EMBODIED TRADITION; AN ETHNOCULTURAL STUDY OF DANCE, MUSIC,AND RITUAL PERFORMANCE AMONG THE AMO, NGAS, AND TAROK

Abstract

This study examines the artistic performance traditions of the Amo, Ngas, and Tarok ethnic groups of Plateau State, Nigeria, with particular emphasis on their aesthetic structures, ritual functions, and cultural meanings. Adopting a qualitative ethnographi c approach, the study employed participant observation, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and audio-visual documentation to investigate three major performance traditions: Izara (Amo), Murghi (Ngas), and Ilum O'ga Gani (Tarok). The findings reveal that these artistic traditions function as indigenous forms of "total theatre," integrating music, dance, masquerade, costume, oral performance, symbolism, and spatial organisation into unified systems of cultural communication. The Amo Izara festival demonstrates a cyclical dramaturgy rooted in rites of passage and personal narrative expression. The Ngas Murghi festival is organised around an elaborate masquerade tradition that symbolically represents authority, fertility, communal purification, and ancestral presence. In contrast, the Tarok Ilum O'ga Gani festival emphasises martial aesthetics, heroic performance, and the public construction of communal identity and social recognition. Despite their distinctive cultural expressions, the three traditions share common functions as mechanisms for preserving indigenous knowledge, transmitting historical memory, reinforcing moral values, sustaining social cohesion, and mediating relationships between the human and spiritual worlds. The study concludes that these performance traditions remain significant repositories of cultural heritage and indigenous epistemologies despite increasing pressures from modernisation, urbanisation, and religious transformation. It recommends strengthened documentation, cultural preservation initiatives, and greater scholarly engagement to ensure their continued relevance for future generations.