TY - JOUR
TI - The Yam Festival in Contemporary Ghana: Tradition Beyond Religious Boundaries
AU - Niedźwiedź, Anna
TI - The Yam Festival in Contemporary Ghana: Tradition Beyond Religious Boundaries
AB - 
	This article is based on ethnographic field research conducted in the central part of Ghana, in the Brong Ahafo region. It gives a description of two yam festivals performed in 2010 in the small town of Jema and the nearby village of Kokuma. The author depicts the meanings associated with yams in traditional indigenous cultures and vernacular religions in Ghana as well as within the broader region of the Gulf of Guinea. Contemporary yam festivals are interpreted in relation to the old symbolic and sacred meanings of the yam as “the king of crops” as well as in relation to the contemporary circumstances of African societies which are becoming modernised and less dependent on traditional agriculture. A special focus is placed on the position of chiefs, royal attributes (stools) and involvement of people from different religious backgrounds (Christians, Muslims, “traditionalists”). The concept of “sensational forms” proposed by Birgit Meyer is discussed in relation to yam festivals, which are treated here as performances generating a specific religious “style” shared by contemporary Ghanaians irrespective of their religious affiliations.
VL - 2014
IS - Volume 47, Issue 3
PY - 2014
SN - 0137-2432
C1 - 2084-4077
SP - 237
EP - 252
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/studia-religiologica/article/swieto-jamow-we-wspolczesnej-ghanie-tradycja-ponad-podzialami-religijnymi
KW - Ghana
KW - anthropology of religion
KW - ethnography of West Africa
KW - yam festival
KW - chiefs
KW - tradition