The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove is a cultural spectacle which the Yoruba people of South-West Nigeria, and indeed Nigerians at large, hold very dear.
Basically, this grove is a dense forest featuring sacred huts, shrines, and wooden, metal, and clay works of art. Strategically located at the outskirts of Osogbo, just by the Osun River in the Osun State of Nigeria, the sacred grove is not just a tourist site, but a living fossil which has preserved history which dates half a millennium ago. This festival is celebrated in honor of Osun, the river and fertility goddess, as an appreciation of bountiful yield and productivity in the land. The Queen goddess, who is believed to be the founder of the Osogbo people is expected to bless barren women with children on the day of the festival. Many sick people also drink or bathe with the water in the hopes that they get healing from the goddess. But, of the many traditional rites that happen on the day of the celebration, the most important is the sacred procession to the grove. Aruba, a maid dedicated to the goddess, leads a procession that ends with her emptying the contents of a special calabash into the River Osun.
