The Harvest Festivals in Africa

In Africa, the harvest festivals have a lot of religious connotations. Dancing and singing are a special part during the festival. People who take part in dances wear traditional masks and outfits. Each dance sequence unfolds a unique story.
The Festival of Yams is a popular harvest festival. Yams are the most common food and are the first crops to be harvested. image: http://www.theholidayspot.com/thanksgiving/around_the_world/images/homowo-festival.jpg
This festival is celebrated with days of ceremonies and offerings to God and the ancestors. The offerings are later distributed among the village folk. This is their way of giving thanks to the spirit. The festival is usually held in the month of August, marking the end of rainy season.
The Homowo Festival is the largest cultural festival of Africa. The people of Ghana (West Africa), celebrate it as a traditional harvest festival. The festival starts with a procession in  which people from local African and African-American takes part assuming the roles of kings and queens. They also assume themselves as the follower of the royal family of each of Ghana’s ethnic groups.
The people of Africa hold a cultural ceremony called “first fruits” in order to bless the newly harvested crops and purify the people before they eat the foods.