Storytelling and Performance in the Ijaw Cultural Tradition of Bayelsa State

This study documents and analyses storytelling and performance traditions within the Ijaw cultural heritage of Bayelsa State, South South Nigeria. The Ijaw people of the Niger Delta possess rich performance traditions that integrate narrative, music, masquerade, and ritual drama. The research investigates the social functions, aesthetic conventions, and transmission mechanisms of Ijaw storytelling and performance, focusing on communities in Yenagoa and Sagbama local government areas. Ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation, video documentation, and in-depth interviews with cultural custodians, performers, and community leaders provided primary data. The study finds that Ijaw storytelling performances serve critical functions including historical transmission, moral education, spiritual invocation, and conflict mediation. Water spirits and communal fishing traditions feature prominently in narrative repertoires, reflecting the Ijaw's intimate cultural relationship with the Niger Delta waterways. The research identifies the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta as a contemporary threat to the vitality of these performance traditions, as ecological disruption weakens community cohesion and performance occasions. The study concludes that urgent documentation and community-centred preservation of Ijaw performance traditions is necessary. Keywords: Ijaw culture, storytelling, performance, Bayelsa State, Niger Delta heritage.