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Igbo tradition and culture as things fall apart
Sophistication of igbo culture
Sophistication of igbo culture
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The new yam festival of the Igbo people is an annual festival by the Igbo people held at the end of the rainy season in early August. The celebration is a very culturally based occasion, tying individual Igbo communities together as agrarian and dependent on yam. Yams are the first crop to be harvested, and are the most important crop of the region. The new yam festival is therefore a celebration depicting the prominence of yam in the social-cultural life of Igbo people. The evening prior to the day of the festival, all the yams (from the previous year’s crop) are consumed or discarded. This is because it is believed that the New Year must begin with tasty, fresh yams instead of the old dried-up crops of the previous year. The next day only
Kwanzaa was first celebrated in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, his family and Friends. Dr. Karenga, a professor of African-American History at CSU, Long Beach, was effected by the Watts Riots of the summer of 1965. He felt that African-Americans had lost touch with their African heritage. He began to study ways that they could help themselves and each other. Dr. Karenga wanted to unify his people and instill a pride in their joint culture. He felt that there should be a special time of the year set aside to reflect upon and reaffirm the black community. He studied the harvest and "first fruit" celebrations on many African tribes, and although they all celebrated differently there were similarities in many ways. These similarities are some of what Dr. Karenga incorporated into the celebration of Kwanzaa. Even the name for this celebration was taken from Swahili, which is a nontribal language spoken in many parts of Africa. Kwanza in Swahili (AKA Kiswahili) means "the first" or "the first fruits of the harvest". Dr. Karenga added the final "a" to distinguish the holiday from the Swahili word.
Vietnamese festival for celebrating the lunar New Year. On the first day of the festival,
Brief History From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern: the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art of the cuisine so treasured and carefully transmitted to their daughters has become part of the great culinary classics of these lands. But seldom are the African blacks given that recognition.
In the early sixteenth century, the Oba, on the hip or neck, wore the Benin pendant mask during sacred ceremonies. The pendant represents Queen Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, who ruled the Benin court. The pendant is an ivory mask decorated with heads that represent the Portuguese men with beards, symbolizing the Benin’s alliance and dominion over Europeans. The pendant’s forehead was decorated with a pair of metal strips to indicate scarification marks. Below the chin, the pendant has bands of coral beads and carved mudfish are on the crown and collar. Due to their ability to live both on land and in water, mudfish symbolized the king’s double nature as human and divine. Since the Portuguese came from across the seas, they were considered people
The festival attracted people from far and wide. It provided them with occasions for honoring the Gods with sacrifices and gifts, as well as being a time of relaxation, feasting, games, and prizes.
It is a holiday with a complex history, and therefore its observance varies quite a bit by region and by degree of urbanization.
Inti Raymi is the main festival in honor of the sun. It celebrates the main harvest on June 24.
This is to educate the newcomers as to what the ceremony entails. The ceremony is always rehearsed before it is performed. After the lecture ,there is a large potluck feast to keep everyone energized for the evenings festivities. The processional~ When the sun sets, the processional begins.
According to the online Webster dictionary to be civilized means marked by well- organized laws and rules about how people behave with each other. It also states that to be civilized means to be polite, responsible, and respectful. Based on a reading of the novel and related non-fiction articles, it is clear that in the 1880’s, the Ibo culture of Nigeria is civilized. The Ibo culture fits the definition of one who is civilized perfectly. They have rules for their government, they are respectful and grateful during festivals, and the women are responsible when taking care of their family.
Religion and the Igbo People The Igbo are a profoundly religious people who believe in a benevolent creator, usually known as Chukwu, who created the visible universe (uwa). Opposing this force for good is agbara, meaning spirit or supernatural being. In some situations people are referred to as agbara in describing an almost impossible feat performed by them. In a common phrase the igbo people will say Bekee wu agbara.
A civilized society has social order characterized by a government, a system of justice, a social structure, and some kind of spiritual belief system. Igbo is a civilized culture in Africa who has limited knowledge of things that occur outside of their clan. Umuofia is part of the clan and runs on these customs of civilization. The society of Igbo is civilized because they all believe in a higher power and have a government system that fits them.
The agriculture of the Igbo society was different than other societies of today. Yams were the main nourishment through every meal and they called these yams "the king of crops." Furthermore, people used the yams for every traditional celebration and used kola nuts to offer their "chi" or personal god. These food, as Chinua Achebe had described, sometimes related to or involved with the religion or ancestrial spirits. Sometimes there were certain celebrations for each specific kind of food such as the New Yam Festival. Chinua Achebe used agriculture to express certain characteristics of each festival and celebration of the Igbo society.
Scissors, Paper, Rock! For my first cultural event, I attended the University Performing Dancers rendition of “Scissors, Paper, Rock!”. This dance performance took place in University Hall here on campus. This performance is considered a cultural event because the game Rock, Paper, Scissors is an ancient game that many different cultures have claimed to invented.
What is culture? Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving
Every country in the world has its own festival and celebration. People all around the world love joining together and sharing good time through the festivals and celebrations. Festivals are great way to experience local culture. Sometime they even offer a glimpse into past. There are hundreds of festivals across the world. So are you ready to experience of fun and colorful festivals? Below are some of festivals from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.