In January 2007, Daniel Etowa Arikpo, a priest-chief in Ugep, Yakurr Local Government Area (LGA), revealed that all the Ledu yam titleholders of his extended family had died. Whenever Ledu passed by their family's compounds, instead of respectfully touching their walking staffs to the ground, the society's members held them aloft. “It brings great shame to my family; I want to change it,” he said.1 Arikpo earned the Ledu title in 2008. Similarly, Ojor Clement Iwara, a barrister and owner of a provision store in Ugep, pursued the Ledu title as a matter of family pride. It pained him that his father had tried for the title but could not complete it. He sought to restore his father's honor and safeguard the Ledu tradition. Iwara gained the Ledu title in 2002.2 The Ledu title, considered the “highest title of the land,”3 requires a farmer to accumulate significant...
Ledu: A Prestigious Yam Title and Its Roots (Middle Cross River Region, Nigeria) Unavailable
Gitti Salami was a professor of African art history at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, and currently assists the curatorial staff of the Ethnologisches Museum, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. She has published numerous articles on Yakurr culture and coedited the 2013 volume, A Companion to Modern African Art. [email protected]
Gitti Salami was a professor of African art history at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, and currently assists the curatorial staff of the Ethnologisches Museum, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. She has published numerous articles on Yakurr culture and coedited the 2013 volume, A Companion to Modern African Art. [email protected]
all photographs by the author, Collection EEPA 2021-003, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, except where otherwise noted
Gitti Salami; Ledu: A Prestigious Yam Title and Its Roots (Middle Cross River Region, Nigeria). African Arts 2025; 58 (2): 54–64. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR.a.15
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