Festivals


 * Ben Swartz - Festivals**

-The New Yam Festival, of Iri-ji, is one of the biggest festivals in Igbo culture.

-The Festival takes place in August, and celebrates the end of one work cycle and the beginning of a new one.

-Individual Igbo communities may celebrate it on different days in August.

-The night before, yams from the previous year are thrown out to make room for the fresh, new ones.

-Before the festival begins, the oldest man or the villages leader sacrifices the yams to gods and ancestors to show them thanks.

-As a symbol of its abundance, only dishes of yam can be served during the festival



-The Egungun tradition involves the creation of figures of the collective spirits of ancestors made out of stitched or overlapping cloth segments.

-Egungun figures have specific names, which were usually those of prominent individuals from the past.

-These likenesses are used in yearly festivals dedicated to them and traditional funeral rites.

-Egungun costumes were used to entertain, correct if necessary, and offer blessings from the spirit world the ancestors are said to inhabit.

-The Egungun dancers, or those who put on the Egungun cloth, are believed to channel the spirits for the ceremonies.



New Yam Pictures http://www.cercopan.org/Gallery/community.htm http://www.vivienne-mackie.com/articles/holidays/family/yam.html

Egungun Pictures http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/fundamentals/index.html http://www.cabq.gov/museum/education/TeacherResources-AlbuquerqueMuseum-CityofAlbuquerque.html