Dipo — the outdooring

Dipo is the Krobo rite that carries a young woman from girlhood into womanhood, held over several days in the dry season, usually between March and May, in the Krobo towns of the Eastern Region. The initiates — traditionally girls in their teens — are taken into the care of the ritual mothers and the priests of Nene Kloweki for a period of seclusion, cleansing and instruction in the skills, conduct and knowledge expected of a Krobo woman. The rite's pivotal and most sacred act, in which an initiate is placed upon a sacred stone (the tekpete) to confirm her status, is closed: it is conducted by the priests away from outsiders and is not open to spectators or cameras. The rite's public face is the outdooring on the final day, when the young women are presented to the community arrayed in the Krobo's celebrated old glass beads — heirloom strands worn at the neck, wrist and waist — and in ritual cloth, dancing and receiving the recognition of the town as women now. The outdooring is a celebration that welcomes visitors, and it has drawn growing numbers of them. That visibility carries a real history the catalogue keeps in view: the rite, and especially its young initiates, have been photographed and written about by outsiders without consent, and the practice has been the subject of debate within Ghana over the age of initiates and the place of the custom in modern life. A respectful witness attends the public outdooring, follows the community's lead, and does not seek out the closed sacred rite or treat the initiates as subjects for the camera.