We’re happy to celebrate the first ever new yam festival of omenala Igbo Bu Uzo Eziokwu Na Ndu led by Mazi Ezeaku Ejiofor, (Ozoigbondu1 N’Africa) and the messenger,
we celebrated this first ever new yam festival with our people round the world, We called upon our Ancestors who founded this seed called yam and named it (JI). our Ancestors celebrated with us, we have kicked off and in new future is going to be everywhere,
Among the Igbo tribe of Nigeria, West Africa, it is obvious that the most cherished and respected crop is the yam.
While giving credence to the Igbo preference of the yam crop, Chinua Achebe, in his most revered novel, ‘Things Fall Apart’, described yam as the “king of all crops”.
The culture of yam cultivation and preservation is an age-long attribute of the ‘Igbos’ which has successfully travelled from the time of our ancestors down to this day.
The New Yam Festival popularly known as “Orureshi, Iwa ji, Iri ji, Ike ji, or Otute (depending on dialect) is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people usually held at the end of the rainy season in early August, October to November every year.
It is one of the traditional and cultural festivities Igbo people do not play with. Without performing this festival as individuals or in groups, no full-fledged or matured man eats new yam in Igbo land.
The festival is done at the community level first. In turn, individuals in their own way and capacity celebrate with members of families and friends, thereby kicking off the eating of new yam in these families that participated in the community ceremony, whether they have money to celebrate with the others or not.
In most families in Igbo land, wives and children can start eating new yam, without the men or heads of the families joining them and this is because the men regard it as an abomination to eat new yam without celebrating it with the ancestors.
For instance, the Afikpo New Yam Festival “IKE JI” is one of the top festivals in Afikpo, Ebonyi State in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria. It is a festival that begins with a series of activities weeks before the final ceremonial day.
Then other activities in preparation for the festival follow in a sequence that is normally dictated by centuries-old traditional practices and timelines handed down from generation to generation.