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Festivals & Celebrations

The New Yam Festival: How the Igbo Give Thanks for the Harvest

No new yams may be eaten until the community has given thanks. Among the Igbo of Nigeria, the New Yam Festival honours the king of crops, the earth and the ancestors.

By Amos Hope Jnr · · 3 min read

Illustration of an Igbo elder in a red cap holding up a yam beside a pile of harvested yams, with dancers and drummers behind

In late summer, in villages and towns across southeastern Nigeria, families prepare for one of the most important days of the year. Yams harvested from the fields are piled up and admired. Women cook rich dishes; masquerades rehearse; relatives travel home from Lagos, Abuja, London and Houston. Then, at a ceremony led by the king or the eldest man of the community, the first new yam is offered to the earth and the ancestors, and eaten. Only then can everyone else enjoy the new harvest. This is the New Yam Festival — Iri Ji or Iwa Ji — of the Igbo people.

The king of crops

For the Igbo, the yam is far more than a food. It is often called the "king of crops." Growing yams requires hard work, skill and patience, and a man's wealth and status were traditionally measured partly by the size of his yam barns. Yams feature in Igbo proverbs, ceremonies, and marriage customs.

Chinua Achebe's famous novel Things Fall Apart opens in a world where the yam is central: its hero, Okonkwo, measures his worth by his harvest, and the novel describes the Feast of the New Yam, held every year "to give thanks to Ani, the earth goddess and the source of all fertility."

The meaning of the festival

The New Yam Festival marks the end of one farming season and the beginning of another. It usually takes place between August and October, depending on the community, when the new yams are ready. Its main purposes are:

  • Thanksgiving — to the Supreme Being (Chukwu), the earth deity (Ala or Ani), and the ancestors, for a good harvest.
  • Blessing — to ask for protection and prosperity in the coming year.
  • Community — to bring families and townspeople together.

Traditionally, no one in the community may eat the new yams before the festival. Old yams from the previous harvest must be eaten or discarded, symbolising the end of the old year.

The ceremony

Customs vary from town to town, but the festival often includes:

  1. Offering the first yam. The traditional ruler (igwe) or the oldest man (okpara) offers new yams to the gods and ancestors, often with prayers, kola nuts and palm wine.
  2. Eating the new yam. He is the first to eat the new yam, which signals that everyone else may now eat it.
  3. Feasting. Families cook yams in many ways: roasted yam with palm oil sauce, yam pottage (ji abubo), pounded yam with soups, and yam porridge.
  4. Masquerades, music and dance. Masquerades appear, drummers and dancers perform, and age grades show off their skills.
  5. Wrestling and competitions in some communities.
  6. Honours. Successful farmers may be recognised.

A homecoming

Today, the New Yam Festival is also a great homecoming. Igbo people living in Nigerian cities and around the world often return to their home towns for it, and Igbo communities in the diaspora — from London to Houston — hold their own New Yam celebrations, with traditional dress, food, music and dance. For many, it is a way to keep their children connected to Igbo culture.

Yam festivals across West Africa

The Igbo are not alone. Yam festivals are held by many peoples in West Africa, including the Ewe and Ga-Dangme of Ghana, the Yoruba, and others. In Ghana, for example, festivals such as the Asogli Yam Festival celebrate the harvest in similar ways. Ghana's Ga people celebrate their own great harvest festival, Homowo, centred on maize rather than yams.

Faith and change

Most Igbo today are Christians, and many communities have adapted the festival, replacing offerings to traditional deities with church thanksgiving services, while keeping the feasting, dancing and community gatherings. Debates continue between those who want to preserve the traditional religious aspects and those who see the festival mainly as a cultural celebration.

Why it matters

The New Yam Festival is a celebration of work, land and community. It reminds people that food is a gift, earned by labour and blessed by forces greater than ourselves. And it calls families home — to eat, dance and remember who they are. When the first new yam is lifted at the festival, a whole people gives thanks together.

Further reading

  • Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Heinemann, 1958)
  • Victor C. Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965)
  • Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People (Macmillan, 1976)

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