What is the Yam Festival in Igbo culture?
What is the Yam Festival in Igbo culture?
The New Yam Festival popularly known as “Orureshi, Iwa ji, Iri ji, Ike ji, or Otute (depending on dialect) is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people usually held at the end of the rainy season in early August to October every year.
What does the Yam Festival symbolize?
The New Yam Festival, in the Ogidi community, is an important way of marking the beginning and end of the farming season. It is a celebration of life, accomplishments in the community, culture and well-being.
What is the purpose of the festival of the new yam?
Typically, New Yam Festival provides a heritage of dances, feasting, renewal of kinship alliances, as well as marks the end of one agricultural season with a harvest to express gratitude and thanksgiving to the society, gods, friends and relations.
How is the Yam Festival celebrated?
Traditions. The first offering of the crop is made to the ancestral gods by the chief priest of the Ashanti; the religious rite includes taking the yams on the second day of the festival in a procession to the ancestral ground. Music and dance are part of the festivities on all the five days.
Why are yams so important to the Igbo?
This is why the Igbo people refer to yam as “the king of crops” and August and September are a time for traditional dances, drumming, masquerades and dressing up in village squares.
How do you bless kola in Igbo?
The Igbos believe that “kola is life”, kola symbolizes peace. This is why an Igbo man would welcome you with kola nuts when you visit his home, saying “onye wetere oji, wetere udo”, which translates to “he who brings kola, brings peace.”
What is the significance of yams in the Igbo society?
Yams are the essential crop within Umuofia; the yam is a crucial staple in the Igbo diet. The number of yams a man successfully grows indicates his wealth and rank within the society. Additionally, the cultivation of yams is associated with masculinity: “Yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop” (23).
What is the symbol of New Yam Festival in Nigeria?
Celebrated by almost every ethnic group in Nigeria, the New Yam Festival is observed annually at the end of June. It is considered taboo to eat the new yam before this festival. The high priest sacrifices a goat and pours its blood over a symbol representing the god of the harvest.
What are some traditional Igbo holidays?
The Igbo celebrate the major national holidays of Nigeria, including New Year’s Day (January 1), Easter (March or April), Nigerian Independence Day (October 1), and Christmas (December 24 to 26).
Why do Nigerians eat yams?
Yam is in the class of roots and tubers which provides many Nigerians with some 200 calories of energy per capita daily. Yams are dug out of the ground when harvested. The New Yam Festival is significant in many cultures as yam is the first crop harvested during the harvesting season.
What is yam Hausa?
A yam is a sweet potato. <> doya ko dankali mai zaƙi.
Can a woman break kola nut in Igbo land?
It should be noted that in Igbo land, a woman does not break kola nut and a woman also does not take kola nut from the plate. A male, no matter the age takes it and then hands it over to her. Women are also forbidden from planting or climbing kola tree or plucking kola nut.
What is the Igbo new yam festival?
New Yam Festival of the Igbo. The Iwa ji festival (literally ” new-yam eating “) is practiced throughout West Africa (especially in Nigeria and Ghana) and other African countries and beyond, symbolizing the conclusion of a harvest and the beginning of the next work cycle. The celebration is a very culturally based occasion,…
What is the significance of New Yam Festival in Nigeria?
Significance of New Yam Festival in Igbo Society of Nigeria. Typically, New Yam Festival provides a heritage of dances, feasting, renewal of kinship alliances, as well as marks the end of one agricultural season with a harvest to express gratitude and thanksgiving to the society, gods, friends and relations.
What is the Iwa-ji festival?
Igbos in diaspora celebrating Iwa-Ji in Dublin, Ireland. The New Yam Festival of the Igbo people (Orureshi in the idoma area, Iwa ji, Iri ji or Ike ji, depending on dialect) is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people held at the end of the rainy season in early August.
Where can I eat new yam in Nigeria?
In Ehime area, new yam cannot be eaten until ji aro goes to and returns from the market of Nkwo Umuezeala.