Hii my fellow Steemians, I trust you day is going just fine. I happened to bump into this wonderful contest in this community and I think I have great interest in the topic thrown to the floor and in my own entry today, I would be telling us about my favourite festival and how we celebrate it in details.

By the way, the name of my favorite festival celebration in my country is

Before I move to that I would love to start by enlightening us on the brief history of this cultural fest.

Nigeria is a country filled with more than 100 ethnic groups and thus creating room for more than one culture. Out of these numerous ethnic groups, there are three major ethnic groups that stand out. These are:-
- Igbo ethnic group
- Hausa ethnic group
- Yoruba ethnic group

I being a Nigeria belong to the Igbo ethnic group and therefore the cultural practice I ll be talking about is of course that of my ethnic group which I have experienced over the years.
The New Yam Festival is a very old festival that has actually survived for more than 3 generations. One hundred years ago, our ancestors/fore- fathers used this festival to celebrate 4 things
- To celebrate the fertility of our soil in terms of agriculture.
- To mark the beginning of harvest.
- To celebrate a New year according to the Igbo calendar.
- To mark the end of food scarcity For the next year.

Now it's important to know that these 4 reasons vary from dialect to dialect and there are 5 main states from which the 5 main dialects are form in the Igbo ethnic group, they are:
- Abia State
- Imo State
- Anambra State
- Enugu State
- Ebonyi State

From all these states, I come from Imo State but grew up in Abia State so I'm more deeply rooted in the Abia State culture. So the part I will be presenting their pattern of celebrating their new yam festival is that of Abia State.

Link

Abia State New Yam Festival Celebration

The new yam festival celebration is locally known as Iwa ji, Orureshi, Otute, or Ike ji. In Abia dialect, It is called Iri ji and is celebrated at the end of the rainy season which is usually around the end of August to October every year and this varies from place to place in the Igbo land.

Yam is usually regarded as the King of crops because it's usually planted early and it's harvest is usually among the first before other crops and usually the texture of the yam in that year usually determines how good other crops produced would be like during it's harvest. The yam used for this fest is usually planted at the beginning of the rainy season and harvest when dry season begins to set in every year.
The new yams for this celebration are usually collected directly from the soil and never from the market or the barn as it's sacrilege once found out that the yam used for this ritual fest was not that from that year's harvest.

The youths of the village then take the yams to be used for the festival to the king(Igwe, Eze, Nze) and in this case our king is called the "Eze". Then the Eze summons his chiefs called the "Ichie" and the community's spiritual head called the "Ezemmuo". The Ezemmuo is the link to our ancestors and the physical world. He makes some Thanksgiving ritual and thanks the gods of the land for blessing our still and making our newly harvested food crops taste rich and nutritious. After the thanksgiving ritual the celebration begins proper the following week.

This period of one week preparation for the festival is given so that the indigenes of the community who migrated would be able to come back and be a part of the festival. The day of the celebration has finally reached and the celebration takes a total of 3 days and the yams are usually eaten on everyday of the celebration but the last day is always the Grand Finale where the yam is eaten in a grand style.

In this 3 days celebration, The first day is specially known to be the day for celebrating the mothers who died that year and reminding us in our hearts that they would always have a place in our hearts.
This day is traditionally called "Ubochi Igo Nne".

The second day is then marked out remembering our dead fathers who couldn't take part in that year's festival. They had joined our ancestors and are now called our "Forefathers". The second day is traditionally called "Ubochi Igo Nna".

The Third day is the final day of the celebration where the remaining yam is specially eaten with some of the follow for items below:

1. a fine recipe of Red Oil well garnished with onions, pepper, crayfish, potash or base( called ngo and used to make the oil color look more appetizing) and a local food ingredient called "Ugba" which adds a spicy taste to the meal.

2. A freshly tapped palm wine that has been left fermented for a maximum of 5 days after collecting naturally from the palm tree.

3. A big bowl of goat, dog or pig meat.

4. A bowl of oil beans Salad.

All these combinations would make a really decent meal. On the third day, we villagers would take our yams and cutlasses and parade in an organized manner round the village and the neighboring village, for the younger and older ones to see the way we are trying to pass down the culture to the younger generation. By the time we're done with this exercise it's already dusk, We would then gather in our village square where the festival of reaping the fruit of our labor takes place, So as a community we go down to the item 7 of the celebration which is to dine and wine in merriment, the ladies in costume begin their cultural dance and the strong, able-bodied young men engage in event like wrestling( locally called Igba Mgba) and Tug of war (asoromampi) all to keep us entertained. What a festival!!!.

Link

Link

Significance Of The New Yam Festival To Igbos

There are a few significances of the new yam festival in a standard Igbo community as not everyone still celebrates this nowadays. While a few just do not celebrate this due to some reasons which I would be explaining below.

Peaceful Co- existence

Any community in Igbo land that still celebrates the New Yam Festival is a community that promotes peace and harmony. Young boys now misuse the privilege the celebration perhaps due to ignorance of the essence of the fest. The cutlass paraded during the celebration shows that hardwork and consistency during the cultivation process was what produce the yams. But since the 21st century, this festival has become an act of war and an excuse to portray violence in the streets. In the year 2015, Our entire flat was robbed during this period and since then we haven't been actively into the festival as we only celebrate with them during the day time.

Soil Fertility

The New Yam Festival also promotes the community in the aspect of cultivation of crops as the people's soil would attract farmer, traders, and businessmen. People always come to buy our food produce as our soil is fertile and doesn't need any fertilizer to grow making the quality of our food desirable for consumption.

Culture Preservation

As I have said earlier, not every community in Igbo land still practices this festival. Reasons being that some communities own form of doing it is really fetish while some are just filled with violence instead of preserving our culture. While some other communities have just the vibes to celebrate it and other communities just have lazy youths who are lazy or youths who don't value culture and as a result the culture fades away.

**The New Yam Festival.**

Please also note that the image used for the title was made originally by the Author of this post while the others downloaded were properly referenced to the sites it was gotten from, Thanks for reading.