Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part III of an ongoing pancocojams series on traditional African harvest festivals.
This post post presents information about the traditional cultural celebration that is known as the New Yam Festival of the Igbo people (Orureshi in the idoma area, Iwa ji, Iri ji or Ike ji, depending on dialect).
Videos of the New Yam festival in Nigeria and a sound file of some music that is associated with this festival are included in this post.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/11/ghanaian-harvest-festival-homowo.html for Part I of this series. That 2015 post is entitled "African Harvest Festivals: Ghanaian Harvest Festival "Homowo" (information & videos)".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/08/african-harvest-festivals-botswanas.html for Part II of this series. That 2017 post is entitled "African Harvest Festivals: Botswana's Letlhafula Festival (information & videos)"
The content of this post is presented for cultural and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to all those who are featured in these videos. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Click the traditional African harvest festival tag below for other pancocojams posts in this series.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW YAM FESTIVAL (IGBO)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yam_Festival_of_the_Igbo
"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.[1][2] [3]
The Iri ji festival (literally "new-yam eating")[4] is practiced throughout West Africa (especially in Nigeria and Ghana)[1] and other African countries and beyond,[5] symbolizing the conclusion of a harvest and the beginning of the next work cycle. The celebration is a very culturally based occasion, tying individual Igbo communities together as essentially agrarian and dependent on yam.[2]
Igbo tradition
Yams are the first crop to be harvested, and are the most important crop of the region.[1] The New Yam Festival is therefore a celebration depicting the prominence of yam in the social-cultural life of Igbo people. The evening prior to the day of the festival, all old yams (from the previous year's crop) are consumed or discarded. This is because it is believed that the New Year must begin with tasty, fresh yams instead of the old dried-up crops of the previous year. [2] The next day, only dishes of yam are served at the feast, as the festival is symbolic of the abundance of the produce.[2]
Though the style and methods may differ from one community to the next, the essential components that make up the festival remain the same. In some communities the celebration lasts a whole day, while in many places it may last a week or more. These festivities normally include a variety of entertainments and ceremony, including the performance of rites by the Igwe (King), or the eldest man, and cultural dances by Igbo men, women, and their children. The festival features Igbo cultural activities in the form of contemporary shows, masquerade dances, and fashion parades. [6]
Ịwa-ji ceremony
Usually at the beginning of the festival, the yams are offered to the gods and ancestors first before distributing them to the villagers. The ritual is performed either by the oldest man in the community or by the king or eminent title holder.[4][5] This man also offers the yams to God, deities and ancestors by showing gratitude to God for his protection and kindness in leading them from lean periods to the time of bountiful harvest without deaths resulting from hunger.[2] After the prayer of thanksgiving to God, they eat the first yam because It is believed that their position bestows the privilege of being intermediaries between their communities and the gods of the land. The rituals are meant to express the gratitude of the community to the gods for making the harvest possible, and they are widely followed despite more modern changes due to the influence of Christianity in the area.[4] This therefore explains the three aspect of Igbo worldview, that they are pragmatic, religious and appreciative.[3]
The day is symbolic of enjoyment after the cultivation season, and the plenty is shared with friends and well-wishers.[4] A variety of festivities mark the eating of new yam. Folk dances, masquerades, parades, and parties create an experience that some participants characterize as "art"; the colorful festival is a spectacle of exhibited joy, thanks, and community display.[2]
Palm oil (mmanụ nri) is used to eat the yam. Iwa ji also shares some similarities with the Asian Mid-Autumn Festival, as both are based on the cycles of the moon and are essentially community harvest festivals.
This event is important event in the calendar of Igbo people all over the world.
The harvest of yam and the celebration of the God of the land through the New Yam festival is an epitome of the people’s religious belief in the supreme deity. The coming of the new moon in the month of August marks the preparation for the great “Iri Ji Ohu” festival, but the time and mode of preparation differs from community to community.[6]
The New Yam festival is a highly captivating art event. The colourful festival is a visual spectacle of coherence, of dance, of joy and feasting, an annual display for community members, to mark the end of the cultivation season, a festival where the people express their gratitude to those that helped them reap a bountiful harvest."
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Italics are added to highlight when the New Yam festival occurs.
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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: Egwu Iri Ji (New yam Festival music) from Umuahia
BENTELEVISION, Aug 27, 2013
I may be far away from the yam, but my spirit is HIGH....... Ibeku! Egwu Asaa, Ibeku!! Egwu Asaa, Ibeku Ukwu Ogurube.
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Video #2: IGBOUKWU - New Yam Festival
IGBO NATION TV, Oct 4, 2014
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Video #3: 2016 New Yam Festival in Mbaise, Imo state
Royal TV Nigeria, Aug 31, 2016
The New yam festival is a popular celebration amongst people from the South Eastern part of Nigeria, the date of the celebration varies based on the community where it is being celebrated. Its always falls between month of August to October. Royal TV crew visited Mbaise in Imo state to witness the 2016 edition of the festival.
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Italics are added to highlight when the New Yam festival occurs.
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Video #3: New Yam Festival of the Igbo people
Uncensored, Aug 19, 2017
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The video’s summary consists of an excerpt of the Wikipedia article found in its entirety in this post.
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Video #4: IGBO CULTURAL DAY AND IRI JI FESTIVAL 2017
SOROM CHIA TV, Sep 7, 2018
This is what we the Igbos do every year to promote our culture and tradition. This is why Igbo culture is unique from other cultures in whole wide world. Are proud to be Igbo? Igbo amaka...
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Video #5: Iri Ji Mbaise Festival 2019 ' New Yam Festival '
WHEELCHAIR ENTERTAINMENT; Aug 20, 2019
Video Shot By:
iPHOTO VILLAGE EXPRESSION
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Visitor comments are welcome.
As I inferred in a comment in a 2019 pancocojams post on Kwanzaa (https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/12/videos-of-two-kwanzaa-songs-hyperlinked.html, I believe that the Kwanzaa holiday was scheduled immediately after Christmas to "capitalize" on the Christmas holidays (note the red and green colors that symbolize both holidays) instead of the late summer/fall times for traditional African harvest festivals and the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA (whose colors are brown and orange).
ReplyDeleteWhen Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa, he could have used the Igbos' New Yam Festival as a model for that holiday, since its much more likely that some African Americans have Igbo ancestry than Swahili ancestry. However, in my opinion, beside the differences in the symbolic colors for harvest festivals and the red, black, and green flag colors that are associated with African Americans, more African Americans in 1966 when Kwanzaa was created (and even now in 2019) were/are somewhat familiar with Swahili language (albeit we may only knew a few Swahili words, phrases, and personal names) than we African Americans knew/know any Igbo words, phrases, or personal names or anything else about Igbo culture.
Furthermore, I think that Swahili words and phrases were chosen for Kwanzaa because that language better fits African Americans' aesthetics (regarding word structure and pronunciation) than Igbo or many other traditional African languages.
In re-reading this comment, I meant no disrespect to the importance of the New Yam festivals for Igbo people.
DeleteI don't mean to imply that I wasn't interested in and impressed by the videos and information that I was introduced to about the Igbos' New Yam festival.
It's just that as an African American I'm trying to suss out if and how we African Americans retained any of our African ancestor's traditional customs, and how and why certain traditions were retained and adapted. For instance, it seems to me that the goombay dancers in the Bahamas and the kunering (John Canoe) customs in the Caribbean and among enslaved Black people in 19th century USA may at least partly have their source in some of the Igbo dance tradition that are found in these videos (during the New Yam festival or otherwise).
And I wonder if African Americans' sweet potato pies may have been part of our remembering of the cooked yam that was eaten during these African festivals and/or at other times.
Thank you Igbo people for sharing some of your culture with the world whether we have any Igbo ancestry or not.