African Journal of Culture, History, Religion and Traditions ISSN: 2997-3171 Volume 7, Issue 3, 2024 (pp. 57-65) 58 Article DOI: 10.52589/AJCHRT-Z88RJMA3 DOI URL: https://doi.org/10.52589/AJCHRT-Z88RJMA3 www.abjournals.org ABSTRACT: Ikpe clan is a sub-tribe in the Ibibio ethnic group in Nigeria. They believe in and worship the Esieri Ikpe deity, with an annual new yam festival structured into eight separate days of celebrations between July and October. It is embedded with a lot of ritual sacrifices, traditional rites and celebrations. The festivals are role-shared amongst the women, young adults, the Ete-Idung and traditional council members. Yam plays a central place in all that they do, as it is believed that the celebration will usher in more blessings and bumper harvests in the New Year. Through the participant’s observation and oral interview, the study seeks to uncover the symbolic methods of serving the gods and their pattern of new yam celebrations. However, some parts of the culture have been altered due to time, socialisation, education and poor economy, but its significance is still very relevant. KEYWORDS: Ibibio, Ikpe, Yam, Festival, Rituals, Esieri Ikpe Deity. TRADITIONAL CULTURE OF THE IBIBIO: A CHRONICLE OF THE IKPE NEW YAM FESTIVAL Udom E. Akankpo Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Email: efiong_udom@uniport.edu.ng Cite this article: Akankpo, U. E. (2024), Traditional Culture of the Ibibio: A Chronicle of the Ikpe New Yam Festival. African Journal of Culture, History, Religion and Traditions 7(3), 57-65. DOI: 10.52589/AJCHRT- Z88RJMA3 Manuscript History Received: 13 Aug 2024 Accepted: 27 Oct 2024 Published: 1 Nov 2024 Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits anyone to share, use, reproduce and redistribute in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.