Traditional Perception and Concept of Beauty in Idoma Culture

Abstract

Tradition is one of the nubs of humanity as it cuts across races and geographic locations. The tradition of a people defines who they are and serves as the basis of their existence, recognition and in most cases, their source of pride. This creates the generally backdrop in which their perception of what is beautiful and concept, evaluation and interpretation. Therefore, this paper looks at how the ldoma culture perceive "beauty" or what is term "beautiful". To this end, the understanding of what is beautiful can be traditionally be rooted to the cultural acceptance and construal. In this paper descriptive and analytical research methods are used and supported by relevant articles, books and internet sources as the secondary data. Among the findings in this paper was that what is term beautiful has a cultural acceptance, standard and it is communal. It is discovered that beauty is not the physical appearance of attractiveness but encompasses the deeper meaning and purpose from the object of esthete. The paper concludes that in ldoma culture what is perceived as beautiful is a generally agreed term which are in accordance with ethical norms and laid down guardians that serve as the standard for qualifying what is beautiful. It is recommended that ethnical standard for beauty to should be encouraged in other to bring moral standard. The acceptability and respect for the perception of how people view and perceive what qualifies "beautiful" should be respected by other culture and religion to bring understanding and peaceful coexistence.