Historical analysis of the practice of the ancient Eyaal-Abua New Yam Festival of Abua People in Rivers State

Abstract

This paper analyzed the practice of the ancient Eyaal-Abua New Yam Festival of Abua people in Abua/Odua Government Local Areas of Rivers State, Nigeria and how foreign religions formed the basis of changes that effected regular its practices in Abua land. This is because; in time immemorial, Abua people are known as a people who conserve the spectacular Eyaal-Abua as one of their cultural contents that linked between the living and the dead or ancestral spirits. Owing to the advert of civilization, many communities in Abua are no longer practicing the annual Eyaal-Abua festival; they classify the festival as primitive outside modernity, which other tribes queue in with. By these trends, this study analyzed the attributes that involved in the changes and continuity in the practice of Eyaal-Abua New Yam Festival. The study considers the types of costumes, dance-style and cultural performances if they transform or affect the people when celebrating Eyaal-Abua. Finally, this study recommends among others that, the supreme council of Abua traditional rulers should ensure that they reform and regulate the modus of operandi of Eyaal-Abua in all Abua communities as to suit modernity and avoid primitive performance and harmful practices in the land. Lastly, the old members should organize training of Eyaal-Abua compulsorily among the youth and new members against extinction.