Orality and Religion: The Ethno-Linguistic and Ritual Content of Ekajuk New Yam Festival
Orality is primordial, transcends all races and permeates all facets of life from birth to maturity and death. Each of these stages of human life and endeavor is prone to composition and delivery of Oral material as well as linguistic manipulation either in celebration of life or in adoration and thankfulness to a deity who superintends over human affairs. Language, in the form of ordinary verbal utterances, signs or gestures, has often lent itself to diverse uses at different levels of interaction or communication in the articulation of messages either in social parlance or in sacrificial and ritual circumstances. The complexity of Oral communication becomes evident when language is viewed in every day social interaction-sociolinguistics- then in stylized forms-ethnopoetics, and in ritual enactments-incantations. This can perhaps explain why Orality or language operates at different levels of complexity. Ekajuk new yam festival provides opportunities in social as well as ritual circumstances for the use of language in both ordinary and stylized forms. This paper aims at an examination of the ethno-linguistic and ritual potential of the new yam festival in Ekajuk community of Ogoja Local Government Area in Cross River State with a view to ascertaining how language is used at different levels of communication during the entire festival period. It will also portray the cultural value of the festival as a binding force within the community.
