Describe the significance of the New Yam Festivals.

The New Yam festival is one of the most important and glamorous festivals in Igbo land. It is celebrated between August and October to thank the gods for a good harvest. It also heralds the harvesting season and provides an opportunity for a social gathering of the tribes. It is culturally rooted in ancient agrarian Igbo society, where wealth is measured by yam. Yam is the king Crop. The Feast of the New Yam was an occasion for giving thanks to Ani, the earth goddess and the source of all fertility. Ani played a greater part in the life of the people than any other deity. She was the ultimate judge of morality and conduct, even ancestral spirits of the clan were honoured in this feast. New Yams could not be eaten until some had first been offered to these powers. Men and women, young and old, looked forward to the New Yam Festival because it began the season of plenty…. The New Year. On the last night before the festival, yams of the old year were all disposed of by those who still had them. The New Year must begin with tasty, fresh yams and not the shrivelled and fibrous crop of the previous year.

All cooking pots, calabashes and wooden bowls were thoroughly washed, especially the wooden mortar in which yam was pounded. Yam foo-foo and vegetable soup was the chief food in celebration. So much of it was cooked that, no matter how heavily the family ate or how many friends and relatives they invited from neighbouring villages, there was always a large quantity of food left over at the end of the day. The New Yam festival was thus an occasion for joy throughout Umuofia. And every man, whose arm was strong, as the Igbo people say, was expected to invite large number of guests from far and wide. Okonkwo always asked his wives’ relatives, and since he had three wives his guests would make a fairly big crowd.