Idoma Totemic Aesthetic Worship: A Tourism Proposition

Abstract

This erudition tartans the level of community networks in totemic aesthetics/cultural tourism and how it affects the artistic/cultural leisure industry in Benue State, Nigeria.  The erudition examines the breakthrough in the usage of totems of worship in the reform of the village-size cults of the Idoma as an example. The paper utilized the theory of demand and supply and the consumer culture theory as the basis of its theoretical resource structure. Stratified sampling technique was employed to select three local government headquarters in the study area. Two communities were randomly selected from each of the local government area headquarters. The questionnaire served as data collection instrument for the study, four hundred and twenty-one (421) questionnaires containing closed-ended questions were administered to the inhabitants of the study area, the data collected instruments posit were subjected to both descriptive and inferential analysis.  Results confirmed that peoples have not been actively involved in the modification of indigenous projects, and this abandonment, yet, had abridged the morale of people in participating enthusiastically in totemic artistic/cultural activities. Besides, government had not been actively involved in the cultural and totemic artistic leisure industry (tourism) sector, aligned and assertions had been placed on eco-tourism thereby, disregarding the scholarly, totemic-arty activities aspects of leisure industry. The erudition proposed a bottom-top approach towards scholarly, totemic/ artistic activities, that is, people who are the curators of the culture ought to be voted for along in any of the developmental projects. They should also be made aware on the reimbursements involved in sustaining these artistic (totemic worship) articles and how it can help in navigating and invigorating tourism, which will in turn, serve as tools for local development in the study area. The erudition will be of high relevance that will sway the policy makers, will provide conferences of orientation for erudite guidance.