AHIAJIOKU: The Igbo New Yam Festival($12.99Value)

Description

A celebration of the beauty of life—of the living and the dead, the New Yam Festival is the Igbo equivalent of Easter, May Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and New Year celebrations rolled into one. The feast marks the end of toiling and the beginning of harvesting produce. This book delves into the significance and the symbolism of the feast in Igbo cosmology and proposes a common date and a common name for a pan-Igbo celebration of the king of crops. The festival marks not only the end of farming and the beginning of harvesting the fruits of labor, it also appreciates ancestral supreme sacrifices, gives gratitude for the benevolence of deities, especially Anị , the Earth deity, and Jiọkụ, the yam god, and praises the goodness of Chiukwu , the dominant deity and supreme spirit, for the sustenance of life. In Igbo worldview life is the essence of existence: Nd ụ b ụ í s í . The festival thus promotes justice, equity, peace, and progress for a more fruitful future.