ABSTRACT
This study examines documentation of new yam festival in Utese c0ommunity. Data for the study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. Festival is an event, a social phenomenon, encountered in virtually all human cultures. The colorful variety and dramatic intensity of its dynamic choreographic and aesthetic aspects, the signs of deep meaning underlying them, its historical roots and the involvement of the Utese 'natives" have always attracted the attention of casual visitors, have consumed travelers and men of letters alike. Since the last century, scholars from disciplines such as comparative religion, anthropology, sociology, and folklore have concerned themselves with the description, the analysis, and, more recently, the interpretation of festivities. Yet little explicit theoretical effort has been devoted to the nomenclature of festive events or to the definition of the festiual. As a result, the meaning of festiual in the social sciences is simply taken from common language, where the term covers a constellation of very different events, sacred and profane, private and public, sanctioning tradition and introducing innovation, proposing nostalgic revivals, providing the expressive means for the survival of the most archaic folk customs, and celebrating the highly speculative and experimental avant-gardes of the elite fine arts.
