Kyegh Sha Shwa

A highly valued Tiv cultural dish made with chicken cooked in ground sesame seeds (beni-seed). It is one of the best-known and most beloved Tiv dishes, strongly associated with cultural identity, celebration, and festive gatherings.

Chicken, sesame seeds (beni-seed / shwa), local spices and seasonings

Chicken is prepared and cooked with ground sesame seeds to form a rich, thick sauce. Local spices are added for depth of flavour.

Served during festivals, celebrations, weddings, and special cultural gatherings. Strongly associated with the annual Kyegh Sha Shwa Cultural Festival held in Makurdi.

So culturally important that it has an annual festival dedicated to it — the Kyegh Sha Shwa Cultural Festival. It is a symbol of Tiv culinary identity and hospitality, served to distinguished guests and at important communal events.

Kyegh sha shwa means chicken (kyegh) in a sauce of sesame, or beniseed (shwa). Writing in The New Times, Denen Achussah describes it as a special Tiv meal that is not offered to everyone: being served it marks a guest as special, and a visitor who eats a well-made one will often ask who cooked it and give her a token of thanks. The dish gave its name to the Kyegh Sha Shwa Cultural Festival, started in 2015 by Rev. Fr. Solomon Ukeyima, who chose it partly to revive the growing of beniseed.

Beniseed has long been part of Tiv farming. Akiga Sai, writing in 1935, describes it being sown after the guinea corn harvest, on land that women and children had weeded and burned. A field that had carried beniseed was called tsa-kurkur. He also notes that beniseed, once grown mainly for soups, had become an important cash crop, and describes women frying beniseed, grinding it and pounding it with palm oil to make a rich sauce for beans. The New Times adds that the Tiv were famous producers, but that commercial growing has narrowed to Guma, Gwer West and Gwer East, with smaller amounts in Katsina-Ala, Kwande, Logo and Vandeikya.

Sesame (Sesamum indicum) is an erect annual plant 1 to 3 metres tall with a long taproot. It has been grown for its edible seed and oil since at least 2000 BC, and the seed is usually roasted or ground before use.

Sources: Denen Achussah, "Catholic priest uniting the Tiv through Kyegh Sha Shwa Cultural Festival", The New Times; Akiga Sai, History of the Tiv (1935), translated by Bergsma and Akiga, Africa 85(4), 2015, chapter two; Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).

See the Tiv people and the Tiv language in our Nigeria Heritage Archive: the states and local government areas where Tiv communities live, neighbouring peoples, population figures and sources.