THE DRAMATIC AND THEATRICAL AESTHETICS OF IZARA TRADITIONAL INITIATION FESTIVAL OF AMO PEOPLE OF NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

African traditional theatre is caught up within the vortex of Western inferiorization, the need for documentation, and a conflict of opinions between African dramatic scholars (the evolutionists and the relativists). The indigenous festival traditions in Africa have been described by Finnegan (1970) as ‘quasi_–dramatic’ and they lack the dramatic structure of the West. This view by evolutionists is against that of the relativists who claim that traditional festivals in Africa are fully dramatic and theatrical and should not be judged strictly by Western canons. The problem is further complicated by the lack of documentation of these festivals resulting in the disappearance of vital aspects of them. African traditional performance modes, as earlier practised by Africans, were affected by imperialistic activities of the West during colonialism and by today’s globalized mediation.

These traditional dramatic forms still retain their value and relevance as pointers to the identity of Africa and are a source of artistic production. This study attempts to establish and analyze the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics (elements) in the Izara festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria. The study employs the analytical binoculars of performance theory, myth/archetypal, as well as the structuralist/semiotic frameworks to describe and analyze the festival. The study has adopted a qualitative research approach for data collection and analysis in communities of Amo in North Central Nigeria. This involved the researcher using interview schedule, focus group discussion (FGD) and observation schedule. Findings of this research confirm the existence of drama which is indigenous to African people, and that is not necessarily the same as that of the West. This is due to Africa’s peculiarity in worldview and the history of evolution of the African people. The study is an addition to the corpus of critical texts on African traditional drama and theatre, and is significant to film makers, ethnographers, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. It also serves as a reference for further academic research.

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………………………………….ii DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………………………………………………….iv

CHAPTER ONE…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1

1.0 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY………………………………………………………………… 1

1.1   A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMO PEOPLE …………………………………………………………8

1.2  Statement of Problem ………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

1.3   Research Objectives …………………………………………………………………………………….14

1.4   Research Questions ……………………………………………………………………………………..14

1.5  Significance of Study ………………………………………………………………………………….. 14

1.6    Rationale of Study……………………………………………………………………………………….15

1.7   Scope of the Study……………………………………………………………………………………….17

1.8 Limitations of the Study…………………………………………………………………………………… 17

1.9 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE……………………………………………………………20

1.9.0 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 20

1.9.1 Concept and Debate on African Traditional Drama and Theatre…………………………. 20

1.9.2 African Traditional Theatre and Religion …………………………………………………………22

1.9.3 A Brief Survey of African Traditional Theatre…………………………………………………. 26

1.10.2 Myth/ Archetypal Theory…………………………………………………………………………….. 30

1.11.0 Research Methodology………………………………………………………………………………… 35

1.11.1 Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………. 35

1.11.1 Research Design………………………………………………………………………………………….36

1.11.2 Sample Size ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 37

1.11.3 Target Population ………………………………………………………………………………………..38

1.11.4 Sampling Technique…………………………………………………………………………………….38

1.11.6 Research Instruments…………………………………………………………………………………… 39

1.11.6.1 Interview Schedule…………………………………………………………………………………… 39

1.11.6.2 Focus Group Discussion……………………………………………………………………………. 39

1.11.6.3 Observation Schedule……………………………………………………………………………….. 40

1.11.6.4 Documented Literature……………………………………………………………………………… 41

1.11.7 Validity and Reliability ……………………………………………………………………………….. 41

1.11.8 Data Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………… 42

1.11.9 Logistical and Ethical Consideration………………………………………………………………42

2.0 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………44

2.1  Kagi Feast (Circumcision and Seclusion) ………………………………………………………. 45

2.2  Preparation for Izara Performance (Rehearsal Stage) ………………………………………. 52

2.4  Izara (As Performed)…………………………………………………………………………………… 64

2.5.1   Plot………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 83

2.5.2  Characters ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 86

2.5.3  Dialogue and Language ……………………………………………………………………………. 91

2.5.5   Music/Song…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 94

2.5.8   Suspense……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 106

2.5.9   Imagery………………………………………………………………………………………………… 107

2.5.11 Costumes, Make-Up and Properties……………………………………………………………..112

2.5.12 Rhythm ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 121

2.5.13   Horse-Racing…………………………………………………………………………………………..122

2.5.14 Arena of Event (Setting)…………………………………………………………………………….. 123

2.5.15 Audience Response, Participation and Performer’s Interaction……………………….. 125

2.6   Theorizing Izara Traditional Festival Theatre and Drama ……………………………….127

3.0 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………….132

3.1 The Study of Performance………………………………………………………………………………. 132

3.2 Traditional Festival as a Performance ……………………………………………………………….135

3.3 Performance Theory……………………………………………………………………………………….137

3.4 Significance of Izara Performance as Theatre and Drama…………………………………… 140

3.5 The Place, the Performer, and the Audience and Action……………………………………… 143

3.6 Izara Theatre Performers………………………………………………………………………………… 146

3.7 Qualities of a Good Izara Performer………………………………………………………………… 148

4.0 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………….152

4.2 Communicative Functions of Izara Festival ……………………………………………………… 155

4.3 Religious Function of Izara Festival Theatre …………………………………………………….. 158

4.4 Socio – Cultural Functions of Izara …………………………………………………………………. 161

4.6 Educational Function of Izara Festival ……………………………………………………………..163

4.8 Izara Festival Tradition: Residual, Dominant, and Emergent ……………………………….165

4.9 Izara Traditional Festival and Globalization……………………………………………………… 171

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ……….. 178

5.0: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………178

5.1 Summary of the Findings ……………………………………………………………………………….. 178

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 184

APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 192

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0          BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

There are abundant manifestations of theatrical and dramatic aesthetics or elements that are embedded in traditional performances of the people in all societies of the world. These elements of drama abound in traditional festivals, rituals, dances, songs, ceremonies, recitals, music, drumming, praise songs, incantations, and other traditional creative displays. These aesthetics of drama and theatre are drawn from ever robust traditional and autochthonous heritages and are important in the cultural development of a people. However, Ogunbiyi (1981) points to the speculative origins of African traditional theatre and drama.  Apart from the origin, which is largely linked to the struggle between the early African man and nature, the facts today have become profoundly enormous on the existence of African drama and theatre.

From a broad spectrum of analysis, Africa as a continent over the years has endured the epistemological and empirical restraints of the West. This has ranged from philosophy through other fields of study in humanities, and into theatre.  In theatre, the imperialists ensured that standards set through their ‘systematic’ processes became universal (Etherton, 1982), thereby

denying the existence of rich and robust traditionally indigenous theatrical and dramatic aesthetics in Africa. This generated reaction to the years of Western hegemony in Africa and which led to the marginalization, domination and suppression of the cultural and traditional consciousness of Africans. The denigration of Africa’s traditional heritage also parallelled the unholy exploitation of both human and natural resources of the continent, thereby distorting and dislocating the already established oral traditional institutions therein.

African traditional theatre over the years has received varying views from both Western and African literary and anthropological thinkers and critics. For example, Ruth Finnegan (1970), M. J. C Echeruo (1981), Ossie Enekwe (1981), Oyin Ogunba (1978), Wole Soyinka (1976), among others, have viewed African traditional theatre differently. Much of what is embedded in the view by Western-based scholars on this subject has been dismissive of the fact of the existence of dramatic content in African traditional performances. Afrocentric writers started responding literarily in order to salvage the continent from collapse. This is in line with the submission by Mazrui (1996) that though the interplay of Africa’s indigenous cultures with Western civilization

which had political and economic ramifications is fact, the final analysis shows that the central process of the triple heritage has been cultural and civilizational. Hence, there is need to give more attention to African traditional theatre in the face of this civilizational challenge.

This particular ambivalent, if not contemptuous view is not short of the negative side of civilization that concurs with Williams (1977) who argues that this type of civilisation has brought poverty, disorder and degradation to some societies and wealth, order and refinement to others. Africa remains a continent to be deconstructed in order to salvage it from more degradation of its traditional institutions, which once gave it life (Dugga, 2008). This requires a deep understanding of its traditional festival theatre which captures the indisruptible worldview of Africa; which is to a large extent different from those of other continents of the world.

Kafewo (2005) posits that festivals and rituals, as the greatest artistic institutions of Africa, have a strong religious base and that most are attached to a super-natural being or deified ancestors.

This shows how autochthonous and transcendental traditional African theatre is in its form and content. And, obviously, one cannot subject it to the strict canons or parametres of Western theatre. This becomes clear that there is therefore need for an African canon that should capture the essence of traditional African theatre.

Asante (1996) contends that a discussion of an African canon ought to involve four issues: cosmological, axiological, epistemological and aesthetic in nature. ‘Cosmological’ involves the drama of life and death which engages metaphysical dimensions. ‘Epistemological’ issue looks at what constitute knowledge in Africa; ‘axiological’ is the value of truth, while ‘aesthetic’ question explores seven aspects which include polyrhythm, polycentrism, dimensional, repetition, curvilinear, epic- memory and wholism. This goes in line with what has been postulated by Wainaina (2002) on the need to avoid atomism in discussing African mythology; it should be looked at as a whole. These are the bases for a proposed African canon of traditional theatre.

At a time when humanity drifts towards the compression of the frontiers of the world and the intensification of its consciousness as a whole (Robertson, 1992), which is synonymous with a scenario in which there is contestation of ideas, ideologies and philosophies, African festival theatre cannot be left to suffer against the backdrop of established theatre norms in the world. However, Ogunba (1978) observes that there has developed in the continent in the last few years a conscious interest in the past, in dance festival, and in ritual of ethnic groups. This has been directed towards understanding the nature, function and aesthetic values of indigenous, dramatic practice, an appraisal which transcends turning such knowledge into an instrument for narcissistic or racial pride. This is not enough as the real substances are disappearing, thereby putting the traditions on a declining trend.

It also follows that because it has not been properly documented and there are other very corrosive forces competing with its aesthetic value, it may not be holding any sway or attention. This may have also affected the deployment of these aesthetics in theatre, film, and other artistic ventures.

To build the case properly, it is pertinent to capture the opinion of the West about traditional African indigenous festival theatre.  Olaniyan (2007) reminds us that African performance traditions entered the orbit of European discourse and through language supplied operational terms “festival”, “ritual”, and “drama” – primarily as negative examples. He continued by positing that this entrance was marked by condemnation, inferiorization, and general disregard. It was asserted by western scholars and their African cohorts that blacks had no traditions of drama indigenous to them or had traditions which when compared with European and Asian versions are mere “proto-dramatic” or quasi-dramatic,” cretinous forms in a state of developmental arrest

in terms of style, aesthetic canons, formalization of technique and mode of historical transmission.

The view above has been well echoed in Ruth Finnegan’s work Oral Literature in Africa,

published in 1970, in which she argues that how far one can speak of indigenous drama in Africa is not an easy question (Finnegan 1970). This view received the support of African-European trained scholars like M.J.C. Echeruo (1981), Kalu Uka (2000), Abiola Irele (1990), among others, who now belong to the evolutionary school of African theatre.

The above view has been countered by Afrocentric scholars like Wole Soyinka (1976), Ossie

Enekwe (1981), J.P. Clark (1981), Oyin Ogunba (1978), to mention a few, who asserted that African drama is fully dramatic and should not be judged strictly by using Western literary and aesthetic canons which were actually Aristotelian in nature.

In the words of Soyinka (1976):

The persistent search for the meaning of tragedy, for a redefinition in terms of cultural or private experience is, at the least, man’s recognition of certain areas of depth-experience which are not satisfactorily explained by general aesthetic theories; and, of all the subjective unease that is aroused by man’s creative insights, that you reach within the human psyche which we vaguely define as ‘tragedy’ is the most insistent voice that bids us return to our own sources (p.140).

This aptly captures the degree of response to the inferiorization of African indigenous drama that cannot fit the analysis using Western canons. The Western canons are what he refers to above as “…general aesthetic theories…”

Soyinka (1976) also makes it clear that:

The difference which we are seeking to define between European and African Drama as one of man’s formal representations of experience is not simply a difference of style or form, nor is it confined to drama alone. It is representative of the essential differences between two world views, a difference between one culture whose very artefacts are evidence of cohesive understanding of irreducible truths and another, whose creative impulses are diverted by periodic dialectics (p.38).

By this postulation, Soyinka underscores the fact that black African theatre should be evaluated on its own merits as an independent art that has evolved under different circumstances in Africa compared to elsewhere.

However, Africa has continued to face daunting challenges of the decline in the attention given to indigenous oral performances that should be the comparative advantage in today’s globalized world. Right from the period of colonialism, Africans have become increasingly attached to the education and values of European culture, thereby simultaneously alienating themselves from traditional values in traditional African performances and customs. These Western influences have resulted in the decline of some oral performances, which were before now, regarded as channels for moral value acquisition, instruction, stability and cultural development of the people in Africa. For example, in Amo land, performances such as Abin (story-telling), Idagwai (trancedance festival), Ipanga (trumpet music dance) Kusana (harvest festival), among others, are gradually threatened out of existence.

Now, it has become evident that what we are witnessing in Africa is not the evolution or rise of traditional performance modes but rather a wholesale supplanting of these indigenous forms with the metropolitan performance poetics of the West, and the Middle East (Nwaozuzu, 2009). This has been signposted by changes championed by the advancement of technology, religion and modernity which are the attendant features of imperial symbols in Africa. Today, the significance and structure of African traditional performances are markedly changed. The indigenous aesthetic features have been eroded to a large extent as a consequence of infiltration, imposition, distortion, disconnection and also as a result of its lack of documentation.  Waziri

(2009) observes that Amo people for example, have refused to learn and propagate the philosophy of the art of Izara, which is an initiation festival, and to carry on with what their fathers and fore-fathers started. For instance, the emergence and advancement of the movie industry in Nigeria and Africa at large, which would have served to advance and propagate Africa’s indigenous aesthetics, is not doing so. Again, the lacklustre attitudes of parents and their

children today, on theatrical issues of traditional extraction, are gradually and systematically forcing dependence on traditional performances to diminish. In a country where television and video technology have led to the production of television soap operas and home video collection whose contents are replete with paradoxes and mutations that are antithetical to the evolution and development of Africa’s indigenous aesthetics, efforts need to be geared towards combating such

an unpalatable happening.

In a world where every continent and its people are competing for space to project their indigenous aesthetics, ideology, and ideas, Africa seems to be a dump site with the entire stench oozing out of it that is alarming. Lechner (2000) makes the case clearer when he argues that global consciousness does not imply global consensus. In the same vein, Powell (2010), asserts that the world is globalized; implying it is integrated but not harmonized, a single place but diverse, a construct of consciousness but prone to multiplicity and fragmentation.

In an interview, the foremost Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o painted the picture clearly _as

thus:

Whereas you see today people identify themselves with that which is removed from them. That which is them, they don’t want to identify with.

(Cited in Eyoh, 1986, p.112).

This is a contradiction which depicts the same discounting character of a modern Amo youth towards traditional oral performances. There is therefore need to analyze the festival from a theatrical point of view in order to draw more attention to its vitality and potentials for other artistic productions.

The study has paid attention to dramatic and theatrical aesthetics which comprise dance, music/song, setting/arena, properties, costumes, character, spectacle, rhythm, etc. The researcher has identified and analyzed these aesthetics in order to give relevance to them.

Nengel (1989) points out that in most societies, the transition from one age- grade to another is an important occasion celebrated with rituals, dancing with great celebration. He argues that, with the single exception of the Kono, the tradition of all societies on Pengana plains relate. The transition from boys to adults or men is the most important event marked by the circumcision rite generally known as Kumusu. Kumusu is another name for Izara. Nengel (1989) states that, for some of the polities like Sanga, Sheni and Gusu, their Kumusu takes place after four years. Yet for many of them like the Amo, Bujel, Buji, Binawa, Piti, Rukuba and Tariya, their Kumusu is regularly performed at an interval of seven years, and among the Jere people, it is after eight years.

According to Waziri (2009), Izara is a festival that is celebrated to mark the end of circumcision rites in Amo land. It is the grand celebration of the survival of the circumcised children after Kagi feast. The feast is usually the moment of seclusion where the initiates are separated from the parents and other people. It happens in the sixth year before Izara in the seventh year. This clearly shows that Izara takes place once in seven years. The celebration is marked by singing, dancing, drumming and glamour (Waziri, 2009).

1.1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMO PEOPLE

Geographically, the Amo people, also known as Amap, are found between latitude 10 N and longitude 8 E. Amo are currently concentrated in the North Central region of Nigeria, (Middle Belt Region). Amo people who speak the Timap language are predominantly farmers surrounded by high, fertile plains/hills/peaks for farming. These hills contain caves formerly used as hideouts and abodes during tribal wars. Some of these caves have been used as shrines where worshippers of the Nchill (cult) go for propitiation, divination and worship. From the foot of the mountain/ peak of the ancestral home of the Amo ethnic group at Kamari, one can see fertile bushes and lands at Baban Fadama, Rafin-Gora, to Dan- Lahaji in Kaduna State, as well as undulating landscape marked by rocks, greenish farm lands and settlements of the Amo people.

The Amo people have tribal/ facial marks, which were used for identification during wars. The way this scarification was done was not the same among the ethnic groups in Plateau and Kaduna States in Nigeria. According to Capro (2004), the tribal marks of the Amo were similar to those of the Jere, Buji, Lemoro and Gusu, but not cut as deeply into the skin. The similarity was probably because the ethnic nationalities saw themselves as brothers and sisters who would protect one another at such moments of wars.

In his, The Amap People of North Central Nigeria: A Historical Perspective, Waziri (2009) uses oral accounts and written sources to trace the origin of the Amo (Amap) people, which reveal that they originated from the Middle East and passed through Niger Republic to Sokoto and on to Kano. It was from Kano that they migrated to Karreh and straight to Pingel, finally reaching the present cradle- the Amo peak, Ulura or Kupara. Kini, according to these sources, was coined from Kinan (Canaan) in the Middle East.

However, these accounts have been discredited by historians. One of the reasons is lack of strong linguistic and cultural affinity between the people living in Central Nigeria and the Middle East; so this version is not substantially reliable. According to Ibrahim (1994), this myth of eastern origins is a post-Jihad phenomenon. It was a social distinction of the district, village and ward heads to legitimize their rule by tracing their origins to the East.

The second reason for the myth of eastern origins is to establish a link with the East, the Biblical cradle of civilizations and the origin of Christianity and Islam, both of which are dominant religions in the area. This version has been popularized by most religious leaders.

The more acceptable historical account of the origins of the Amo people has come from historians which this study subscribes to. Gunn (1953) traces the origins of the Amo to Gba, ancient archeological site on the Bauchi plain, known as Kondon Kaya.  Kondon Kaya was occupied by Amo and other neighbouring ethnic groups that included Jere, Buji, Rukubu and Lemoro.

Also, according to Nengel (1989), the Amo people came from an ancient settlement known as Aturu. Ancient Aturu was a settlement situated near a spring among huge granite rocks, some twenty kilometres to the north of present Jos town along Zaria Motor Park. The settlement found on the hill from a panoramic view of the country side possibly offered natural fortification to the Pengana highlands. The Amo were descendants of an indigenous population of great antiquity in the Pengana highlands, whose origin was from Aturu.  The area once flourished as a big town called Apeh, where farming and hunting were the livelihood of its inhabitants. After the Ukara Gonchake war destroyed Aturu, its leader named Aturu escaped with his horse into a nearby cave which its inhabitants, the Amo, Buji and others dispersed and founded new settlements in the adjacent hills.

With the dispersal of ancient Aturu, the Amo, on leaving Aturu with their leader Kimap, went further west; this time around as a result of the war with the Hausas of Zaria or Zazzau and the ones in Kano. The Amo fought victoriously and even rescued their friends, the Rukuba among many others. It is a fact that during the war, the Hausas could not penetrate Plateau through the northern part where the Amo people were on guard. The renowned warriors of the Amo who spearheaded the attacks against the Hausas were Adanah and Katura. This fact has been buttressed by Nengel (1989) when he says that the major campaign of Yero Zazzau into the Pentana Highlands was met with defeat. The Amo and Janji defeated Yero’s forces that even

Muhammed of Lere narrowly escaped being killed by Jere and Amo in 1987. This was one of the reasons why the Amo people came down from the hilltops and are now in Lere and parts of Kaduna and Kano states; while the majority of the people are in Kides and Kitara Districts. This has now become the abode of the Paramount Ruler and the domain of the District Heads. Also important is the fact that as the Amo people went through these experiences, they still maintained their traditional practices. They came down with those practices from the hill tops to continue with them till today, and Izara initiation festival was among them.

The map below shows the location of study. It shows Nigeria, Plateau State, Bassa L. G. C., and

Amo District.

FIGURE 2.1 The Map of Bassa Local Government Area, Showing Amo District, the location of study (Map sketched by a cartographer from Geography Department, Kenyatta

University)

1.2 Statement of Problem

African traditional festival theatre which is supposed to be one of the fulcrums of unique and robust artistic production in Africa has not been well appreciated and understood. Its dramatic status has been challenged by Western cultural and anthropological scholars with their African sympathizers. Despite the rich dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of traditional African festivals, they have suffered from total or partial denial because they have been subjected to strict assessment using Western dramatic canons. There is therefore need for African canons that should look at issues of cosmology, epistemology, axiology and aesthetics, in order to give primacy to traditional African theatre within a complex world of today.

Consequently, this denial and lack of clear understanding of the unique existence of viable traditional drama in Africa has been aggravated by issues arising from the terrain of indeterminacy in artistic production today. These issues which include syncretism, consumerism, pastiche, bricolage, aporia and the impact of the new media, have further affected the prominence of traditional African theatre which ought to be the pride of Africa. This implies that at this stage, what is gained or lost about Izara festival as a result of the present state of indeterminacy and the complex scenario of artistic productions is not known.

Hence, this study is an attempt at establishing and analyzing the dramatic aspects of Izara festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria as a way of restoring its historical and cultural glory.

1.3 Research Objectives

1. To establish and analyze the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara traditional festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria.
2. To investigate the role of performance in enunciating the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara traditional festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria.
3. To determine the socio-cultural significance of the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara traditional festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria as communicative

features.

1.4 Research Questions

1. What are the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara traditional festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria?
2. What is the role of performance in enunciating the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria?
3. What are the communicative and socio-cultural functions of Izara traditional festival of Amo people of North Central Nigeria?

1.5 Significance of Study

This study falls under the oral performances of the Amo people and their changing patterns. It is significant in the following ways:

1. The study can enrich our understanding of Amo traditional aesthetics as it serves to expand our literary knowledge of ritual drama.
2. The study is a document containing the performance of Izara festival with its dramatic and theatrical aesthetics teased out to benefit Amo people, theatre artists, and literary artists and for anthropological studies.
3. The study has suggested ways of promoting oral performances so that they will be relevant even within their changing forms. This is in view of the fast and rapid advancement in modern technology signposted by globalization.
4. This oral performance if documented can serve effectively in educating, instructing and conscientizing the people on important socio-cultural, political and economic issues confronting African society.
5. The study is significant for endangered languages to take note and plan on how to contend challenges enveloping language in performances in the new world.
6. The rising film industry can benefit from the research in the sense that it can sensitize film makers on the availability of raw materials in traditional African theatre that can draw more market for the African film industry.

1.6 Rationale of Study

This study lays claim to the fact that the African traditional festival theatre, which is predominantly oral in form and content, is declining due to imperialistic mediation of the West, its lack of documentation and other phenomenal changes both within Africa and around the world. This unfavourable situation can be captured through the analysis of the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics (elements) of Izara festival which seems to be on the decline. Obviously, a tradition within other cultures is always fluid, in the sense that it gives out and also receives. But there is need to retain the vital aspects of a particular festival, without which the festival ceases to be what it claims to be.

However, traditional African theatre has survived in spite of the intrusion of modern culture and theatre from outside Africa. Several African communities and cities still hold on to their traditional treasure of entertainment and education which has been passed down from generation to generation. Cabral (1970) argues that people who free themselves from foreign domination will be culturally free only if they appreciate the importance of positive borrowing. He adds that this way, they will return to the upward paths of their culture, which is nourished by the reality of its environment, and which negates harmful influences and subjection to foreign culture. This is because tradition, as an enduring part of culture, no matter its idealistic or ideological inclination, is important to a people’s history.

Olaniyan (2007) asserts that Africa is home to several traditions of theatre, conceived as an ensemble of culturally marked and consciously staged practices in space and time, as well as before an audience. Many of these traditions are of ancient origin, while others emerged with formal European colonization of the continent in the nineteenth century, and the subsequent imposition of Western education, religion and culture. The older traditions are mostly nonscripted, improvised, and performed in indigenous African languages. The conception of this theatre space is fluid.

The importance of traditions to a people, not only as theatre and drama, means a lot to their identity, freedom and development, justifies the need for Izara festival performance of the Amo people of North Central Nigeria to be documented. This is also a response to the plea by Waziri

(2009) that there is need for Amo National Development Association (AMONDA) to constitute a team of Amo researchers to conduct an in-depth research into the traditions and culture of the Amo people so that the language and traditions of Amo do not go extinct like those of the Sheni ethnic group.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The study has concentrated on the theatrical and dramatic aspects of the festival while taking into cognizance the relationship of the festival to other aspects of the life of Amo people. Amo people are concentrated in two states of the North Central region of Nigeria namely: Plateau and Kaduna, but the paramount ruler who happens to be the custodian of culture, traditions and customs of Amo people is in Bassa Local Government Council (L. G. C.) of Plateau State, Nigeria. So the concentration is more in the Plateau State than in the other state.

The researcher has given critical attention to the concept, functions (religious, adjudicative and socio-cultural), and the dramatic and theatrical aspects (language, dialogue, dance, music/song, audience response, arena/setting, plot, character, imagery, make-up, properties, etc) of the festival. The researcher has also looked at the contemporary importance of the Izara traditional festival and its potentials for further artistic exploration by literary theatre and film makers.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

One of the limitations of this study stems from the fact that this researcher was not a member of the Traditional Council and so he had to rely on information or data from practitioners and custodians of Izara festival. The informants themselves relied on the oral tradition and who had the likelihood of losing some details in the process. They could forget certain issues or refuse to divulge them based on the oath taken to keep and protect the standards of details of the practice.

For example, nobody is allowed to visit the children/boys during the period of their seclusion at Kagi feast. It therefore meant that this researcher could not be allowed to observe live the happenings at Kagi, in order to make a statement about it. He had to rely on verbal information from informants. This was not quite different from the experience of similar to Green (1987), while researching the Ivorian masking traditions. She opens up that being a female, she was not allowed access to the sacred forest and so she could not see the Gban masks, or learn about rituals associated with them.

Also important in the limitations faced is the dearth of written or archival materials on Izara festival. Not much has been written on Izara in order to see their views on the artistic vivacity of the festival. It is always not easy being the first to lay claim to such an initiative. If there were existing documents on the artistic or theatrical potentials or aspects of Izara, one could differ or make the existing views give clearer sense like the case with festivals and ritual ceremonies like the Egungun, Ekpe, Sharo/Shadi, Argungu Fishing festival among other ones. But only scanty historical materials are in existence which has not fairly covered the performances of Izara.

Importantly too in the challenges that affected the study is the time granted during interviews and focus group discussions which was too limited at some times. This directly concerns influential informants like Ogomo Pengana, District Heads and other minor chiefs of the festival because of their tight schedules/engagements. They are the custodians of the tradition and so they have more information than other people in the communities about the festival. Even during the focus group discussions, the ordinary practitioners had to listen to the aged ones or the title holders within the group. This made the researcher to see the title holders more than once because he needed more information from them. Some of them would not grant the researcher a second opportunity for interaction. It was to some extent frustrating and demoralizing.

Lastly, one wonders at the level of corruption in Nigeria that has permeated even into the villages. Informants hoarding information because they wanted to be given money was incredible to believe. Some of the informants would even be bold enough to tell the researcher to his face that without money or local brew, he should not expect any information from them. One wonders whether such a demoralizing request was to appease the gods or to pour libation on the land for propitiation.

1.9 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

1.9.0 Introduction

This aspect briefly reviews some of the literature regarding the concept and debate on the presence of indigenous drama and theatre in Africa. The section touches on the peculiar worldview of Africa which shapes its indigenous drama and theatre. It also shades light on the dramatic and theatrical aspects to which attention has been paid to in this study. At the end, the section briefly analyzes the three theories that have been used in this study.

1.9.1 Concept and Debate on African Traditional Drama and Theatre

Africa is a continent that is rich and robust in its traditional heritage with so much pride attached to the display of these indigenous oral performances. In Traditional Africa, the great artistic institution is the festival. Contrary to popular understanding, the festival is not just a religious occasion; if it were, it would hardly command more than a fraction of the interest it generated among the people (Ogunba, 1978). Festivals provide the major substance of African oral literature which today has gained critical attention from well meaning scholars and artistes all over the world. From the late nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, African traditional festivals were looked upon with disdain. They were denied their place as full flown drama and theatre capable of even securing spaces in the academic curriculum of institutions of learning. Unfortunately, this dismal view came from outside of Africa and has been supported by mostly artistic scholars trained in the west whom today are exponents of the evolutionary school.

Finnegan (1976) in her highly famous critical work, Oral Literature in Africa, argues thus:

Though some writers have very positively affirmed the existence of native African drama (Traore 1958, Delafosse 1916), it would perhaps be truer to say that in Africa, in contrast to the Western Europe and Asia, drama is not typically a wide-spread or a developed form. There are, however, certain dramatic and quasi-dramatic phenomena to be found, particularly in parts of West Africa (p.485).

This definitely was the beginning of highly critical debate on the existence of a separate African drama and theatre in Africa. Finnegan gave illustrations and examples of different performances and narratives in Africa that lacked either the dramatic structure and form of Western drama or the linguistic content in response to Maurice Delafosse and Bakare Traore (Finnegan, 1970), and so many others who at one forum  or in one article mentioned the facts of an African drama and theatre. Delafosse (1916) notes that he heard griots recite stories in which their heroes were made to speak stories which, in their hands, came alive in theatrical scenes with several characters played by a single narrator. This was the case of a story-telling performance which was also dramatic.

Much more dramatic is the traditional festival that is fully dramatic not necessarily in the sense of the west that would insist on a particular structure, form and content which even historically had not been static (Enekwe, 1981). The dramatic experience gained by an African in a

traditional African festival is wholistic and communal. It could be religious, ritual, social or even individualistic at some point. This shows that experience is at different levels. This has not been dealt with using practical examples in a festival.

Akporobaro (2012) argues that the artist who performs using of the spoken word is engaged in the same creative process as the modern writer who creates through the written word. He goes further to say that though the oral artist is faced with some constraints which include style and form, he/she should utilize factors such as seeing the performance as an artistic communication, orality as the mode of communication, his personality, his audience, memory and improvisation as factors in his performance. However, Akporobaro apparently excludes the role of dance and songs in a festival.

Akporobaro (2012) also contends that traditional African festivals which are oral performances do provide fertile ground for both elementary institutions and advanced academic exercise. He says that these African cultural institutions are rapidly disappearing and need to be documented and discussed. The numerous angles or frames which can be discussed or analyzed include the religious, philosophical, aesthetic, cultural to the literary and mythological. But this raises a problem knowing the nature of indigenous traditional festival with its institutional embeddedness. For instance, how can one discuss the literary aspect without paying attention to the religious or ritual aspect? This is one of the major points of consideration in this study.

1.9.2 African Traditional Theatre and Religion

Ogunba (1978) posits:

The African is basically religious. He sees spirit in all living objects. The relevance of this dual concept to festival drama is that drama is spirit oriented. Thus, the “festival man” ‘is constantly striving in his performance to approximate a spirit or reflect the spirit behind things (p.41).

The festival theatre is “spirit oriented” because it is believed that the whole performance is

engrossed in some superhuman powers with so many advantages to them.  Ena (2002) asserts that festival, in each Nigerian society, goes beyond the concept of entertainment. In Nigerian society, it becomes instrumental to the process of societal cleansing; retooling and rejuvenation.

Such an occasion is an avenue for seeking help from the supernatural beings believed to control events that are esoteric or inexplicable (for instance, thunder, earthquake and other calamities).

Haralambos (2000) sees a festival as a culture of the common people in pre-industrial societies, which grew from the bottom up, and was a spontaneous autochthonous expression of the people and was shaped, by the people. The spontaneous implies the cosmic and transcendent nature of the festival, while the shaping aspect points to the creativity involved in it. This is a further projection of the view of the West against African indigenous festivals if Haralambos’ argument is to be taken seriously, that they emerged from below, implying it was anti-civilization. But this study is of the view that festival was discovered out of the creative craving of the African at the earliest of times. This helped in ensuring a beneficial relationship between him and the strange environment he found himself.

Kennedy (1973) notes:

In African festival and rituals, the actor is not alienated from the society; he is the sharer of the experience and not the dispenser. The actor is part and parcel of the culture being portrayed; he becomes a complete performer when his speech, mime, music and basic acting style synchronize to create a total life (p.24).

This observation by Kennedy confirms the fact that traditional African festival is a communal drama with the performers seen as fulfilling their religious and societal obligations and not only imitating the misgivings or behaviours of others in the larger society. In such performances, the actors bare their emotions of happiness, sorrow, sordidness, and request; at times, as in Izara festival, that the performers actively participate in the lamentations. It is an expression of life, as Kennedy goes further to say that African theatre is mostly a celebration of life whose language is verbal as well as non-verbal; there is the oral aspect, and its composition is its moment of creation.

The well-choreographed and synchronized dances, and the different body movements and facial expressions constitute the non-verbal aspect, while the songs, incantations, humming, screaming, among others, and form the verbal aspect of the performance (Kennedy, 1973). It can therefore be seen that the traditional African theatre is highly participatory and it is communal and not the product of a single individual, but a composite collectivity of all performing idioms. This is why traditional African festival is better understood within the context of performance itself. These specific aesthetic elements have been captured in Izara performance.

Another paramount area in traditional African festival is that of costuming, masking and makeup. The costume that a performer wears denotes his/her social status and his/her position in the festival and the community at large. Some costumes are not allowed to be worn on ordinary days because of their sacred significance. For example, masking and masquerades play very important roles in festivals or ritual performances. In fact, even the carving of the mask is not done ordinarily. It is a ritual activity (Mitchell, 2006). The carver must be appointed by the gods. Mitchell notes that among the Dan and Ngere groups of Liberia and Cote’d’ivoire, masks with

distinct features represent ancestors, who act as intermediaries for sending petitions or offerings of respect to the gods. These ancestral emissaries use their spirit power to bring order and control to village life. He also mentions the Dogon Awa society which always commemorates the anniversary of a death. The carving of such masks, which is entrusted to blacksmiths, only takes place after prayers have been offered to the tree spirits. After the Daga ritual, the masks are discarded and left on the ground to rot away. If there are rules governing the use of costumes and properties during Izara, this study has looked at the implication or effects of flouting the rules of the use of these costumes and properties during Izara.

Okwori (1998) describes the nature of masquerades as the externalizations of ancestral spirits from somewhere in the cosmos on a temporary sojourn with mortals. This is agreed by Illah (1983) when he maintains that the ancestors are believed to travel back to the living, through the mediant persona to partake and celebrate with their living offsprings in a re-invigoration of their relationship. How these ancestors visit their offsprings is through music which Soyinka (1976) describes as:

…highly charged, symbolic, myth_–embroynic…The forms of music are not correspondences at such moments to the physical world… The singer is a mouthpiece of the chthonic forces of the matrix (p.144).

Asigbo (2009), states that African or Igbo world-view does not conceive of beings in the mould of the Christian devil. Malevolent spirits can be tamed or appeased with music and offerings and bribed into yielding blessings and powers that can prove beneficial to the general well being of humanity. This is confirmed by Chinweizu et’al (1983) in the following statement: “… in

African pantheon, good gods are thanked, difficult ones are appeased, bad ones are bribed, and so on” (p.190).

This means that the Igbo spiritual space is thus conceived as a terrain where nothing is entirely bad as each creature or being has a place in the scheme of things.

Also important is dance which goes with music. Finnegan (1970) observes that one theme that seems to run through almost all African festival performances is the overriding significance of music and dance and secondary significance of the spoken words. This view has been largely compared to Izara festival of the Amo people to ascertain its level of truism. But Finnegan acknowledges the rich tradition in music and dance which form essential elements in dramatic performance.

1.9.3 A Brief Survey of African Traditional Theatre

Africa as a continent has had different levels of development in traditional African festival. The way it has flourished in West Africa has not been the same in East Africa. Nazareth (1978), in his discussion of East African drama, asserts the fact that it is well known that Africa had dramatic forms before the coming of the colonial rulers from Europe. He concedes the fact that West African forms of drama, including religious drama, have survived and have exerted a powerful influence on modern Nigerian dramatists, Wole Soyinka being an outstanding example. Mahood (1973) attests to the existence of traditional forms of drama in East Africa with a particular reference to Kikuyu dances and funeral dances of the Nyakyusa of Tanzania, both of which she takes as examples of African “Pre-drama”.  Rubadiri (1971) points out that in East

Africa, colonialism was an experience which came to envelope everything totally and which, simultaneously, almost stifled any indigenous attempt at expression through the new-acquired language. This became too serious that even indigenous burial rites were disallowed. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (2009) confirms this in his book, Re-membering Africa, when he records how one of the anti-colonial resistance figures, Waiyaki wa Hinga, was buried alive at Kibwezi with his head facing the bowels of the earth in opposition to the Gikuyu burial rites’ requirement that the body

faces Mount Kenya, the dwelling place of their Supreme Deity. This totalitarian colonial administration in East Africa resulted in forcing the aspiring East African dramatist to abandon his indigenous cultural forms only to face dramatic ideals which were totally alien and not even the best (Nazareth, 1978). However, there have been efforts in this region to salvage what the situation has become in East Africa. First, it is Wainaina (2002) who explores into the worlds of Kikuyu mythology by avoiding the atomistic treatment of myth. He looks at myth as a whole and its elements organically connected in order to avoid the phenomenon of paramyth.  Nyarang’o

(2011) analyzes the aesthetics embedded in the Okwaroka, a ritual performed annually by the Abagusii community in Kenya.This ritual is performed during the initiation of boys into adulthood. Were (2014) also, in the same vein, has explored into the initiation ceremony of the Bukusu people as it relates to the Imbalu education. The research was conducted in Sibembe village in Bungoma County using sociological theory. The researcher has attempted a brief survey of some of the initiation festivals across Africa with the aim of finding areas of divergence and convergence with Izara festival of North-central Nigeria.

Leshoai (1978) notes that just as it has been in West Africa, the theatre of black South Africa has its roots in traditional story-telling, poetry, dances, songs,  proverbs, and riddles. These early dramatic styles provided entertainment, education, and spiritual therapy for all members of society. He asserts that these artistic displays usually took place at night around fires or in open spaces, and on ceremonial or festival occasions they would be held outside people’s houses or a

royal residence. But the use of drums and masks in these performances did not develop to the same extent as in other parts of Africa. Leshoai attributes this to the fact that South Africa came under vigorous Christian and Western influence much earlier than most other African countries.

This shows clearly the different levels of challenge that African indigenous festivals have faced.

This is because masking and drumming are essential aspects of traditional festival theatre in Africa but South Africa faced a serious setback in this regard. In Nigeria, for instance, the sound of the drum alone alerts the community of the performance, not to talk about its importance during a performance. Izara is not an exception to the value and role of drumming in a festival performance.

It is evident that colonialism with its attendant negative influences through education, religion and force crippled the robust and rich African indigenous festivals and that was why most social anthropologists and literary scholars wrote to further deny the existence of indigenous drama and theatre in Africa. This is one of the reasons why a lot of literary critics from Africa have doubted the possibility and capabilities of Western literary critics or anthropologists positively appreciating Africa’s indigenous festival theatre. Emenyonu (1971) argues that what many

Western critics issue on African literature is a reflection of a profound lack of knowledge about African cultural traditions coupled with ignorance of the existence, nature and depth of the heritage of African oral literature. In most cases, some vague literary background or a landing on an African soil has not been enough to correct this intellectual imbalance. It is now clear that African literary critics should be seen as the best possible interpreters of their own literature. However, Onoge (1986) advises critics of African drama that the very society of literature requires that criticism goes beyond literature texts, metaphysically conceived as monadic entities; to a dialectical conception which includes the micro and macro structures surrounding their creation as well as appreciation. This recommendation by Onoge has been utilized in this study.

1.10.0 Theoretical Framework

The enterprise of traditional theatre targets meaning at all times. This is the drive that has informed the selection of the theories that have been used in this study. The study has employed three theories in order to undertake this research work proficiently and creditably. They are: performance theory, myth/achetypal literary theory and the structuralist/semiotic approach.

1.10.1 Performance Theory

This study has deployed the theory of performance by Richard Schechner. The choice of this theory is informed by the fact that analysis goes beyond the text not as one finds it in Western drama because an African traditional performance is hinged on the community’s cosmology and ontology. It is the people’s way of existing and surviving. Performance theory, according to

Schechner (2009), is rooted in practice and is fundamentally interdisplinary and intercultural. Apart from being ethnic, intercultural, historical, and ahistorical, performance is also aesthetic and ritualistic as well as sociological and political.

Schechner’s perspective on performance which was greatly influenced by Victor Turner (1988), is broad and inclusive (www.icosilune.com/200901/richardschechner-performance-theory). He views it as including much more than theatre, but along an entire broad spectrum, which ranges from daily life to rituals and art. He draws this theory from his works amongst the Australian Aborigines, the New Guinea tribesmen and the Balinese.

Performance theory uses two models, the fan and the web.  Performance is seen as an organized spectrum of categories and the web reveals the dynamic influences and interconnections among these categories.

For Izara, performance depends on many categories of human activities. It becomes crucial for this study to utilize Schechner’s performance theory. As will be seen in the work especially in Chapter Two, Izara depends on what Amo people do everyday, daily conflicts, tensions and pressure of life, different rites and ceremonies that have been ritualized in the society.

Participants of Izara lament about the general happenings in their lives during the performance. They also sing by praising or praying for male children to enable them to participate in Izara; they pray directly to Kutelle (Almighty God) for blessings.

Performance and its dynamics in Izara have been analyzed elaborately in Chapter Three.

1.10.2 Myth/ Archetypal Theory

This study has also used the myth/archetypal theory because of its emphasis on recurring myths and archetypes within a performance.  Archetypal theorists argue that archetypes generate the form and function of literary works: that the text’s meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths (Abrams, 1999). These recurring myths and archetypes can be seen in narratives, symbols, images, and character types in literary works. An archetype is seen here as a quintessence, essence, model, pattern or a recurring motif in a performance. A myth is seen as not just a traditional story, but a dramatic narrative that explains a natural or social phenomenon. This implies that the recurring archetypes in Izara would be interpreted through the myths surrounding them. The origin of this theory is noted in two academic disciplines of social anthropology and psychoanalysis. It is a fact that each of them contributed to the development of literary criticism, but the theory became popular as a result of the work of a Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye in the 1940s and 50s. Sir James George Frazer’s seminal work, The Golden

Bough, which identifies with shared practices and mythological beliefs between primitive and modern religions, is always referred to. Frazer argues that the death-rebirth myth is present in almost all cultural mythologies, and is acted out in terms of growing seasons and vegetation (Frazer, 1926).

Of the existence of indigenous drama mode, peculiar to Africa which has utilized the myth/archetypal critical scheme, is that projected by Wole Soyinka (1976), in which the cyclicality of the life of the African is described for harmony and essence in the world. Soyinka argues that the past is that of the ancestors, the present belongs to the living, and the future to the unborn; obeying the same laws, suffering the same agonies and uncertainties, employing the same Masonic intelligence of rituals before the perilous plunge into the fourth area of experience in the immeasurable gulf of transition (Soyinka, 2007). Geoffrey Hunt (1986) posits that, for Soyinka, death is the definitive means by which cosmic unity is reasserted and rediscovered, noting that it is the bridge between the physical and the divine aspects of the universe, and that it is through a ritual death that the unity of the two aspects is collectively achieved. Here, the universe that is referred to is that of the African, which is complete and stable if the line of transition is not disrupted.

The study has relied on the postulation of myth/archetypal theory by beaming light on the recurring images, archetypes and myths that guide or dominate the performance of Izara festival. These repeated archetypes, images and myths have been identified and analyzed within the context of the performance, and their implications ascertained thereafter.

1.10.3 The Structuralist/Semiotic Approach

Structuralism is the reference to a wide range of discourses with underlying structures of signification. Signification occurs wherever there is a meaningful event in the practice or in the practice of some meaningful action, hence, the phrase “signifying practices” (Williams

www.courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/structuralism.htm2009). Most, if not all meaningful events involve either a document or an exchange that can be documented. This is called a “text”.

From the point of view of structuralists, all texts, all meaningful events and all signifying practices can be analyzed for their underlying structures. Such an analysis would reveal the patterns that characterize the system that makes such texts and practices possible. Structuralism is a theory of human kind in which all elements of human culture, including literature, are thought to be parts of a system of signs. Melrose (1994) argues that a sign is a reality perceivable by sense perception which has a relationship between fundamental principle elements in language, literature, and other fields upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, or cultural “structures” and “structural networks” are drawn. Through these networks, meaning is

produced within a particular person, system, or culture. This meaning then frames and motivates the actions of individuals and groups (Microsoft Encarta, 2009).

The two best known structuralists, Vladmir Propp (2003) and Claude Levi Strauss(1972) are the modern theorists in the most influential and exciting perspective to emerge in the 1960s in American folklore. For Propp and his fellow proponents, structural analysis could represent the social context and linguistic as well as the folklore text, construct cultural preferences, predict acculturative and psychological studies. Claude Levi Strauss (1972) based his own structural analysis on the linguistic theory which relies on the sorting out of narrative features in the myth to reveal the inherent structure (Olatunde 2004).

Another theoretical approach which this study has used that is closely related to structuralism is semiotics or semiology. This theory has been championed by Ferdinand de Saussure (1983),

Roland Barthes (1992), Susan Melrose (1994), Elam Keir (2002), Patrice Pavis (1984), Umberto

Eco (1990), among many others, especially as it relates to theatre and oral performances. Eco (1990) argues that semiotics is not concerned with the study of a particular kind of object but with ordinary ones insofar as they participate in semiosis. This means that in semiotics, people agree on the fact that words, pictures, objects, actions, space are signs insofar as they are intentionally produced by human beings in order to communicate. For example, in performance, a performer’s body alone with its conventionally recognizable properties, surrounded by or

supplied with a set of objects, inserted within a physical space, stands for something else to a reacting audience. The space is a material plane and its expressions are concrete things. Eco (1990) further says:

Something is a sign only because it is interpreted as a sign of something by some interpreter when it communicates with the audience, offering meanings and provoking responses, it does so by tangible means; it produces signs, cultural constructs which are read using equally culturally interpretive strategies (p,119).

It means that in oral performance, the stage is well defined. The drummers, singers, fluters, dancers, griot and audience are situated in a designated space meant for the performance. The performer himself/herself is an icon- a real human being who has become a sign par excellence.

In the same vein, Esslin (1990) as cited by Tadeusz Kowzan (1992), one of the leading theatre semioticians of the present, has isolated thirteen sign systems at work in a theatrical performance: words, voice inflection, facial mimicry, gesture, body movement, make-up, head dress, costumes, accessory, stage design, lighting, music and noise. Each one of these systems has logic in itself. Kowzan, like many other semioticians, rightly pointed out that the object of theatrical semiotics is the performance. It means that, it is in performance that semiotics is achieved and meanings are communicated. The semioticians contend that meaning is not given and does not existoutside the context of performance. It is mediated, produced, or constructed from a complex of words, gesture, objects and context. All these collectively culminate in creating meaning in live performances; especially as they affect oral performances.

This study has used performance theory to include parts of the festival that are beyond text and Western analytical limits. It has also used myth/ archetypal theory to analyze Izara festival from the purview of the structuralist theory of arriving at signification, and has ended up with signs and meanings of the semioticians. While myth/archetypal theory has aided in identifying the recurring images, motifs, myths and archetypes, structuralist/ semiotic approach has interrogated signifying structures and meanings in Izara performance with the aim of teasing out the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics together with the socio-cultural functions.

1.11.0 Research Methodology

1.11.1 Methodology

A study of this nature requires more than one approach especially because of the fact that there is a dearth of documented materials on Izara festival. This study has adopted the qualitative research method also paying attention to a historical approach to gathering data.  Crossman (2013) sees qualitative research as an exercise involving fieldwork, in which the researcher observes and records behaviour and events in their natural setting. The researcher physically goes to the people, setting, or site, to observe the subject as it normally and naturally occurs or behaves. Guazzo (2008) asserts that qualitative methodology is used by researchers in the study of human behaviour, and may be used in addition to or in place of quantitative methods. He continues that the use of qualitative methods by researchers allows the researcher to obtain a rich set of data that is not easily obtainable with the use of quantitative methods. Qualitative methods encompass a variety of methodologies including observation, interviewing, document analysis, and archival document analysis. Basically, this research has deployed some of these methods of data collection and analysis.

Eguzoikpe (2008) views historical method of research as the study of “what was” and use it to compare with “what is”, that is the past and the present. It digs into the past, compares it with the

present and uses the knowledge to predict the future.  Osuala (1982) also asserts that historical research may be considered as embracing the whole field of human past as broad as life itself. This study is rural-based where the researcher collaborated with some Izara performers and the authorities in charge of the performance in some selected rural areas which are within the Amo linguistic communities for the acquisition of vital information on Izara festival and its dramatic and theatrical aspects. For this researcher to gain access to vital information about the past and present regarding this work, he has relied heavily on both primary and secondary sources. To facilitate the research process, the following data collection procedures have been employed and subsequently analysis has been conducted.

1.11.1 Research Design

According to Mason (2007), in qualitative research, decisions about research design and strategy are ongoing and grounded in the practice, process, and context of the research itself. There is still need for a design and strategy which depend on the context and the process of the particular research one is carrying out. This is because it is the logic that informs, not dictates, researcher’s decisions as the research progresses.

This study has been descriptive and observational because these are flexible. This has allowed for more freedom during data collection to go in-depth in obtaining vital information. These strategies have also been used because the variable of study which is tradition is not stable and has put the research in the grouping of ethnographic studies.

The researcher has adopted confirmatory and observational methods because they aid in answering the research questions asked and in achieving objectives set in the study. Gorard (2013) argues loosely that if you know what you are looking for, you should be very confident when and where you will find it; accordingly, you only accept a result as significant if it is highly unlikely to have been observed by chance. All these strategies depend on the instrumentality of interviews, focus group discussion and observations done during data collection.

1.11.2 Sample Size

According to Mugenda & Mugenda (2003), a sample size of between 10% and 30 % is a fair representation of a target population. This was not workable in this study considering the fact that the population of Amo people which in 2003 was placed at two hundred thousand people has greatly increased now (Capro Research, 2004).   This would imply that ten percent of two hundred thousand would be twenty thousand and this would be on the higher side. The festival involves almost all Amo people. Alternatively, this study used a disproportionate stratified sampling since the researcher did not want the same sample fraction for all strata (Guthrie, 2010). A sample size of fifty-six people was used because the location of study is a village setting in which most people are all-season farmers. Moreover, there was an already existing traditional structure of administration in the location which has been utilized. Therefore, the researcher interviewed thirty-two respondents cut across age-grades, gender, and social status. These custodians of knowledge comprised of the two only Chief Priests of Izara (one from Kides and the other from Kitara Districts), the paramount ruler of Pengana Chiefdom, the two only

District Heads of Amo ethnic group, the seven only Minor Chiefs in charge of seven Amo peaks;

, Amo National Development Association (AMONDA) President, five women (two each from Kides and Kitara Districts of Amo, and the Woman-leader of AMONDA); because of dearth of the aged people, five octogenarians/septuagenarians were interviewed. In addition, ten youths from the two districts of Amo (five each from Kides and Kitara) were also interviewed.

Also, the researcher organized focus group discussions with two goups. These comprised of twelve people each for Kides and Kitara Districts. These discussants were drawn from the youths, women and the aged ones in Amo land.

1.11.3 Target Population

This study has been based on a communal practice involving the Amo People in the NorthCentral Nigeria. Capro Research (2004) estimates the population of Amo people to be about two hundred thousand people. The target population included the traditional title holders of Amo ethnic group, aged people (octogenarians and septuagenarians) women, youths and the active participants in the festival.

1.11.4 Sampling Technique

The researcher used stratified sampling technique in order to draw from the respondents’

subjective experiences about Izara festival. A target population can be stratified using predetermined attributes or characteristics such as gender, religion, nationality, age, occupation, social status, education, etc (Eguzoikpe, 2008). This study concentrated on age, gender, religion and social status. The study paid attention to age because the festival was an initiation ceremony involving age-grades and also aged people knew much about it. The festival involves all genders (men and women); it is part of their traditional belief which could be hierarchical in its administration. This is why social status and religion were also paid attention to. In-depth interviews were conducted with respondents on the basis of these attributes using English, Amo or Hausa language.

1.11.5 Location of the Study

The study covered Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State and Lere Local Government

Area of Kaduna State in Nigeria. Geographically, Amo people are found between latitude 10 degrees North and longitude 8 degrees East. The paramount ruler of Pengana, two District Heads of Amo, Izara Chief Priests, Minor Chiefs, among the other stakeholders of the festival were situated in these two Local Government areas in Nigeria.

1.11.6 Research Instruments

The research instruments used for this study included interview schedule, focus group discussions (FGD) and observation schedule. The variable was the human factor since it is a qualitative research method.

1.11.6.1 Interview Schedule

The study was based in rural communities. Hence, this researcher conducted interviews with different individuals in order to extract vital information to facilitate the research process. These interviews have helped in getting first- hand information from the interviewees on the festival. The interviews took two forms, unstructured and focus. These were unstructured implying the less formal type in which although sets of questions may be used, the interviewer freely modifies the sequence of questions, changes the wording and sometimes explains them or adds to them during interaction (Godfred, 2014). While Focus interview as the name suggests, focuses on the respondent’s subjective responses and experience on the subject to elicit information.

1.11.6.2 Focus Group Discussion

Another instrument that was used to generate data was focus group discussion. This helped in harnessing standardized data and prompts from the respondents. As an ensemble performance that requires the researcher to harness information that touches on the collective experiences of the people, the study has used focus group discussion. Focus group as a qualitative research method has been used to get perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes toward a concept, idea or a practice. As pointed out by Wilkinson (2004), focus group discussion is a way of collecting qualitative data, which essentially involves engaging a small number of people in an informal group discussion focused around a particular topic or set of issues. In the study, a set of twelve people each from Kitara and Kides districts was engaged in focus group discussions in order to draw data about Izara festival. These groups ranged from youths, women and the aged ones in

Amo land to elicit data from them. This is in line with the postulation of Krueger & Casey (2000) that focus group helps in accessing and synthesizing the perceptions, ideas, opinions and thoughts of people about any practice or idea.

1.11.6.3 Observation Schedule

Observation was another instrument that was used in this study. This researcher recorded sessions of Izara performance on compact discs (CDs) and took photographs for further scrutiny. This is because the composite of audio and visual data were vital to this research because it is a performance. The researcher used an audio- visual recorder for a complete collection of a comprehensive record of the performance.

Osuala (1982) posits that oral traditions are valuable vehicles for preserving and transmitting valued knowledge of religious, philosophical and moral truth from one generation to another. So it is pertinent for the study to also observe some oral traditions like myths, proverbs, riddles and songs in order to ascertain their relationship with the Izara and music.

1.11.6.4 Documented Literature

Documented materials and archival literature on Amo Izara festival and its allied concepts by scholars have been reviewed. The views obtained from existing books, journals, archival materials and other related materials on Izara performance, published and unpublished have been analyzed and implications drawn.

1.11.7 Validity and Reliability

Validity and reliability are related to abstracts and the intangible because measurement differs in the social science and arts (Carnines and Zeller, 1979).  In many instances, the meaning of the quantities is only inferred.

At a very broad level, the types of measure can be observational, self-report, interview, etc. Nunnally (1978) points out that these types ultimately take a shape of a more specific form like observation of on-going activity, observing video-taped events, self-report measures like questionnaires, and interviews. Each measure has an issue or a task to make it meaningful, accurate and efficient. In order to achieve these, the researcher has stuck to the meanings of validity as the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure (Carnines and Zeller, 1979); and reliability which is the degree to which a test consistently measures whatever it measures (Gay, 1987). All these have been achieved in a qualitative mode of research.

1.11.8 Data Analysis

The data gathered through interviews, focus group discussion, observation and documented literature have been objectively analyzed using, heuristically, the theoretical approaches by structuralists and semioticians of arriving at truth by a way of studying the underlying structures of the performance for meaning. This has been done within the periscope of the relativists who assert that there is drama in abundance in traditional African festival performances. These approaches, used judiciously, have led to teasing out the dramatic and theatrical aesthetics of Izara festival and have further attested to the truth of the existence of traditional festival theatre on the African continent.

1.11.9 Logistical and Ethical Consideration

The researcher got an introductory letter from Kenyatta University in order to enable him access the research location through the gate-keepers (paramount ruler and other chiefs). Normally in Nigeria, a researcher just needs to present such a letter to the paramount rulers and he/she would be given access to the research location. But one would be cautioned to conduct themselves properly according to the laws of the land. Such was the scenario the researcher went through. The researcher also sought the consent of the participants and assured them of confidentiality before data collection.

Conclusions

African traditional theatre and drama can be understood from the stand point of the relativist school that requires African indigenous drama to be judged on its own credit. This implies assessing its aesthetics and credibility on the basis of the context of performance of the festival tradition. If this is carried out judiciously, it shows that African indigenous drama is capable of engendering more artistic variety in African theatre and film, and also projecting superior identity and image for Africa in a globalized world.

As it has been discussed in the next chapter, it is an exposition into the peculiar performance tradition of the Amo people, and this is one out of the many of artistic heritages of the African people. The next chapter reveals a view of the systematic and organic nature of Izara performance, and that all aspects have meanings that are linked to the ontology and cosmology of the Amo people.

 

 

THE DRAMATIC AND THEATRICAL AESTHETICS OF IZARA TRADITIONAL INITIATION FESTIVAL OF AMO PEOPLE OF NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

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