culture is always glaring and in somewhat attractive, though there are some that are obnoxious in nature. African archives are integral of African cultural and traditional data or information store base. In Nigeria, the masquerading cult is a very popular and renowned cultural outfit and artifact because of its nature, rules and measures of social control. But the problem that bothers this research is that currently, the modern people at a certain level seem to have hate feelings against the masquerading cult without any cognizance to its role in the urban and rural settings in Nigeria. They perceive visiting archives as a waste of time. This paper therefore aims at correcting some wrong impressions against the masquerading exercise in Nigeria peoples’ culture and tradition. It also wants to address the value of African and Nigerian archives in preserving traditional masquerading information. It is found in this paper that masquerades frighten people, but have remained significant to the maintenance of traditional norms, rules and order. The study uses historical and phenomenological methodology. Data were collected from primary and secondary materials. It is recommended among other recommendations, that Nigerians should always acknowledge the social relevance of the masquerade cult no matter ones international or alien religious and cultural affiliation. The data collected were analyzed with historical style of data analysis.