A NEW YAM FESTIVAL IN MY COMMUNITY

I want to talk about a popular festival in igbo land, south eastern part of Nigeria, and i will narrow it down to my community where i hail from.

I came from onitsha in Ezinihitte mbaise L.G.A of Imo state and the festival is called "the new yam festival ".

The new yam festival is a popular festival celebrated all over igbo land,different communities have different days and months of which they celebrate, but in my community it's in our tradition that we celebrate our new yam festival on every 15th day of August of every year.

On that said day,the whole community gathers in the village square at the sound of the ikoro (our native gong),as everyone is gathered, then the elders and the village head will declare the ceremony open by saying a prayer and lighting up a firewood fire,while the fire burns,some tubers of yam will be placed inside the burning fire to roast under the supervision of some selected youths.

While the yam is roasting, music and dancing will be going on to keep the people entertained, masquerade too will be paraded on that day as tradition demands.

While the yam roast in the burning fire,the youths will prepare the pepper and mix it with fresh red oil and salt inside a calabash,some will grind a pepper mix with a native Saint leaf( nchuawu)or ( utazi) and red oil and salt .

When the yam is ready, it will be presented before everyone, the village head will now make some remark,say a prayer,after the prayer, he will cut a piece of the roasted yam,deep it inside the red oil and and eat of it,then the elders will do same,like everyone else,then the youths will now take the remaining roasted yam to the people that have all gathered to witness tradition.

In most cases, the roasted yam may not get to everyone gathered, but the essence is to observe tradition, then after that everyone can go home and continue the celebration at their various homes.

At the ceremony, the only yam for the event is prepaed roasted as tradition demands. But at various homes you may now decide on how to prepare yours.

At home,usually we celebrate our new yam festival by preparing a chicken pepper soup and yam with our native Saint leaf with native recipe (uda) and salt.