Nigeria

Inroduction

The New Yam Festival is a two-day cultural festival that marks the beginning of the harvest season in southern Nigeria. It is held sometime between the end of June and the beginning of September, after the rainy season, when the yam crop is ready to harvest. Yams are root vegetables similar to sweet potatoes and are an important food of the people of southern Nigeria. They can be cooked and eaten or dried and made into flour.

The yam festival marks the end of one farming season and the beginning of another, a season of plenty. It is chiefly celebrated by members of two large cultural groups: the Ibo (pronounced EE-boh) or Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, and the Yoruba (pronounced yoh-ROO-bah) people of the southwest. The Ibo call the festival Iri Ji (pronounced eer-EE-jee); ji means "yam." The Yoruba call it Eje (pronounced EE-jee).

The New Yam Festival also has religious meaning for those who still practice the native tribal religions. Even though most Nigerians of today are either Muslim or Christian, many still honor the spirits of the land and the souls of their ancestors in their everyday lives and in their ceremonies.

History

Tribal peoples of Nigeria practiced their native religions for centuries before Islam was introduced into the country during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500), and then Christianity during the seventeenth century. The New Yam Festival was one of several yearly celebrations held as part of these early religious observances.

Yams are a staple food in Nigeria and have been since very early times. During the 1500s to 1700s, thousands of native Nigerians and other Africans were taken to new lands that are now South America, the Caribbean, and North America, where they were sold as slaves. Yams were one of the main foods taken on board the slave ships as provisions, along with other African staples such as peanuts, plantains (a kind of banana), limes, peppers, and palm oil.

Folklore, Legends, Stories

According to Ibo myth, a man named Ibo, or Igbo, gave the tribe its name. A very old legend explains how the yam and the cocoyam, another starchy root vegetable, became such important foods for the Ibo.

During a time of terrible famine, a tribesman named Ibo was told by a powerful spirit that he must sacrifice his son Ahiajoku (pronounced ah-HE-uh-JOE-koo) and his daughter Ada to save his other children from starvation. After Ahiajoku and Ada were killed, the spirit told Ibo to cut their bodies into many pieces and to bury the pieces in several different hills of soil.

Ibo did these things, and, in a few days, yam leaves sprouted from the hills containing pieces of Ahiajoku's flesh, and leaves of the cocoyam sprouted from the hills where Ada's flesh was buried. The spirit told Ibo and his living children to farm these two crops. They did so, and when the yams and cocoyams were harvested, they provided food that kept the family from starvation. Because of this, Ahiajoku is worshiped as the god of yam. He is greatly honored during the New Yam Festival.

Customs, Traditions, Ceremonies

The New Yam Festival celebrates the transition from a time when food is scarce to a time of plenty. During the time before the yam harvest, people fast, pray, seek forgiveness for wrongdoing, and mourn for the dead. The festival itself brings a time of hope and plenty, a time for joy. Just before the festival, any remaining yams from the previous year's harvest are destroyed.

New yams are sold in the markets before the yam festival, and Christians and Muslims sometimes eat new yams in either June or July. But many families in southern Nigeria consider it taboo to eat the newly harvested yam before the harvest has been blessed in festival ceremonies.

The Ibo once considered the new yams to be so sacred that a person would be put to death for stealing them before the ceremonies. In more modern times, yam thieves have been sent away from the tribe.

Preparing for the New Yam Festival

Several days before the festival, villagers clear major roads and collect plenty of firewood for cooking the feast. At the marketplace, people are busy buying chickens, rams, and goats for the sacrifice and for the special dishes that will be prepared in addition to the yams. Young men perform magic displays and dance in the bustling marketplace.

Then, the harvesting of the yams begins. Some yams are not harvested whole but are cut in two, leaving part of the tuber in the ground to sprout new plants. Women wash all the household utensils that will be used to prepare offerings and meals for the festival, including the cal-abashes, large gourd-like fruits that are hollowed out and used for cooking and holding water. These will be used to hold cooked yams soaked in palm oil as offerings to the spirits. The women also wash pots, wooden bowls, and the mortar in which the yams will be pounded to make yam balls during the festival.

Villagers clean their houses and paint them white, yellow, or dark green. Women sometimes paint special designs on their bodies and shave their children's hair in beautiful patterns. Because new yams may be hard to digest, many people take medicine to prepare their stomachs for New Yam feasting.

Celebrating the harvest

The New Yam Festival is celebrated by gathering, blessing, and then feasting on the new yams. In Nigerian villages, most families grow their own yams in small fields near their homes. Large fields are farmed for crops that go to the marketplace. Village women often harvest the family's yams and carry them home in large baskets balanced on top of their heads.

In many villages, the unwashed yams are placed on the roofs of the houses. In this way, villagers can see which families had good or poor harvests. Those with more yams will share with families whose harvest was less bountiful.

At the beginning of each new harvest, the ritual of eating the first yam is performed by the oldest man in the community, the king, or a priest, to express the community's thankfulness to the spirits of the land and nature for making a good harvest possible. After this sacred rite is performed, a celebration begins, and the people feast, sing, dance, and exchange gifts.

Ritual sacrifice and "handing round of fowl"

For the Ibo, an important part of the New Yam Festival is a thanksgiving ritual in which a chicken is sacrificed. This ritual is held in each family and is a closed ceremony to which guests are not invited. An elder of the family kills the chicken and sprinkles its blood on the family symbol, giving thanks to the spirits of the family's ancestors for watching over the household. The chicken's feathers are scattered over the threshold as a sign that the family members will stay away from all evil in the coming year.

Other chickens are killed and prepared for the first day's feast, but one chicken is kept aside for the second day of the festival. On that day, all members of the extended family gather at the house of the eldest family member for a special ritual called the "handing round of fowl."

In this ritual, certain members of the family receive specific parts of the roasted chicken. The father cuts the meat and gives the head to the youngest member of the family. The liver and gizzard go to the father, and a thigh goes to the first daughter. After the meat is divided, the family stands to say a prayer of thanks for the blessings of life and for coming together for another New Yam Festival. This practice is similar to saying prayers at Thanksgiving dinner in the United States.

Reenacting the legend of the god of yam

An old custom was the reenactment of the myth of Ahiajoku, known as the god of yam because he was sacrificed so that his people could live. During the New Yam Festival, the head of each household placed four to eight new yams on the ground near the shrine of one of the nature spirits, called the erosi (pronounced eh-ROH-see). These sacred yams were dug from the ground by hand, using no tools, and were kept hidden until the ceremony.

After saying a prayer, the head of the house cuts small portions off the ends of each yam to symbolize the sacrifice of Ahiajoku, whose body was cut into pieces, according to legend. In a ritual that may have been adapted from the lessons of Christian missionaries, the yams were then cooked with palm oil, water, and chicken to make a soup that represented the body and blood of Ahiajoku. Family members ate the soup, symbolic of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the god of the yams.

Gift giving and the ancestors

The New Yam Festival is also a time for giving gifts. Men give presents to their wives and children and give yams to the parents of all their wives. (Men may have more than one wife in this culture). When a woman and her children go to her parents' home, her father and mother bring out yams and call on the family's ancestors, known as ale (pronounced AH-lay). They offer pieces of kola nut to the ancestral spirits, and the father asks God to give his daughter more children.

In some families, the daughter is asked to put her hands on the yams and the father spits on them as he asks for blessings. The father may give his son-in-law a bottle of whiskey or some money to thank him for the yams he brought.

Yoruba celebrations of New Yam Festival

The Yoruba celebrate the New Yam Festival, or Eje, for two days after the yam harvest. In addition to fasting and giving thanks for the harvest, they use new yams in special rites to predict the future of the community and the abundance of its crops during the coming year.

To Yorubans who still practice the native religions, the success or failure of the crops is believed to be controlled by guardian spirits or forces of nature called orisa (pronounced oh-REE-sah), by the ancestors, and by the families themselves. The New Yam Festival involves sacred ceremonies that are performed to offer the new yams to the spirits before the people are allowed to eat them. These ceremonies are held at sacred shrines and sacred groves, which have been purified for the ritual. A shrine can be a natural landmark such as a rock, a river or pool, a special tree, or other place where the spirit is believed to dwell.

Purification and offering

On the first day of the festival, the site where it will be held is purified through a ritual performed by the Oba (pronounced OH-bah), the Yoruban king or traditional leader of the village. The newly harvested yams are then taken to the village leader's farm. The people gather at the shrine of the sea spirit, and the priest of the shrine prays for a good year to come. All night, the people stay outside the shrine, making offerings of palm wine and kola nuts to the spirits and to the ancestors.

In the morning of the second day of the festival, the village leader, dressed in a white robe, makes an offering of a white kola nut and a white pigeon and joins the priest in praying to the sea spirit. Later, the people and the priests go to the leader's palace, and he leads them in a procession and dance through town. The procession stops at each shrine along the way, where sacrifices of the new yam are made to the orisa, or nature spirits.

The sacrificial yams are boiled, then cut into slices and placed in calabashes. The yams are covered with palm oil, and the calabash is taken into each shrine, where priests offer bits of yam to the spirits.

The feasting begins

After all the spirits have received the yams, the village leader and the priests break their fast. The priest prays for a better harvest in the coming year, then eats yams that have been cooked and pounded until soft. A soup is made from the meat of a goat that has been sacrificed to the spirit of the harvest. After the village leader and the priests eat the new yams, a celebration begins, at which the people may eat all the yams they like. In some villages, when everyone has eaten their fill, the people throw yams at one another in a gesture of abundance and joy.

Using yams to predict the future

A special divination, or fortune-telling, ceremony is held at both the sacred shrine and the sacred grove where New Yam rituals are held. A newly harvested yam is sliced in half, and the priest throws the two halves into the air. If one part lands face up and the other face down, it is believed to be a sign of a good year and a good harvest in the following year. If both halves land either face up or face down, it is considered an omen of ill fortune for the village.

Clothing, Costumes

Although people dress in their best clothing for the New Yam Festival, there are no special costumes for this day. A few weeks before the yam harvest, a Yoruba masquerade festival called the Egungun (pronounced ee-GOON-goon) Festival is held to honor the ancestors and the dead. This festival includes street dancers in elaborate ancestral masks and long multicolored robes, who visit houses where family members have recently died.

Foods, Recipes

Yams are an important food year-round in Nigeria, and people depend on the success of the yam crop for their survival. A favorite dish made from yams is fufu. The yams are boiled, peeled, pounded, and then shaped into a loaf or little balls. Another dish popular during the New Yam Festival is futari (pronounced foo-TAR-ee), a soup made from yams, squash, onions, and coconut milk, seasoned with cinnamon and cloves. Palm wine is a popular beverage during the festival.

In many households, yams are cooked and served on oval-shaped dishes. All members of the family sit around the table and eat from the same dish. Many Nigerians eat from baskets placed on the table and instead of using a fork, they use their right hand to break off pieces of food. The left hand is never placed on the table because it is used for washing and grooming the body.

Arts, Crafts, Games

One art form evident during the New Yam Festival is decorating the cal-abashes, large gourd-like fruits that are cut in half lengthwise, hollowed out, and used as bowls or dippers. Calabashes are used as containers for the sacred yam slices soaked in palm oil that are offered to the spirits at village shrines.

A calabash is sturdy enough to boil water in, so the dried skins are hard enough to be carved with designs. These designs can be intricate or simple, depending on the craftsman. Calabash vessels may be purchased in the marketplace before the New Yam Festival and are sold in craft shops in the cities.

Music, Dance

The New Yam Festival is a time for celebration, and this includes lots of drumming, tribal dancing, and singing. The Yoruba play special drums that sound like the human voice and are called "talking" drums. Each cultural group in Nigeria has created its own instruments, and most have been played at festivals for hundreds of years.

An Ibo dance called the ikoro (pronounced ih-KOH-row) is held on the evening of the first day of the New Yam Festival and again on the second day after the giving of gifts and sharing of yams.

Special Role of Children, Young Adults

Children participate throughout the New Yam Festival and have a few special roles. Yoruba children are given the task of tending the fire on the first night of the festival. They may stay up all night keeping the fire burning and are given tiny yams to roast and eat while they poke the fire. Children play tom-toms and other small drums at the festival and perform team dances. They practice year-round for these dances. Young Ibo men participate in wrestling matches on the second day of the festivities.

For More Information

Levy, Patricia. Nigeria. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1996.

Markham, Lois. Harvest: World Celebrations and Ceremonies. Woodbridge, Conn.: Blackbirch Press, 1998.

Owhonda, John. Nigeria: A Nation of Many Peoples. Parsippany, N.J.: Dillon Press, 1998.

Web sites

"The Igbo Home Page." [Online] http://www.lioness.cm.utexas.edu/I-files/Igbo (accessed on February 19, 2000).

"The Yoruba Page." [Online] http://www.yoruba.com (accessed on February 19, 2000).