Written By: Chukwuebuka Obinugwu
New Yam Festival, celebrated annually by many communities in Igboland beyond has, over the years, remained a rallying point and a unifying factor among the various communities in the land. As one of the most prominent platforms for the enactment and actualization of socio-cultural ideals, the new yam festival has continued to enjoy tremendous popularity, attracting people from far and wide.
In most traditional societies, New Yam festival is often celebrated with pomp and pageantry as most of the farmers use it as an avenue to show their appreciation to God for His kindness, protection and love for the crops and the general agrarian success recorded during the year. Farmers, who had bumper harvests, often make handsome sacrifice and pour libations to the Almighty God for giving strength and prosperity to mankind through the instrumentality of the hoe and machete.
New yam festival is a historic event and epochal moment of get-together, happiness, enjoyment and overall reflection on family performance, challenges and proposal. Many people, especially the titled men and protagonists of cultural norms and values, do not eat new yam until the festival is held. This is borne out of the belief that the sanctity of the new yam should not be profound by premature consumption.
Some communities in Igboland even use the new yam festival to ascertain the advancement of agriculture in their communities, the major problems facing farmers and how best to ensure food security in the future. Today, the uniqueness of the new yam festival has assumed a more elaborate and transcendental dimension.
Now, many see it as an avenue to showcase their cultural potentials. That is why events like masquerade display, traditional wrestling, cultural dances and title-taking, are usually held in most communities to mark the occasion.
Elsewhere, the festival has provided a strong platform for fund raising and other development-oriented projects. In some areas, for instance, launchings are held for the building of town halls, renovation and rehabilitation of public places, health centers, rural roads, markets, provision and maintenance of community security and vigilante groups. This is because that is the time when many prominent citizens, who had returned from urban areas and beyond for the festival, are usually seen in large number.
No doubt, Ndi Igbo cherish the new yam festival as a moment of re-union and demonstration of oneness among various communities. Elders and Age grades often take advantage of the gleeful atmosphere that usually pervade the system to reconcile warring groups.
They also listen to genuine complaints, handle cases and petitions of volatile nature as well as punish those who are found guilty of crime and theft as well as hand down sanctions to erring and recalcitrant house wives or husbands as the case may be.
One thing very remarkable about new yam festival is that any action taken must be in the spirit of corporate existence and in accordance with the demands of traditional.
However, while the new yam festival is a potent barometer and credible yardstick for the measurement of the social and cultural legacies in most Igbo traditional societies, it is hoped that this festivity should be fine-tuned to reflect the aspirations of the contemporary Igbo nation without losing its traditional substances and irresistible developmental ideals to the intimidating and overbearing influences of modern civilization.
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