Nkalaha Festivals and their Pedagogical Relevance - Onyeji Nnaji

Nkalaha celebrate multiple festivals. Each of these festivals is very significant to either their existence or their oral tradition. The festivals are used to denote the month calendar the community used to justify their thirteen lunar months which mark one year. Among these festivals are Ikpu-Uzo, Ogbu Nfu, Ama-na-Nkwa, Ji-Oha, Akpulokpa, Agaji, Aju-Ede, Aba Ebe and lastly, Onwa-Esato.

Ikpu-uzo is celebrated as new yam festival. The festival is so called because of the dominant activities involved during the celebration. During the new yam festive period, the community organize themselves; each village organizes her inhabitants to clear the major road leading to the farm. This is done with the notion that yam, which is the chief crop, is not supposed to return home with the farm road filled with grasses. To see that this does not prevail, the road is usually cleared. In the native syntax, as Nnaji (2007) reveals, "Ikpu-uzo is the short form of Ikpucha uzo, which means cleaning the road." This single activity is meant when new yam festival is celebrated.

Ogbu Nfu is the festival of tapsters. It is the second festival celebrated, which also marks the second month in Nkalaha calendar months. Ogbu Nfu began with a man from Umuokpanshi who was a palm wine tapster. One year he made up his mind to make a sacrifice to his climbing rope for thus far it had fed him and his family that year. He made this act a continuous practice in the subsequent years until the day he joined his ancestors. After his days, other tapsters began to do it in commemoration of his days as a tapster. As days went by, the entire community became engulfed by the same practice. While the community became involved fully, they built a shrine where the sacrifice is made in each of the communities. In Nkalaha calendar year, Ogbu Nfu marks the second month.

Ama-na-Nkwa is the festival of drum and dance. Ama-na-nkwa festival celebrated yearly was founded upon poetic rendition. It is the festival that brings together all the poems (dance) composed in the community every year in a same spirit of competition. Before the advent of the colonial masters, various villages organized themselves together. Each village organised a dance waiting for the day of the festival to participate in the festival. Before the day of the festival, each village gets herself ready. As soon as the day is up they are fully prepared to render it at the community's central playground called Ufuegbu. It was these inter village competition that gave rise to the popular dance that survives today. These include: Odabaru, Une, Okpokoro, Igba, Edensha, Ode, Nwa ngbego and others.

Ama-na-nkwa festival lasted for a long time before its credence began to fade away, particularly with the incursion of the foreign culture and its civilization. At this point the community does not gather again as before in the spirit of competition. Each community asserted independence and carried out their celebration on separate days. The last time the information about Ama-na-nkwa came to people's mind after the inception of cultural repudiation among the inhabitants of the community was in early 20th century. One year, during Ama-na-nkwa festival day, an oral artist sat at Ufuegbu playground with his flute on his mouth. As he performed, he called the ancestral heroes of Ama-na-nkwa competition, telling them that things have fallen apart with the festival. He so performed in a committed voice that, though his contemporaries did not know what he was talking about, the passion found in his voice and the seeming lamentation which his countenance depicted made them to understand that he was talking about the abandonment of the inhabitants to Ama-na-nkwa festival display. Passerby gave him money. A year later, the man died and his voice ended. Today, Ama-na-nkwa seemingly holds no significance.    

Ji-Oha was lately founded, unlike the rest of the festivals. Ji-Oha is out rightly a celebration dedicated to Nkalaha yam as the king of crops. According to Nnaji (2003), Ji-Oha was founded following the dream had by a woman from Amaezegba. As oral sources also defended, the woman had a dream where she was brought to the place where Ebe and Ora Rivers met, in Nhveregu. There she saw Nkalaha yams fully dressed like artistes performing in Aba-Ebe festival. Each fell into the river and vanished from the woman's sight. While this was going on, she was moved to ask one of the yams a question about where they were going to and why? In reply, she was told that they had decided to leave Nkalaha for another place where their contribution to life survival would be celebrated since Nkalaha did not want to recognize them.

The succeeding day, the woman summoned courage and came to the elders and related to them all that was said to her in the dream. Following this revelation, the community came up with a shrine where yam is given his own sacrifice just like other gods in the community. This also gave rise to the inclusion of Ji-Oha in the festivals that characterized the calendar months of Nkalaha people.   

Akpulokpa is one of the festivals which have lost its meaning and purpose among many elders. Akpulokpa was founded in the mediaeval era. The shrine and, of course, the festival was built and given recognition after the war between Nkalaha and Amazu. When the war ended, Amazu requested that Nkalaha should come for reconciliation. Elders met and finally accepted the request. On the day agreed, both communities met at Amazu, and peace was achieved. To cement this peace, Amazu gave Nkalaha a child in place of the boy they kidnapped from Nkalaha. When the people returned the elders agreed to set a shrine in commemoration of the first time human being was brought alive for sake of war. 

Agaji holds no much significance to the development of the community. It was however celebrated in respect of the aged people in the community. This was buried in the belief that old age is the most reliable link between the present and the past. There contributions towards the survival of the community's myth and legend are in this festival commemorated. This is just the essence of the festival.

Aju-Ede: Of all the festivals in Nkalaha, Aju-Ede is most significant. It is celebrated because of its exceptional roles in the educational, cultural and historical impact to the inhabitants. Aju-Ede celebration carries the memorable events traceable to the historical origin of the setting of the inhabitants in the land. These memorable events enable them to be launched into the historical evidence of the inhabitants in the land, which tie the myth surrounding the activities of the founding fathers with the origin of Aju-Ede festival. Aju-Ede is a festival of homage in honour of the spirit of the founding fathers. The festival is celebrated in the month of November.

Aju-Ede is as old as the death of Onojah. All about the festival traces its pedagogical root to the activities surrounding the founding fathers. It is celebrated for four days. On the first day, usually Oye market day, every household gather at the position where they had made their dead father's shrine. There, every man makes sacrifice each and feed his late father. The following day, "Afor market day" the celebration takes the lead until the Eke market day. The festival engages everyone; young and old, male and female all takes active part in the celebration. Men conducted the sacrifice, women prepare food for the sacrifice while younger ones use the period to practice hunting and masquerading. In the hunting practice, the males assert the role of hunters while the females assume the remaining part; the animals to be hunt. The young ones take up the role of practicing hunters, displaying the brevity and cunning ways through which hunters make prey of their hunted animals to show the duty of the founding fathers.           

During the period of Aju-Ede festival, few days to the Oye market day for the celebration, the inhabitants feel the presence of the spirit fathers around, hovering. In the night, people usually experience a cluster/clouded darkness going about the community (Nnaji 2008:69). When this happens, the people became aware that their fathers have sojourned back to visit them. During this period, everyone makes peace with the person he had a quarrel with. They did this so that those spirits might smite him or her. But presently (in the modern setting), the spirits do not hover about again.

The presupposed sojourning visit of the fathers during Aju-Ede festivals is today replaced with or played out through the performances of Achifu masquerade which arrives from the spirit world on the Eke market day, next to the Oye market day when Aju-Ede begins. At arrival, Achifu is played in the manner of a hunter walking "pia! Pia!! pia!!!" on a raffia-filled farmland. This sort of movement along the path represents the unorganised movement of the founding fathers (hunters) in the expedition during which the community was found (Nnaji 2007). Achifu dwells within the inhabitants till the last day of the festival. Achifu is a night masquerade hidden from non-initiates and women. This however represents the idea that it was not every eye that saw the spirit fathers in the days they used to appear. The idea also revolves around the myth surrounding the demise of some sick elders after Aju-Ede festivals. This belief still plays out among the inhabitants, although very many did not accept the idea. The observation made so far shows that many elders who were sick in the past were victims of this belief. Those who could not recuperate till the arrival of Aju-Ede festival died after the festival. They hardly lived to see the succeeding festivals. While Aju-Ede festival is over, "they joined the spirit of the fathers to sojourn back to the world unseen." It happens that way, except for evil elders.

Aju-Ede carries the summary of the community's history. These are fully concentrated in the activities involved in the festival. The performances have much significance. Greatest among these significance is the community's origin which is being emphasized in the festival through the traditional ritual performances. It also educates the inhabitants on their culture and history. Detailed analysis of Aju-|Ede festival is discussed in the thesis paper which Nnaji entitled Performances and the Dramatic Significance of Aju-Ede Festival.

Aba Ebe festival is, above all the festivals, a heroic festival founded upon war, and celebrated in honour of the community's heroes. Aba Ebe is for the praise of the heroes' performance in the communal wars. 

Onwa-Esato:  This festival sums the rest of the festivals every year. It marks the end of Nkalaha calendar year. The festival displays all the girls on the marital process who will be joined to their husbands that year. They are paraded and made to appear in the cultural dance of their different husband's village. Lastly, they are paraded around Oye Market Square accompanied by the husband's cultural group and dance. As soon as the festival ends, the girls are sent to their respective husbands. Onwa-esato summarizes nearly every activity in Nkalaha. It is the end of the year in the community's calendar.