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The Focus of Igbo Worldview By Prof. Donatus I. Nwoga
Introduction In spite of the lack of confidence which I appear to exude over this matter, I am consoled and encouraged by the fact that the tradition of attempting generalizations on the Igbo is a long one. As far back as 1789, an Igbo ex-slave wrote his autobiography in London and had it published as The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written. by himself. Olaudah Equiano, who left us with such confusing clues that various scholars have put his birthplace variously as Nsukka, as Ashaka in Aboh Local Government Area in Bendel State, and as lsseke in the lhiala Local Government Area, felt confident enough to put his description in generalistic terms even though he was only twelve when he was captured into transcontinental slavery. He wrote:
Since
Olaudah Equiano, other people have felt free, both in writing and in speech, to
make firm and what they consider incontrovertible statements about the Igbo.
Such stereotypical statements range from the glorifying to the condemning. Dr
James Africanus Horton, an Igbo recaptive in The Igbo
cannot be driven to an act but with kindness they could be made to do anything,
even to deny themselves of their comforts. They would not, as a rule, allow
anyone to act the superior over them, nor sway their conscience, by coercion,
to the performance of any act, whether good or bad, when they have not the
inclination to do so. . . In 1982, a young Igbo man presented a
less generous picture when he warned the then Governor of Anambra State to
remember that "the Igbo man whom you are governing is good at forgetting
those good things his leader has done to him previously should the fellow fail
to fulfil any current obligations." In the same manner, Chinua Achebe, in
a moment of cynicism, spoke of the "inclination of the Igbo to jettison
his traditions (including his history) if he sees personal advancement accruing
from such abandonment." The English woman Sylvia Leith-Ross is
rather interesting to mention in this context. She admitted that "the Igbo
were cheerful, industrious, honest, very good to their children. They were
generous to their own people. . .” But she regretted that "it had
apparently never struck them that good manners were pretty things, graceful,
becoming, an addition to the pleasantness of life". (African Woman). During
the Nigerian civil war, one popular stereotype was embedded in the story which
said that if three Nigerians, one Igbo, one Hausa, the other Yoruba found
themselves under a ripe coconut, the Hausa would say, "If Allah sends down
this
coconut, I will eat
it", the Yoruba would say, "I will wait here and whoever brings down
the coconut, I will share it with him." whereas the Igbo man would look
for some implement for bringing down the coconut. A less flattering story was
one which the Nigerians were supposed to have been told to use to protect
themselves, namely, to shake some money in the ears of any Igbo person who
looked dead and never regard that Igbo person dead unless he did not rise at
the sound of jingling money. There are of course limits to the
validity of stereotype no matter how carefully constructed. Yet it is to say
what I am about to do is to create another stereotype. I intend however, not to
characterize a body of external actions, but to interpret the many varied ways
in which the Igbo manifest their innermost thoughts and values, in order to
synthesize the world view of the Igbo. 0
1.2 THE V ALIDITY OF STEREOTYPE A methodological question which must be posed
and answered at this initial stage in order to avoid misdirection is whether
the proposed world view is a synthesis articulated by the people being
presented, or it is that of the presenter. In other words, when I say that
"A" is part of the world view of the Igbo, do I mean that
"A" is what the Igbo articulate as what they think, or do I mean that
"A" is what I configure that the Igbo think? Is the explorer looking
for the theoretical explanations by the people of their experience or is he
formulating the conceptions of agency which he considers as lying behind the
patterns of behaviour of the people? Does he seek their "explanatory
categories" or their "effective agencies”? Failure
to confront the implications of this question has led to very intensive and
space and time consuming debates as to whether or not African societies could
be considered to have any philosophy and whether traditional thought could be
considered philosophical. The debate has taken dimensions ranging from book
size explorations as in Kwesi Wiredu's Philosophy and ail African Culture (1980)
and Paulin J. Houn-tondji’s African Philosophy:
Myth and Reality (1976), English translation 1983). to numerous essays
asking specifically, "Is There an African Philosophy?” (Ruch. Philip, Oruka,
Onyewuenyi). The pedagogical question has also been raised as to whether
traditional African thought presented enough philosophical challenges to be
incorporated into courses to be taught in a Department of Philosophy in an
African university. The intensity of the discussions, which have occupied many
issues of the What I am
about to share with you then is the picture which I have derived from
experience, research and interpretation, of the Igbo understanding of the
structure of reality in the world and how this affects the operations of man
both in society and within the inner recess of the individual person. I hope
the picture I present is such that gives rationality and consistency to the
behaviour of the Igbo as a people. One is
aware of the dangers of individualistic approaches to the exploration of the
Igbo world view. Some Igbo scholars have already given warnings on this
approach. Ụma Eleazụ decried "the present staccato method of
one person describing one village and labelling it Igbo". Mark Anikpo
called for an exercise "to eliminate arbitrary and selective interpretations
of Igbo affairs and thus ensure a better understanding of the Igbo as a
civilization in its own right." Personal efforts at interpretation of the
Igbo world view continue however till there is visible progress in the setting
up of a centre for integrated studies on the Igbo world. I am starting
this exploration with the premise that the Igbo, living in their environment
over the ages, have had to respond to their experiences and formulate ways of
handling them -understanding events, solving problems, accepting situations,
formulating statements encapsulating their own collective experiences towards
making these distillations available to future generations. They have had their
perceptions and their thoughts. They have generated patterns of folk-life in
agriculture and politics, in economics and religion, in technology, in cultural
structures and practices. They have evolved folklore, transmitted from
generation to generation to give expression to their thoughts and life. These
various facets of a people's activities must have rationality and consistency. In
discussing the world view of the Igbo, one is trying to synthesize into one the
meaning of life to a people living in a wide territory and in quite distinct
zones and units. One has to retain a consciousness of variations in patterns of
behaviour. This raises the question of IDENTITY. Can one really talk of the
Igbo world view? Are there not enough linguistic and cultural differences
between Agbor and Arochukwu, between Nsukka and Ikwerre, to make nonsense of
any proposition that claims to be descriptive of all the Igbo? Moreover, are
there not enough suggestions about the different migrational histories of
various sections of Igboland to indicate that the so-called Igbo are not really
one people but a progressive amalgam of people, whether they were from Another
issue which one must confront at this stage is that of the passage of time.
There certainly would have been internally generated modifications to Igbo
thought and behaviour over the ages. Human, social, and environmental factors
would have created situations with which established response patterns would
not have coped and these would inevitably have led to changes in the nature of
the Igbo world view. Moreover, through travel and through other forms of
external contact, the Igbo are bound to have been influenced by other peoples
towards transformations in their world view. Again an awareness of these
factors of change challenges one to a diachronic approach to presentation so
that time factors help to establish states of mind at a given time. For example,
the opportunity which the present times have given for the predominant
attributes of the Igbo to blossom into the ugliness of materialistic
indiscipline, and lack of grace and finesse, must not be taken to
represent the all-time behaviour of the Igbo. A characteristic which could have
been favourable and positive in one phase of the history of a people, which
could again be positive and beneficial in another phase, could present the
greatest negative consequences in a transitional phase. In practical terms, the
attributes which make the Igbo appear vulgar and materialistic at this phase,
could be the same attributes that made them achieving and titled people in the
past. The present could merely be revealing the impact of new, uncharted times
to the chaotic instinct in those who had been restrained by the limiting
structures and facilities of the ordered past. And it is important to retain
then the diachronic consciousness that transitional people have the handicap of
having lost the grace and poetry of their past, without yet acquiring the grace
and poetry, or at least the discipline and sanctions of the modern. 0.1.3 LANGUAGE AND WORLD VIEW Finally, the
problem of language, we are engaged in the complex process of speaking about the
innermost consciousness of the Igbo in a language, English, which shares
neither cultural background nor linguistic systems with the Igbo language. We
have therefore to retain a consciousness that we are engaged in a translation
exercise with all the tendencies to distortion of thought and emotion which is
involved in translation. One is aware, for example, of the misinterpretations
inherent in some accepted term equivalences. The Igbo nna m ukwu translates
to "master" and one knows that whereas the Igbo expression carries
implications of fatherhood, the English equivalent speaks of the slave and
owner situation. Whereas akụ nwanyị speaks of the show of
wealth and the exchange of benefits which marriage is, "bride-price"
concerns itself with marriage as a purchasing of a wife. These translation
problems have certainly led to some of the distortions that have existed in the
interpretation of Igbo cultural patterns. More than
this, there has been the problem of trying to express in English, patterns and
concepts for which that language has no equivalents. Even within the same
language we know that synonyms do not mean exactly the same thing, and yet
there has not been too much restraint in the use of apparent English
equivalents to represent Igbo thought. Perhaps this may not do too much damage
where we are dealing with objects and relationships where paraphrases would
help. There is no harm in using the phrase "my mother's first
daughter" each time one wants to refer to one's ada nne (though an
Igbo person can immediately feel the absolute destruction of intimacy involved
in that translation). But when we come to some of the key abstract concepts in
a people's life where symbolism derived from the environment is at the root of
meaning, the difficulties are multiplied many fold. I only mention this here to
indicate one of the peculiarities of the present exercise. The final problem I will refer to here
arises from the still predominantly oral use of the Igbo language. Since Igbo
is mainly a spoken language, it relies quite heavily on symbolic non-verbal
forms of communication. The problem which this poses is that symbolism is the
most private part of a people's culture and therefore a language and culture
still heavily symbolic will have immense difficulties of inter-cultural
communication. If I may
illustrate very briefly the importance and frequency of the use of symbolic
non-verbal forms to support the oral statement, I will tell a story. Perhaps
the song of the story will be adequate to make the point. A stream had expanded
and blocked the return path of a group of girls who had gone to fetch firewood.
Each girl sang the following song to put the blame on the girl responsible for
the river's anger so that the river contract and let her pass: Iyi na ọ wụghị mị sịrị Nganga, owe eh nganga, Wa Oromoko
sịrị Nganga, owe eh nganga, Ke nne ya
nọ nwee Nganga, owe eh nganga, Ke nna ya
nọ nwee Nganga, o.we eh nganga, Gba wa ụkwụ ọla gam Nganga, owe eh nganga, Gbafụgha asụ chịrị Nganga, owe eh nganga. There is much that one could say in
appreciation of this story in connection with the speaking to a stream and
obtaining results, about the prefix wa and its paradoxical effects in conveying
both affection and diminution, about the use of nganga both as a
meaningless refrain and also as a suggestion of the arrogance that was at the
root of the problem of the girls with the stream. What I wish to highlight here
is the factor of the use of symbolic non-verbal communication elements to create
substantive meaning. In the
name of the girl, the concept of pride is introduced with the implications of iro
oko. The lines which convey the girl's movement of her ring-decorated ankle-gba
wa ụkwụ ọla gam and the girl's insulting projection of a
spray of spittle-gbafụgha asụ, chịrị, depend
completely for their meaning on the symbolic implications within the culture of
those actions. Thus, if an Igbo woman complains that her husband pulled her
along the ground, or flogged her with a broom, the intensity of her reactions
could only be explained by the symbolism of those actions. A language then is not only a means of
communication but carries within its vocabulary, its structures, and its
contexts, much that is indicative of the meaning of life to a people. A
language is to a large extent the embodiment of a people's world view. Thus we
have to retain a consciousness of this state of reality as we proceed now to
speak of the Igbo world view in the English language. 0.1.4 AN APPROACH TO WORLD VIEW I do not
here pursue the problems of logic and epistemology which predominate in
contemporary philosophical discussions. In fact, I am not a philosopher for I
do not complete the assignment posed by Kekes when he defined philosophy
as "the rational construction and justification of world view". I do
construct and present a world view here but I do not defend it except in so far
as I show a preference for an open mind to a world view different from what is
predominant now in the so-called developed world. In the construction and presentation of the Igbo
world view I will need to pass through the territory of other scholars. I do
not plan to generate new speculations in those disciplines. I hope to seek
through these areas of learning and glean some clear articulations of ideas
congenial to and supportive of the wholistic statement that I am attempting to
make. I hope in the end to have proposed a world view that gives coherent,
consistent, and adequate explanation of the behaviour observable and predominant among the Igbo by exploring: (a) The Igbo perception of the
nature of reality. (b)
The ideas of Igbo social Life; and (c)
The Igbo Ideal of the Good Life. 0.2 THE NATURE OF REALITY A proper understanding of a people's attitudes to and
expectations from the various aspects and areas of life depends on an
appreciation of their general conception of reality. In seeking to understand
this framework of thought, one would try to find answers to questions like:
What concepts appear to govern practice in the areas of religion, social
organization and other areas of living? Into what categories do the Igbo group
their perception and experiences of reality? To what phenomena do the Igbo
attribute reality? The great scholar and humanist, the late J. Bronowski,
opened a valuable way for these questions when he declared that: The structure of reality is not self-evident. . .
No, we have to tease out the structure from the observational sentences when we
make them abstract sentences. How do we do that? Well, we do it essentially by
treating nature as, in Leibnitz's phrase, a gigantic cryptogram, a gigantic
series of coded messages. And we seek to decode it in such a way that entities
emerge which are conserved under various changes and transformations. How have
the Igbo decoded the world in which they live? By what processes do they
represent and react to this reality? What realities do they take into account
in their thinking processes, in their activities and in their relationships? The importance of urgency in this exercise in
primary exploration of thought is indicated by the imperceptible manner in
which patterns of thought derived from culture contact, and the language of
contemporary communication, that is English, are driving a wedge into
traditional thought system. Let me give a brief illustration of this. One of my
field workers in my project on "Igbo Religious and Mythical
Literature" collected a statement from a cult priest to the effect that Ahịajọkụ
ọ wụ ji na Here, I believe, lies the source of much of
the problem of understanding Igbo traditional culture and values in the past.
Writers have tried to reproduce the language and concepts of one culture within
the framework of another cultural thought pattern. Some foreign ethnographers
have even done better than some Igbo writers. In the particular case of Ahịajọkụ,
Talbot appears to have be conscious of the need to evolve a special
vocabulary when he wrote “Ajọkkọ-Ji or Njọkkọji - the
king (or Juju) yam, the biggest one of all the crops in which the yam spirit is
thought to take up its abode". He also avoided the usual words god,
fetish-and used expressions like "genius of the farm", and "farm
spirit". The
Igbo, like every other people, have observed their environment and interacted
with it. They have embedded their observations and reactions in their language
and literature, in their patterns of originations and relationships. It is from
these that we now attempt to derive the Igbo conception of the nature of
reality. 0.2.1. PATTERNS OF EXPERIENCE The Igbo
have had to live in very close proximity and intimacy with nature. They have
had to observe in very close detail the things that have impinged most on their
lives. This can be deciphered from the detailed differentiations they have made
in the categorization of those things. It is surprising when one begins to look
into it, how much our people know about the characteristics and uses of the
shrubs and plants and insects of our bushes. They know intimate details about the
animals of our forests and hunt them with expertise. A villager's vocabulary of
rats can be quite impressive: in one session I was told ofoke, agu oke,
obosokoro, okotoko, ohio, odu, oguru/oginya/ọgịnị, oke ogwe,
oke okwe, oke nkwụ, oke nkwakpo, adụwa, wisu, wa ọta
korokoro. One has only to listen to proverbs sometimes to know how
intimately our people know the characteristic behaviour of the elements in the
environment. Whatever the meaning of the proverb in context, it is clear that
it required intimate observation of the oke nkwụ that is called adụwa
for somebody to formulate the proverb that "Adụwa sịrị
n'elu nkwụ daa sị ya gbawa ọsọ mgbe faa; sị
ya amaghị ihe onye gbufuru ya na nkwụ vu n’obi". (Adụwa
the palm rat fell from the palm tree and started running at once, saying
that he could not trust the intentions of the man that cut down the bunch that
brought him down). The Igbo
then made detailed observations of the elements of their environment and they
used this knowledge and lived by it. It is necessary however to distinguish for
our purposes here two kinds of observations. During the process of clearing a
piece of land a few years ago, I heard one villager exclaim with some
enthusiasm: "So this kind of plant is still here!" He described the
plant as very useful to farmers who might accidentally cut themselves when
they are working in the farm. If any twig or leaf of this shrub was broken off,
a chalky juice came out of it which when put on a cut, immediately stopped the
bleeding and sealed up the wound. The name of the shrub appropriately was anya
sọ ọbara.(literally, the eyes detest blood. Beside this shrub there
was a tall grass about which a companion exclaimed “Look at this, too. During
those days when we used to wrestle in competition, if you tied it in a knot,
and bound it under some cloth on the upper part of your left arm, the legs of
your opponent would soon twist under him and you were sure to win the bout”.
Whereas my first reaction to the first information was the excitement of
discovery, I first reacted to the second informant with a certainty he was
ignorant and superstitious. But to the villagers the same level of credibility
attached to both statements. I was told a
story one day by a raffia palm wine tapper to the effect that “Ngwọ ji anụ
ntị (the raffia- palm has ears and hears). He had planted a raffia palm
tree at his farm boundary. When it matured and he started tapping it, his
neighbour came and started disputing ownership, claiming that his dead brother
had told him that it was his raffia palm. They could not settle the matter by
swearing, since the local tradition did not allow swearing over property at
farm boundaries or over raffia palms. In both cases it is too easy to make
mistakes and the Igbo Community usually prevents its members from killing
themselves unnecessarily. What usually happens in the case of disputed raffia
palms is that each of the claimants in turn makes his claim and pours libation
of palm wine on the ground.
The tree hears the claims
and on the day of the person who actually owns the tree, it fills the gourd while wasting itself or not
producing on the day of the person who does not own it. In this
particular case, though my palm wine tapper was claiming the tree and doing all
that the tapper could do to make the
tree produce, on the days that he poured the libation the tree
carefully avoided the gourd and poured itself on the ground. In his own words,
on the second day: Chi abọwhuo. Mgbe anyị na-abịaruole,
ah! ya la-ebi, ańụ la-ebi ekwo rorororo. Ya alawhu elu hịọọ,
na-ata …. M arịruo.Ya wụ ngwọ m jiri aka m kụọ. Ma Sunday hị
ma nị hị si m ekpule hị chịchịrị ; m amaghị
sị nga a ọkọchị dị,
ho okomene awha ọkụ. M ewere otoo gbuhemecha ya, gheme ye ọnụ, kpude ya kpam,
chime. Mgbe m na-arịruole, ya ewere otoo lie udo kpoo; ụfụfụya
ewere otoo bịa kụpịa. Sị o-ruole mmịị. M agaru. Mgbe m kwatụrụ ebele
aka, nhe m nọrọ ebe ehị gwa hị sị, “lamanị!” Hị sị m “wedatama!”
“wedatama!” M ewedata ya. Out kọpụ mmịị dam! The next day
belonged to the other claimant. Declan the tapper did exactly what he had done
on his own days. The calabash was full. There was no further debate and Declan
tapped the tree for the other claimant till it was exhausted. The tree had
heard and given judgment. The Sunday referred to in the quotation above is
also a palm-wine tapper who produces very sweet palm wine. Sunday explained his
use of ọgwụ ngwọ (the medicine for palm wine). He had
to go and learn it from Ikeduru
and it consists of eight leaves
that have to be boiled in a slim packet for two days. When the leaves are ready
for use, they are placed at the point where the tapping incision was made. For
two weeks this bundle will keep the tapping point hot and clean, and clear
sweet palm wine can then come out of
the tree. The effectiveness of this medicine is attested to by all
those who take Sunday's palm-wine, that is those who have the taste for palm
wine and can distinguish good palm wine from bad. There is certainly a
difference between Sunday's palm wine and the wine produced by those who do not
use ọgwụ ngwọ or use inferior types of chemicals. How
is one to combine two types of information about the raffia palm? Chief S. U. Chukueggu, Director of the Mbarị
Art Centre at Eke Ngụrụ, Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area once
produced a piece of sculpture which he called Ajala Eziudo. The sculpture
represents a grove of trees, showing mushrooms, skulls, and a god towering
above the whole forest. Chukueggu's art is mythical, representing the meeting point
between religion and the imagination, the transition from doctrine to social thought. His explanation of the
symbolism of the sculpture referred to the contemporary events in Eziudo and
what was supposed to have happened when the sacred grove of Ajala Eziudo was
cut down. The key tree in the grove was an anụnụede
tree. It is reported that the anụnụede tree sent forth some mushrooms
which some people of the town ate. Thirteen people were killed by the
mushrooms. The story of the anụnụede tree was confirmed by a
well-educated Eziudo man who added that two women went to farm in that land and
one cut her toe in the farm and that evening the two women died. The story of
the anụnụede tree got even more complex. An Ọhafia
informant added that the anụnụede tree sometimes goes on a
walk and that is when the medicine men who come and wait beside the forest
enter the forest and pick up bits and pieces of the anụnụede,
strips of bark or
dried twigs or leaves,
with which they concoct very powerful medicines. These medicines are sometimes
used by thieves such that they could blow the powder of it towards your house
and you would fall deeply into sleep while they stole even from your bedroom. At other
times, with anụnụede medicine you could become invisible to your enemies. And if the
diviner tells you to go and offer a sacrifice to the anụnụede tree,
your luck will determine whether sacrifice will arrive when the husband anụnụede
is awake or the wife anụnụede.
The importance of which one accepts your sacrifice is that if it is the
man, he will do whatever you request and will not care whether it is for your
good or not; but if it is the woman anụnụede that is at home
she will make sure that what you ask is good for your home and compound before
she fulfils your wishes. An Ichie of Ogbunike independently wrote of
brother and sister anụnụede (Ọdụche). It would fill a whole lecture, such stories about
trees and their "strange" behaviour. I will conclude here about Igbo descriptions
of their experience with the story of Mazi Nwagu Aneke. Mazi Aneke is from Ụmụleri
in 0.2.2 INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE Various attitudes could be adopted to these kinds
of reports from the Igbo experience. The standard and prevalent one combines
rejection of such stories as untrue and impossible, and dismissing them as
superstitious. The stories are said to be stupid and unscientific and to show
the extent of ignorance of our people. The literature of this kind of rejection
is too vast and needs not to be repeated here. In truth, a world that is dominated
by the mechanistic casuality principle of the western intellectual tradition has no place for
such inexplicable phenomena. The second
attitude is to find psychological reasons why people who otherwise are sensible
should believe in things like these. In this case, those elements of belief
which relate to non-physical agencies and processes are explained as ways by
which the people satisfy some crucial psychological needs. For example since
the time of Malinowski, British anthropologists have interpreted activities
dependent on such beliefs as means of fulfilling functions in other
spheres of life. Ritual, for example, was seen as facilitating some essential activity such as
agriculture, fishing or trade by raising morale,
enforcing the requisite values or giving organizing power to the
magi co-religious specialists. Ritual was also "useful as" a means of
enforcing tribal ethics, supporting authority, making possible the re-forming
of groups and the assumption of new roles after marriage, peace-making or death
(A. I. Richards). The objects of belief were not taken as
realities and were therefore to be explained from their social and
psychological usefulness. From all
directions of scholarship, they offer explanations. Whether they are
phenomenologists or radical empiricists, whether they are cultural or social
anthropologists, intellectualists or fidelists, all they are doing is offering
different kinds of interpretations for things they do not believe to be there.
For example, a great debate has raged among the philosophers and cultural
anthropologists studying the Nigerian belief and logic systems since 1967 when
Robin Horton published his long essay on "African Traditional Thought and
Western Science". Taking any of the opposing views at random, one may
consider the differences between Horton and John Beattie. The crux of this
disagreement could be attributed to the fact that Horton approaches thought
patterns with an emphasis on logic and epistemology and therefore conceives of
modes of thought and beliefs as stages in a continuum of a search for
explanation, prediction and control of reality. John Beattie on the other hand
is interested in thought patterns as the premises for effective systems for the
management of situations and events both physical and otherwise. Beattie then
attributes the effectiveness of science to its being based on "experience
and hypothesis-testing" while ritual is dependent on the "imputation
of a special power to symbolic or dramatic expression itself". It appears
to me however that the ideas and expressions used in this particular
Horton/Beattie debate proceed naturally from the perceptual framework of the
disbelieving anthropologist. In their quest for the most acceptable explanation
of how and why people believe in, say, spirit forces, they do not take into
account one key possibility, namely, that these forces do exist. I have
argued above mainly relative to European scholars. It is part of the tradition
in which most of us have been educated not to give any credence to the kinds of
belief systems popular among traditional Igbo people with regard to their
environment. In our contemporary fictional writing, there is some carefulness
not to be too committed to what might appear irrational. In Achebe's Things
Fall Apart, Chapter 9 is devoted to the exposition of the health problems
of Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma, and Okonkwọ's intense care for her in spite
of his known brusqueness. In the process, we are taken through the concept and
practice of the ọgbanje phenomenon in such a manner that we can
see the manipulative strategies of the dibịa who came to dig out
the iyi-ụwa. On the other hand, when Okonkwọ went into the
bush and came back with "a large bundle of grasses and leaves, roots and
barks of medicinal trees and shrubs", the novelist presented him as
providing a straight-forward treatment which was clearly effective. In his
own novel, The Great Ponds, Elechi Amadi takes us through a very
intensive and self-contained series of experiences of sickness, death, and
suspense, consequent on an oath which had been sworn over a conflict between
two villages. The great god of the area, Ogbunabalị, on whom the
oath had been taken, was believed to have sent a terrible sickness, wonjo, on
both communities in anger. It is therefore with a shock of realization that one
reads the last lines of the novel. In the end, Elechi Amadi wrote, after very
many people had died, "it was only the beginning. Wonjo, as the
villagers called the Great Influenza of 1918, was to claim a grand total of
some twenty million lives all over the world". The shock of realisation
not only involves one's sudden extraction from the exclusive interiority of the
novel, but also both the discovery that the people's explanation of their
predicament is based on ignorance, and that Elechi Amadi did not hold on to the
beliefs which he had presented with so much firm competence and involvement. Part of
the cynicism with which the educated African looks at the traditional belief
and knowledge systems has to be seen to derive from the way in which some
primary carriers of the traditions themselves operated this system. What was
one to do with the statement that if one swore a false oath he would die if one
found out that there was an attempt to poison the one who swore an oath? Did
the people themselves believe that a false oath swearing could lead to death?
Because, if they did, what was the need for poison? There is also the question
of rainmaking. A dibịa would take money with the claim that he was
going to prevent rain from falling when the client was celebrating an event.
The dibịa would be seen parading the environs of the venue of the
event, wielding a broom and chanting away with a string of irrelevant proverbs.
Is that how to stop rain? One would have been tempted to discard rainmaking out
of hand but for the discovery that often the dibịa parading the
venue is really a finder and that he might not himself be a rain maker. Having
taken his finders' fee he has paid the real rain-maker who is in the laboratory
doing whatever constitutes the process of rain-making or rain-stopping. Liberalism, tolerance, pluralism, incline many to
find pleasure in the idea of a multiplicity of men and visions; but the equally
reputable and enlightened desire for objectivity and universality leads to a
desire that at least the world and truth be but one, and not many. Whatever
theoretical stance one takes, the truth is that there has been a multiplicity
of men and visions. In the same place and time there have been differences
which have been given definition of the concepts of culture and anti-culture.
In the same place at different times we have had differences that are reflected
in the histories of culture and of knowledge. In different places at the same
time, the differences give rise to an area of learning called regional studies.
Even more clearly, then, there are differences between cultures in different
places at different times and so we study comparative cultural history. Even if there were to be only one truth, whose
truth should it be? The time is auspicious for the African scholar to look with
objectivity, and without fear of being described as a primitive steeped in
superstition, at the beliefs and practices of his people. Twenty years ago, this would not have been
possible. S. F. Nadel, writing on Malinowski on Magic and Religion, after
presenting the tenets of Malinowski on the topics, sums up his own reactions to
the attitudes implied in those tenets as follows: Magic, religion, mythology-they all had
to make sense. Malinowski would have claimed that this sense was a scientific
one. And there was only one science he considered relevant to social
enquiry-biology, more precisely, the biology at the beginning of this century,
still strongly evolutionary and telelogical, and dominated by the concept of
survival. The conception of a science which, by lay standards. is abstruse
and opposed to commonsense, was yet alien to the climate of thought of his
day(Man and Culture. my italics). The science which Nadel referred to is now
available to us. The scientists now debate on the language of observation and
the language of scientific theory. There have been revolutions in the sciences
that make ridiculous the scientific certainties of yesteryears and their
philosophical implications. Quantum mechanics was developed in the 1920s and
where classical physics had established that "the state of a system is
specified by a precise simultal1eous determination of all relevant dynamical
variables (position, momentum, energy, etc)", quantum mechanics introduced
the uncertainty principle. Philosophers and scientists have fought against it,
including Einstein, who, having created his own revolution with the Theory of
Relativity, could now say of the Indeterminism in quantum mechanics that
"God does not play dice". Whatever decision the scientists arrive at,
science has broached the question, and mechanistic certainties are no longer taken
for granted as the only approach to reality. The progression to the study of micro-objects and
processes has also generated new theories on the state of nature. Its findings
now demand that people, including scientists, should accept new approaches to
knowledge. Atomic Theory has exposed the possibility of what it describes as
"theoretical entities". Some scientists and philosophers of science
still deny the existence of such entities and "regard theoretical
assumptions about them as ingeniously contrived fictions, which afford a
formally simple and convenient descriptive and predictive account of observable
things and events". (Philosophy of Natural Sciences) But, again,
the matter has been broached by some of the most meticulous scientists and
philosophers of science. It would appear, then, that the present progress in
the sciences invites us to be open to admit the reality, not only of
"those things, properties, and processes, whose presence or occurrence can
be ascertained by normal human observers" with immediacy, but also those
that can be ascertained by "the mediation of special instruments or of
interpretative hypotheses or theories". And now for my hypothesis on the conception of the
nature of reality which accords with Igbo life and thought. What I have
laboured to say in this section so far is that its validity is not dependent on
how much it is close to or different from any other people's view but on how
much it explains what the Igbo say and how the Igbo react to the world. 0.2.4. THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY In order
to understand the Igbo world, it is necessary to accept that the Igbo recognize
three types of reality, namely, the physical, the spiritual and the abstract. I put
that statement here at the beginning because it is what 1 hope to have established
as a major part of my thesis. The first implication of that statement is that
the Igbo would not accept that every thing is made of matter. The second
implication is that the standard posture of contemporary African metaphysics
which divides reality into the physical and the spiritual would be considered
inadequate to explain satisfactorily the experience of the Igbo. To put it
another way, three forms of being impinge on a person's life-the physical that
can be touched, weighed, eaten, that can touch one through the usual sense.;
the spiritual which may not he seen or touched except by specially
"washed" eyes, but which all the same can affect the shape and nature
of physical being, and then the abstract which exists and may affect reality by
becoming realized in either of the other forms, physical or spiritual. Each of
these forms of being has reality. Each of them is capable of being transformed
into the other. The differences exist in the way they are experienced and the
kind of impact they have. They are the three tips of the triangle of being
which may stand on any side at a given time depending on circumstances.
Different permutations of these forms of being take place also at different
times depending on circumstances. I hope this becomes clearer as my
presentation progresses. Without going fully into the religious aspect that
will be discussed later, I will use For the
Igbo, the reality of an object emerges or assumes validity at that time when
the object is in the process of performing its function. Once, when a group of
dancers were at rest entertaining themselves, a well-recognized son of the land
met them and offered them some more drinks. In the middle of the drinking,
someone broke into song which was taken up to the effect: Anyị amarana ndị wụ nwoko
Nwoko. nwoko, Anyị amarana ndị wụ nwoko. Ọ
wụghị ọha wụ
nwoko. There is
also a variant of the song which goes with it and says: Anyị
amarana ndị wụ nwoko Nwoko. nwoko, Anyị
amarana ndị wụ ọbọ mma Ọ
wụghị ọha wụ
nwoko. All this reminds one of the scene in Things Fall
apart where Okonkwọ, full of
his achievement as a man in the community, retorted to a man who had
interrupted his discussion that "This meeting is for men". An old man
in the meeting commented "Looking at a king's mouth, one would think he
never sucked at his mother's breast". And Achebe the novelist commented:
"Okonkwọ knew how to kill a man's spirit". I am suggesting that the importance attached to
these statements derives, not from the purely metaphorical impact they might
have, but from the fact that they come within a cultural context in which such
expressions have ontological implications. The prevalent use of the epithet, ezi, in
the description of things when their reality is at issue is, I believe
significant. We apply the epithet in quite disparate situations so that it
qualifies people--ezi mmadụ, ezi nwanyị, ezi nwoko and so
forth; it qualifies things; it even qualifies words so that the concept of
truth is represented by ezi okwu, meaning "the real word". What
all these uses emphasize is the Igbo attribution of importance to "proper
states" of being, to things fulfilling the attributes of their being in
order to be considered real. Lack of understanding of this perspective, this
Igbo conception of BEING AS ACTION, could lead to misinterpretations. When in
1923 Basden spied out the shrine of Awnyilli Awra of Ezira he was quite
disappointed with some of the shrines he saw on the way where the icons
appeared to have been left to rot away. In his book on the Igbo, the only index
entry on mentality had to do with this scene from which he assessed that the
Igbo did not care for their gods. On the contrary, the Igbo should be
recognized as caring very much for their gods-but only as long as those gods
are effective. Any god that becomes useless has no right to expect the Igbo to
continue to serve him since the essence of godhead is power. By the same token,
a priest is a priest while he is in a state to perform the functions of a
priest, and if a priest breaks the rules of his god or defiles himself (merụọ/rirụọ agbara ya) he and his god become
discarded. When I visited Mazi Ekeh, an Enugu Ezike man, on the day he
was celebrating a feast, when it came to time for him to call upon his deity Oheh,
he picked up a calabash horn that had been lying on the floor, wiped it
clean, and it became
the sacred horn with which he called Oheh. When Mike Ejeagha sings that nkanka
nkata adagh abakwonụ n'ife, kalia mbọsị aja he might be
complaining but he is stating the fact of Igbo life. An Ọgalanya is
an Ọgalanya when it is time for those activities for which the
community requires an Ọgalanya but he need not expect that when
the kindred are sharing out the meat, they, will give him more than his share.
The ontological status of things in Igbo thought is determined and recognized
not by any static characteristics that the objects might have but by the action
that the object performs. From this
perspective, one may make a fresh assessment of some statements usually made about
Igbo ontology and see to what extent they fit into Igbo beliefs. I will take
here one statement which gives a certain hierarchical picture of the Igbo
world: According to Igbo ontology, everything that exists
has a chi-"a portioned-out-life-principle" given to it by the Supreme
chi, which is "Life per se". Though this self-same
"portioned-out-life-principle" is given to both man, animals, and
plants, it differs, however. in degree. For just as Chukwu is higher
than man, man is above the animals and distinguished from them by virtue of the
fact that man gets higher degree of this divine life; and the animal is also
above the vegetable. Similarly, the latter is distinguished from the inanimate. One need not comment at this point on
the "shared portioned-out-life-principle" and its being given by Chukwu
and whether chi may be considered a generic name for the deity in
all beings. But the quotation sets up a hierarchy with God at the top and the
inanimate objects at the bottom. And that raises two questions as to the
compatibility of the statement with Igbo life and belief patterns. First, are
there any objects which the Igbo regard as inanimate such that agency cannot be
attributed to them? If, as you come out in the morning, you hit your toe
against a piece of stone (note that in English you hit toe against a stone), in
Igbo you would ask why the stone hit your toe (note that in Igbo the stone hits
against your toe). More importantly, how absolute is the system
of superiority such that one can say that plant life is superior to inanimate
existence, and man superior to both. Should we not really speak of a
parallelism such that each item from each category is recognized for its
special ability rather than postulate an absolute hierarchy of classes of being?
In what Igbo town would the people accept that a man is superior to No, the hierarchy of Igbo beings cannot
be established in static classes. A particular being assumes a particular
position in the scale of importance in Igbo estimation on the basis of its
exercise of specific powers at that given time. Another
instance of this apparent discrepancy between statement and reality in
traditional life occurs at times when the elders might say to two people
quarrelling over land that the matter would have to be settled by Amadịọha.
The trick that is used, I found, was to bury a series of lodestones on the
boundary which the elders, in their wisdom, had decided. Whenever there was
lightning, it would be attracted to the stones and dig them out, and the elders
would declare that the lightning deity, Amadịọha or Kamalụ
had settled the matter. In spite
of these exceptions, however, it is the fact that most reports of the 1gbo
experience carry genuine expressions of belief. They describe experience as
interpreted through the world view of the Igbo. The question now is, what
perception of the nature of reality makes rational and consistent meaning of
the way in which the Igbo report and interpret their experience? 02.3.
RELATIVITY AND UNIVERSALITY But
first, is it possible to have more than one truth as to the nature of reality?
Does not all knowledge tend to one, so that any departure from the mainstream
of world knowledge, from the body of accepted beliefs, is a deviation, a
heresy, or ignorance, rather than an alternative truth? That the
questions above could be framed is an indication of the progress that the world
of scholarship has made from the rigid certainties of European ethnocentric
dogmatism of a few decades back. The access to liberalism has been generated
from the most unlikely source, the same physical sciences that created the
mechanistic world view that dominated the philosophy of knowledge. Extreme
relativity would of course be self defeating. Once we accept the externality of
reality, we must then acknowledge that progressively humanity will know it more
and more exactly till perhaps one day reality will be all known. So one has to
accept the concept of an evolutionary progression towards the correct
description of reality. Having
said that, one is still free to argue that there is some difference between
physical reality to which one may apply with ease the principle of absoluteness
of knowledge, and other areas of life. There are the areas of man's
relationship to the physical universe, man's relationship with his community
and other human beings, man's conception of what makes life worth living. In the
consideration of these areas of life there is clearly an easy case to be made
for relativity. The conflict between universality and relativity is well stated
by Lloyd and Gay in their introduction to the collection of essays entitled Universals
of Human Thought. My
thesis that the Igbo give ontological status to three types of reality: the
physical, the spiritual and the abstract or conceptual therefore that they will
acknowledge effects as derivable from any of those three possible agencies. The
physical agent does not require any description or explanation from me. The
spiritual agent is also very much in contemporary metaphysical debate. I
believe that it is with the abstract agent that I have to struggle for
explanation. Once, a
community leader invited a group of friends to rejoice with him and have some
drinks over a new car. He brought out a fresh bottle of whisky which was to be
opened and used in pouring a libation for the car. He gave the bottle to a
prominent person from the eldest quarter of the town. A quarrel began to
develop because there was somebody from the eldest kindred of that quarter who
insisted that he was the right person to open the drink and pour the libation.
The prominent person who received the drink was about to open the bottle when
the other elder threatened: Mehena
nmai ahi ogu ma gi (If you dare open that bottle, ogu will
strike you). I have left ogu untranslated because it would sound stupid
in English to say" '" innocence will strike you". Ogu is a concept, an abstract idea. When somebody is
innocent of the matter of conflict, he says that he has ogu. If somebody
wishes to achieve revenge over some offence which he has received from an
opponent, he is supposed to establish that he had not committed a primary
offence that provoked his opponent to the present action over which he seeks
revenge. If ogu is not on his side, nothing he does in revenge, even if
he has medicine from the strongest medicine-man, will have an effect in his
favour. Ogu therefore is an active agent in the affairs of the Igbo.
Margaret Greene, in 1gbo Village Affairs remarks on how ilu ogu "emphasizes
that aspect of Ọfọ in which it is the guardian of the moral
code" and adds in a footnote: "Nearly all socially approved rites,
both magical and religious, are accompanied by this type of formula, in which
help is asked only if the supplicant is innocent. The moral code is thus
continually emphasized and upheld." Ogu is here an example of an
abstract reality, a concept with agency and therefore with the status of
independent existence conferred on it by the Igbo. During
research on the shrine of I will now direct this presentation to looking
at the forms in which the three types of reality postulated above manifest
themselves in the actual day-to-day life of the Igbo people. 0.2.5. COMPLEMENTARY STATES OF BEING One
thing that is easily decipherable in Igbo speech is the tendency to combine two
elements. We speak of ọfọ na ogu, of ikwu na ibe, of mmụọ
na mmadụ. One reaction to this tendency would be to dismiss it as a
purely rhetorical device. I think however that it goes straight into the nature
of Igbo thought about the manifestations of reality. The
initial problem of what to call this approach was presented by the tendency in
the philosophical definition of "dualism" to involve an opposition
factor, an irreducible contradiction between elements. Contemporary western
philosophers have progressively begun to question the absolutism of dualism
however and there is now a usable term defined by Elliot Jacques in his study
of the forms of time, The subject of his own interest is the epistemological
problem of the relationship between reality and the experience of reality, This
is outside our immediate interest. The term he developed for his discussion
however solves our own problems for it made a useful distinction between
dualism and duality: Dualism refers to the Cartesian view of the world
as split irreconcilably between body and mind. Dualities and duals refer to
pairs of interconnected and interactive concepts, which mayor may not be
opposites, such as figure and ground, or the positive and negative poles of a
magnet, or the alternation of the truth values in the and/or conjunctions in
truth-table logic (The Forms
of Time). The Igbo see things in complementary
dualities. This is evident in the perception of society as made up of ọha
na eze, ikwu na ibe, nwoke na nwanyi, and so on, It extends to the
perception of each person as having the ordinary personal existence and also
the accompanying chi the same way that all beings with agency have their
physical existence and their deistic counterpart. This duality extends further
into identifying ahụ na mmụọ in the human person and chi
na eke in the deistic aspect of human existence. At the medical and
abstract powers level, there is ajụ ọgwụ at one pole and ire ọgwụ at the other pole. The implication of this duality at the cosmological
level is that good and bad are seen as co-existing in the same realities,
creativity and destructiveness may be achieved by the same agencies. Too much
evidence is seen of this phenomenon in the natural environment of the Igbo for
it not to become part of the framework of thought. In the realm of deities,
this duality is evident in the recognition of ekwensu as that aspect of
deity that does the violence, even in a deity that is known for its
benevolence. If somebody swears a false oath on a deity, even the gentlest deity,
if he is to retain his credibility, has to do the violence of killing the false
oath swearer. Violence is, in absolute terms, conceived of as evil and
therefore has to be expiated. It is at the ekwensu that the expiatory
sacrifice has to be offered when it becomes necessary to purify each deity
especially at the time of his festival. So even deity is dualistic in the
execution of its functions. Like good mmaị nkwụ, "Ọ
sọkata gị ụsọ o nube gị inu, Oh Ọbịageliakụ
nne m” Things
not only form and act in dualities, it is also possible for forms of reality to
change both within the same type of reality and from one type of reality to
another. "No condition is permanent" does not only operate within the
social system, but also at the ontological level. On Afọ
Ukwu day, when the priest of Ala Ụmụamadị Nguru
goes from his house early in the morning to beat the uhie in ọkpu
ala in greeting to his town's deity which he serves, he may not greet nor
be greeted by child or adult, male or female. He is in a state of
transformation till he has beaten the uhie and greeted Another
form of mutation of reality is involved in the activation iwake of icons. When one buys an ikenga carving
in the market, or receives his commissioned art piece, what he has is yet a
piece of carved wood. But when one has brought the right people to say the
right form of words over the carving, Awake Ikenga, the carving takes on
the reality of the owner's thrust force with which he confronts the world to
struggle out his fate in it. The owner offers periodic sacrifice to his Ikenga,
reinforcing it so that his endeavours are more successful. And anybody
who, for any reason, defiles or destroys that object, is seen as destroying the
thrust force of the owner and whatever the owner does to him will be considered
as fully provoked. A change from one type of reality to another takes
place when an abstract concept is given physical form. This is what happens in the
making of a variety of deities. A group of people, or rather a community with
corporate identity gets together and evolves the concept of a deity that would
rescue them from some kind of problem or provide them with a sorely needed
good. They invite a "strong" dibia who collects the appropriate
objects relevant to the type of deity required and makes one for the people.
Occasionally the people killed the dibia so that he could not make the
same type of deity for any other community; and clever dibia prepared
for their escape before they went on such journeys. Legend has it that that was
how Ikwen of Ohafia came into Being. Igbo fiction also presents one such
prominent deity, Ulu of Umuaro. Achebe tells us that when "the
hired soldiers of Abam used to strike in the dead of night, set fire to houses
and carry men, women and children into slavery" the six villages of Umuaro
"hired a strong team of medicine-men to install a common deity for them.
This deity which the fathers of the six villages made was Ulu. From that
day they were never again beaten by an enemy" (Arrow of God). It is in this tradition of giving concrete form and
potency to abstract concepts that one can understand another example of this
activity, the tying of ebo as a protective barrier at the entrance to
towns, market squares and compounds, at appropriate times. There is a
linguistic parallel between the term ebo and what it is supposed to do
in the place where it is placed, that is, mboshi onwu, mboshi nfu, (warding
off death and loss). Most of the ingredients in the tying of ebo have
names which coincide with the symbolic but effective action which they perform.
In the shrine of Ala and of other deities, one may also see reifications
of such abstractions as iwu, representing the covenant between the
priest and the deity that neither is to be vicious to the other without
provocation; onumonu, representing the exclamations during dangerous
crises and sacrifice of cock is made periodically to this onumonu to ask
that one is not killed by sudden exclamations; ike aka, representing
that by which the deity is superior to others; okukoro whe by which one
hooks off (koo) any elements of guilt that might lie on one; and so on
and on. At the
other end of the mutation of reality is the change of nature of concrete
movement from one place to another. Ụkwụ or Ụkwụ
na ije is also a recognized force that one offers sacrifice after a
successful journey. One comes and goes through the door (Ọnụzọ)
of one's house or entrance to one's compound. Ọnụzọ is
then abstracted and becomes a force that one relates with at the religious
level of sacrifice and communion towards the peace and progress of the family and the compound. The ọfọ
is a tree that grows in the Igbo forest. It even has a botanical name. If
the community of ọfọ holders should knock the ọfọ
on the ground against any person who has done some terrible thing in the
community, ọfọ is known to kill without failure because of
its other-than-physical power. The Igbo view the world, then, as a multi-dimensional
field of action admitting of three types of reality: physical, spiritual, and
abstract; they gee objects and people, events and situations as existing and
functioning in dualities; they acknowledge that things may not be what they
seem and that things may change their nature. To the Igbo, the world presents a
mixed outlook where what is good can do damage, where reality has to be sought
under the surface of things, where the thoughts, words and actions of people
can change things for better and for worse. It is this world view that provides
the framework for the goals of Igbo community life and for the hopes and
aspirations for the good life of individual Igbo persons. The extents
to which people will regard themselves as forming a community will have
different limits in different ecological contexts. People living in areas where
craggy hills and deep valleys or thick forests and unaffordable rivers,
separate the population into small units are likely to see themselves in their little enclaves as exclusive
communities. On the other hand, people living in open plains with easy access
to other people are likely to
have a more expansive concept of community. Other factors like warfare and
defence, violent men with the ambition to rule large kingdoms, ease of travel,
violent missionary religions, etc., are all factors that can influence the
concept of group action. The organization of society is therefore likely to
vary quite vigorously within any large area of discussion. Within the Igbo culture
area, for example, we have urban groupings like Abiriba, Ohafia, Igboụzo,
and Oguta, while most of Igbo land contains villages of scattered kindred
habitations. We have Igbo monarchies derived from whatever historical
accidents, while most of Igboland is governed by republican systems.
Sociologists and political scientists will point at other differences of a
similar nature. The principle, I think, is that the extent of
territory occupied by people who consider themselves corporate units of action,
the nature and availability of facilities, the experience of history through
contact with neighbours, and such other accidental factors are bound to
influence economic, political, and even cultural organization. The differences
of structure and custom can be so extreme that while most of Igboland is
patrilineal in descent, some sections have matrilineal descent and some others
have dual descent systems. In spite of these differences, however, it is still
possible to speak of the predominant goals of communal action in Igboland. It
shou1d also be possible to show to what extent the directions of communal life
follows from and consolidates the conception of the nature of reality discussed
above. 0.3.1. CORPORATE IDENTITY OF COMMUNITY Every Igbo community sees itself as a corporate unit. Is there any way in which the Igbo approach to this sense of identity differs from the patriotism which is the natural direction in which every community attempts to set its members? I believe we are dealing here with much more than the social recognition of the need of people living together to work together and protect themselves. The first element that impinges on the local case is the ability of the members of a community to trace their origins to the same blood. And that is why, in the thickening and thinning sense of blood relationship which each Igbo person feels with regard to units of social action, there is also a deepening and weakening sense of loyalty and commitment. The rings of concentric circles of blood relationships and therefore of the sense of identity and loyalty are illustrated in the following diagram:
In the hypothetical structure of relationship and
identity illustrated above, even if in the Ụmụeke two families are
quarrelling, they are expected to be of the same opinion and intention when the
issue has to do with conflict with other sections in Ụmụnnanwiri.
In the Ụmụezuo context all the people of Ụmụnnanwiri
are brothers and sisters. In the Ụmụọkịrịka context,
the people of Ụmụezuo are then supposed to have an indestructible
solidarity. The system then extends outwards in that fashion, explaining the
brotherliness of the Igbo OUTSIDE the
Igbo homeland. The corporateness of the community unit means that somebody
belongs to the next higher unit of community on the basis of his membership of
the next smaller unit. There is then nobody who does not belong to somebody,
with all its implications in group lobbying for situations that should not
accommodate such sectional interests. It also has the implication that every
child becomes fully human only when it has been formally received into a community,
most often by ritual presentation to t he elders of the kindred. And where the
people are patrilineal, a problem arises when a girl of the kindred has a baby
at home because the child does not belong to the kindred of the mother and
nobody knows who the father of this child may be. This group ownership of
children is highlighted in the community by various means, not the least of
which being the kind of songs accompanying the birth of children. One such song
says- Anyị
nụrụ ube nwa gbara bịawa Anyị
nụrụ ube nwa gbara bịawa Ọ
wụghị otu onye nwe nwa Not too poetic perhaps in its imagery, but it makes
the point. Part of
the perception of group identity is the recognition of that the achievement of
one person leads to the improved level of existence of the community, at the
same time as the crime of one person can lead to abomination and destruction
and suffering of the town. It is this sense of corporateness that gives
consistency to what should have been contradictory in some Igbo behaviour.
There is, for example,
the paradox of independence and yet mass support of individuals observed and
commented upon by Dr Africanus Horton: There is not that unity among them that is to be
found among other tribes; in fact, everyone likes to be his own master. As a
rule, they like to see every African prosper. Among their own tribe, be they so
rich, they feel no ill-will toward them. A poor man or women of that tribe, if
they meet with a rising young person of the same nationality, are ready to
render him the utmost service in their power. They give him gratuitous advice,
and "embrace him as their child"; but if he is arrogant and overbearing, they regard him with scorn
and disdain wherever he is met. . . The achievement of the individual raises the
existential status of the community. And so widows were willing to bring out
their last reserves to contribute to scholarship schemes in the community,
irrespective of whose child was going to benefit from the scheme. As long as it was a member of the
corporate unit, then it was to the good of all. I cannot resist the temptation
here to remark on how fast and disastrously ideas can change. And yet, how the core of the system might
survive in the extended
context of the Igbo group action outside the Igbo home base. In its corporateness, the desire of each
group is group
fulfilment, usually represented, not in the strict warfare of fatal combat, but
in the contest for status. The image of the
community is of intense interest to the community. And it is that which gives such vigour to corporate satires
in the Igbo literary corpus. At a funeral, once, the youths of a town that had
come to carry their dead sister felt
insulted that the community of in-laws was not forthcoming with their demands.
The situation turned into conflict, but of words rather than swords and guns.
Any group that put the other to shame was the winner. In the end, the visiting
group left in triumph, chanting their prowess: Eh! lee ndị ọgụ ma a mba ọgụ o kweere nwoko Ndị anyị na ha gbara ị
nụụrụ ihe m mere ha mba ọgụ o kweere nwoko. Alike Obowo ị nụụrụ
ihe m mere ha. . . . Gbucha nwoko chara ya amy ya. . . Chara ya amụ gweere mba ọgụ o kweere nwoko. A town that could boast before others, a
town that feels that no other town has anything for which it can be jealous,
that is a fulfilled town. And that is what each town aims at in its
corporateness. And I insist that this is not because of the better amenities
that development entails, but more in the spirit of rivalry. And that is why,
no matter how much we appear to regret now the fact of missionary and western
influence, we have to acknowledge the enthusiasm with which some of our people
lobbied for it. It was something new that appeared to offer new ways of
economic and status development and towns sent delegations to headquarters to
ensure that the station was in their own territory rather than that of their
rival neighbours. And contemporary Abigbo songs still glory that "Ala
oyibo ga wụ Nsukka" since the education for which we used to go
overseas is now to be obtained at Nsukka, or that, and this is one for which
the advantages are not dear to the singing villagers except that it represents
something new and bright and progressive, "Supamaketi erule ama
anyị". This rivalry can be seen behind some of
the ugly contests during the recent political days. How dare any government
give some amenities, like industries, to any local government and not their
own? And how come that village became an autonomous community and not their
own? And how did the Government not notice that their section of the town
descended from the first son of the founder of the town and how could the
Government approve that the eze of the town should come from the section
descended from the youngest son of the founder? All of which amounts to
patriotism, but patriotism not directly related to the total area of community
but passing through the filtering barriers of concentric circles of identity. It is my proposition here that the
explanation for the level of reaction and involvement described above can only
be found within the context of the raising of the corporate identity of the
Igbo community beyond its existence as a social unit unto the ontological level
of abstract independent reality. This gives personality and agency to the
community as a corporate being with the ability to grow weak or strengthen like
a person. Some of
the practices and rituals of various Igbo communities give supporting evidence
for this hypothesis. In the Anambra Local Government Area of Anambra State, for
example, there is the Ikenga Obodo which is held in very great respect,
which is brought out ceremonially once a year (though on occasion it is also
brought out for impressive visitors). After all the social and religious
functions connected with it have been undergone, the fate of the lkenga during
the outing of the year is seen as reflecting the fate of the town for the year.
Those therefore whose responsibility it is in a given year to "carry"
the Ikenga Obodo for that year take their assignment seriously, knowing
how much the vigour and fulfilment of the town during the year is a factor of
their vigour and style. In the Owerri area, the Mbari is
also a reflection of how the fate of a community is seen in terms of health and
progress as if the community is a person. When a suspicious series of events
indicates that the deity of the community requires an Mbarị to be
built in his/her honour, the town goes into a great ferment of activities,
selecting the appropriate people, getting materials and perhaps hiring
additional artists to help with training and design and construction of the Mbarị.
Over a long period, the energies of the community are deeply engaged in
supporting the activities of the devotees who build the Mbarị. In
the end, the Mbarị is celebrated to the great increase in the
welfare and health of the community. At a less abstract level, there is the
tendency for Igbo communities to declare some object, or person, or masquerade,
or dance, the pride of the town. What would normally be considered a
metaphor-“the pride of the town" is seen from this new perspective to be a
statement of reality, for the town is personal enough in Igbo thought to be
susceptible to pride and to shame. A town is not only susceptible to pride and shame;
it is susceptible to health and sickness. The annual festival cycles of various
communities have much to do with the cleansing and reinvigoration of towns and
villages. For most communities in Igboland, the most important of the festivals
is centred on the new yam harvest. Some towns may achieve the same results with
other festivals. At Isu in Nkwerre Local Government Area, the festival Nta n'ala
is not exactly centred on the yam but its celebration on an Afọ market day in
the sixth month of the year is said to be "to thank chi for the
crops that have matured towards harvest" (Amadi). In Orodo, the festival
is called Egwu Amakụ and the main dish eaten is ụkwa (breadfruit)
but again it is held just before the harvest and the blowing of the mpi
ọkpu(horn), the symbol of authority, marks the beginning of the Orodo
new year (Uzokwe). In most other places in Igboland, however, the festival of
renewal is directly connected with the yam harvest (Modum, Kalu, Agada). Two published stories give an insight
into the reasons for the high place which yam occupies in Igbo view. The Afikpo
story has to do with Ibiniukpabi asking a woman, Orie Nta Imomo to "plant
something under a tree, tie her son to the tree, and set fire to both as a
sacrifice to him". First, the woman used a slave and the result was ji
abana which is not satisfying. At last she gave up her only son to Ibiniukpabi;
and that is how good yam came to be regarded as Amadị in
Afikpo. The Nrị story supports the nri claim to have given
great benefits to Igboland. It was their king, Ndri, who obtained yam
and cocoyam from Chukwu, again through sacrifice of his only son, and a
slave. The new yam harvest not only provides
for the return of full feeding after a long period of famine, it also revives
the covenant of renewal. From the various practices of various communities,
some key elements constitute the annual festival. First, it marks the end of
the period of greatest weakness due to hunger. Members of the community invoke
the deities with whom they have associated to thank them for preserving them
over the famine period. The people feed the deities with part of the harvest.
The festival involves the cleansing and purifying of individuals and the
community of the evils of the past year. In some communities this purification
requires period of peace when people may not make loud noises of disagreement.
Sick people would be doing themselves a disservice to die during this period
for they would not be properly buried. Ahịajọkụ himself
is ritually cleansed though an offering to his ekwensu. The environs of
the town are cleaned physically, and also symbolically through the ceremony of ịchụ
afọ (chasing away the year). Thirdly, the new yam festival involves'
the' communion of both the living and the dead. The ancestors, those who set up
the traditions that keep the people going, are invoked and entertained and
their help sought for the future. The living members of the same blood line
come from wherever their mothers and grand mothers were married to draw from
the ancestral hearth new strength from the blood and new sustenance from the
physical harvest of yam. Blood, and the importance with which it is held, is
another reflection of, and instigator of, the intense sense of identity of the
Igbo and the reality of community existence. Social Anthropologists write about
the "locality principle" and the "lineage principle" in the
classification of communities. In Igboland, the sense of total identity commitment
tends to be equated with the limits of blood relationship. This has led communities
that have become linked together for any reason to formulate new myths of
relationship and primogenitive in order to instil a deep sense of loyalty in
the members of the new unit. Mbaise people living, in towns, for example, pass
cola from Oke Ovuru, to Ezinihitte, to Agbaja, to Ahiara, and then to
Ekwereazu, on the basis that that is their order of primogeniture. And yet
Mbaise was only formed in 1942 at the instigation of the current administrative
arrangements. Relations based on blood are so attractive that the Oriental
Brothers claim brotherhood with
much of their audience: Ma onye anyị kpọrọ aha
ma onye anyị na-akpọghị aha, a wụhụ nwa nne m. Blood is so much at the centre of life,
both for the individual and for the community, that one of the greatest taboos
is against the shedding of the blood of a member of the community. Even if it
should happen by accident, the shedding of the blood of a member of the
community on the Earth of the community is an abomination to the Earth and the
culprit has to go into exile and have his house and property devastated. If it
should have been deliberate, the culprit may never return to the soil of his
town. This attitude to blood is shown in most societies in the reaction to
woman's menstrual blood and the power that it is supposed to have in the
neutralizing of the power of ọgwụ whether of community or of
individuals. In Abagana, for example, there is an ụdara ọmụmụ
along the way to the stream which women in their menstrual phase may not
pass from the right side. Blood is a very powerful force and holds Igbo people
in their communities in an identity that has abstract independent status. The ontological status of Igbo
communities receives its dualistic counterpart in the position of were raised by superior priestcraft to interfere
with the status of 0.3.2. THE ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF EVENTS Parallel to the ontological status which is
accorded the identity of communities, there is also evident in Igbo thought and
life the granting of ontological status to events. Things that people do, in
addition to whatever physical and social results that they produce, set up new
identities or beings that have effects of their own. It is in consonance with
this belief that the Igbo have set up certain practices and rituals to deal
with such realities. One such recognized reality is called ogbu
onughị in some dialects. A combination of certain activities
engenders ogbu onughị, all of them related to violence. If a man
should go to war and kill another human being, or go hunting and kill any of
the animals of great strength; if a deity should pursue and kill somebody who
has sworn a false oath on him or her; if a woman should nurse a sick husband or
relation who ends up dying in her arms; all these forms of contact with death
and violence set in motion a spiritual malaise which attacks the man, deity or
woman. The recognition of this phenomenon is embedded in the Igbo rituals for
neutralizing ogbu onughị. Both men and deity have to go through
the process known as igwa aka. Sometimes this is done for a man after he
dies (Ubesie), but most people do it immediately after they return from the
event. Failure to "purify the hand" immediately could lead to the man
infecting his family, for a woman would be affected by ogbu onughị through
contact with her unpurified husband, knowingly or unknowingly. For deities igwa
aka is done whenever they have done violence, and also periodically usually
during the annual festival. The woman's infection with ogbu onughị is
usually through other people's violence. Her purification is through imacha
ahu or some other form of ritual bath. Another concept which shows the social
recognition of the ontological independence of the results of words and actions
is that of oriko. Oriko arises as a sort of boomerang from a particular
sequence of actions and words. For example, somebody goes to his farm in the
morning and finds that, during the night, somebody had come and stolen his
yams. In frustration and despair of ever finding out who was the culprit, he
throws out some curses, praying that some dire tragedies should befall whoever
had his yams. If, through some vagaries of fortune, he is given, and eats part
of those yams, he becomes a victim of oriko. In another example, a man
might have his plate stolen and he goes to a deity and asks that the deity
should do some dreadful thing to the person who stole his plate. If that plate
should be smuggled to his house and he and his family use it, they will become
victims of oriko. The Igbo have established ways of dealing with this oriko.
In some communities, whoever injects curses into the environment over the
issue of such theft has to start by cancelling himself from its effect and
thereby preventing oriko from attacking him. In some areas, there are
actual concoctions which are made and eaten as soon as one is involved in this
way. Such ọgwụ oriko are specific to the kind of object over
which the oriko might arise. A final illustration is derived from the
matrimonial setting. Sometimes, when women have difficult deliveries, it has
been found that their confession of contact with men that were not their
husbands during the period of their pregnancy, or even since they knew their
husbands, has been known to lead to easing of the delivery difficulties. This
confession may be made to the elder of the family at any time or to the
daughters of the kindred during delivery. Some ritual follows this confession
and the woman is thereby released from the abstract force that was set up by
her adultery. This ceremony is known as ise ifi or isa ifi (C. U.
Ogu, S. O. Onyeidu). Adultery appears to be taken rather seriously in the Igbo
tradition as it is supposed to hurt the husband and family. But confession and
ritual communion deal successfully with the force that it sets up. In the
Ajalli area, under general circumstances, the woman performs the ritual of igwa
ekwu and can then cohabit and cook for and eat with the family. The above examples illustrate the fact
that in Igbo thought reverberations are left by actions and that these
reverberations acquire the status of independent forces which need to be
placated or neutralized for people to be relieved from their effects. Divination, however, remains the
greatest evidence of the ontological status granted to events. Divination is
rational only on the basis that there is an abstract field of action occupied
by the reverberations from events and that this field contains the actions from
past, present, and future. What then is required to obtain access to this world
is the right kind of eyes. The process of becoming a diviner is in itself
indicative of this belief For the Igbo, the training process is not one of
intensive teaching and learning of information, though of course the
interpretations of the symbolisms of the divining objects must be acquired, but
one of intensive preparation of the appropriate senses to enter the field of
events parallel to the physica1. At the centre of the transition to becoming a
diviner is the process known as isa anya or iwa anya, (washing,
or opening the eyes). In physical terms, very spicy painful juices are dripped
into the eyes to symbolize the opening of those senses to new and other
experiences. From this perspective, then, divination is not just physical or
psychological manipulation of clients but a genuine process of gaining access
to the abstract world of events of the past and the future and bringing back
information on which one may act with confidence. The eyes that see into the
past and future should also see into the present and that is why a genuine
diviner is not supposed to ask the client what the problem is with which he has
come. Of course, as in most other affairs, there will be charlatans who pretend
to knowledge and who trick their customers into fake divination. Even for the
genuine diviner, there will be days and occasions when the eyes will be cloudy
or reality is hidden behind thick obstructions. But the society does believe
that there is a world of events that the trained and opened eyes of the diviner
can gain access to. Another support for the ontological
status given to events in 19bo world view is the acceptance of omens: Events
that are still to happen may be recognized from the evidence of the state of
plants or of birds and animals. Levy-Bruhl, discussing "primitives” and
"omens" had to argue as to whether they believed in the birds of omen
as predicting or causing events. If it is accepted that events have their
independent identities, it becomes easier to understand omens better. There
are birds and insects and animals which have special senses for making contact
with particular abstract entities and their behaviour then reveals what they
know to the trained mind. This is especially true of premonitions of danger and
death. In some places, these premonitions are called ushi, in the Nsukka
area Usebo. Bees bear a message from Amadịọha. Ogwumaganam
-the Chameleon, is not good to see rocking himself in the middle of one's
compound. It bodes ill for a village to have a flock of Ugeloma fly in,
screaming in vigorous perturbation. These and other omens are possible because
events have identities and there is a co-existence of past, present, and future
in world of abstract realities. The importance of the eyes is seen also in other
ceremonies that relate to maturing in knowledge and wisdom. In some
communities, the ceremony for admitting the young males into the adolescent
grade is called ịtụ anya. During the process, there is the
actual dripping of hot peppery juices into the eyes of the young people- ịtụ
ọgwụ, ịtụ ose, ịtụ ụda n 'anya.
Basically however the exercise, even in those areas in which some other
activity, involves revelation and the admission into new knowledge of things
as they are or are believed to be in the community. There is of course the
social implications of the process in that it is like joining a society and the
benefits accruing to membership could include joining in the feast prepared
when some other initiated person dies, that is, when an initiate dies onye tụrụ
anya and the dog is killed for the cleansing of the eyes igbụ nkịta
anya. Is it coincidental that the pupils of the eyes are called nkịta-anya
(-dogs of the eyes-) in Igbo ?, only those who were initiated may partake
of the meat. But the initiation goes beyond the social implications and is
believed to open the eyes of the initiates to the deeper realities of life
which are not on the surface. In those days one who had not gone through ịtụ
anya was not admitted into serious discussions. He was believed to be
childish and immature. It is to be noted, finally, that the Igbo share
with other language groups the imagery of vision for understanding. When an
Igbo person hands over a matter to another with the statement that "Ọ
dighi ụzọ ya hụgha", he is not asking to be led as a
physically blind person but asking that issues be explained to him. Indeed, for
the Igbo, events have an independence of existence in the abstract sense and
generate a new world of realities to which only the developed eyes have access. 0.3.3 BEING AS
ACTION AND VARIOUS IGBO CONCEPTS: Within the same framework that makes it possible
for abstract beings to have reality and agency, it is natural that things are
what they do. I n the same way, the very concepts with which things are described
would have meaning according to their content rather than in independent
objective terms. Or rather, objectivity would have to be re-defined so that it
relates to the content of the concept rather than to any arbitrary measuring
device invented by human beings for their own comfort. Time in Igbo relates to the content of experience
rather to an absolute duration measured by the clock. On the large scale in
terms of total life, the age of a person is measured more in terms of
achievement than in terms of years of life. It is true that perhaps the absence
of time-pieces opened the way to vagueness in time terms, but I believe there
is an important factor deriving from the world view of being as action. There
is a proverb which says that if a young person washes his hands properly, he
will dine with his elders. Another proverb says that each person's morning
starts when that person wakes up. These proverbs of course have their meaning
in context, but their surface structure is based solidly on the fact of the
Igbo approach to time. In popular Igbo parlance, too, the time of day is
defined in utilitarian terms with regard to what action if performed at that
time of day, like: when the tappers go for the first tapping of the wine, or
when the cock crows for the first time in the early morning. And people also
speak of the event that took place at the time they were born as a record of
their birth-date. It is arguable however that these later record keeping styles
are a result of the absence of more exact methods of record keeping. Space is another concept which even more
clearly relates to the content of the concept as against absolute dimensions.
Again, one may speak first of the large issue of the meaning of ụwa as
the world in Igbo. The various contexts in which ụwa is used
indicate that the Igbo speak more in terms of fields of action than of place of
action. Space is a field of action, a plane of action, not just a location made
up of discrete physical distances and separate physical spaces. Ala
mmụọ and alammadu are then planes of spirit action and
of human action and these need not be physically separated. It is this non-separation in physical
terms that makes interaction between the various worlds possible so that
spirits and their activities impinge on the realities in the human and physical
sphere. Spirits can be invited and become present in a location but are not
seen because their nature and their sphere are different though they are in the
same physical location. On the humorous side of this concept is the story that
soon after the Owerri-Onitsha Road was completed there were several accidents
on the road due to the fact that the deity of the area just after Irete, not knowing that human beings had interfered with his
usual domain, used to go on his usual walks through the forest. Except that now
the forest had been cut in two to make way for the road. The unfortunate
drivers that encountered the deity would hit him without seeing him and end up
in unexplainable motor accidents. I believe the accidents have stopped since
the deity found out where the occasional hits came from. But back now to the more serious perspective. One
notes that distances were estimated on the basis of some action principle,
say, how long it would take to cover the journey from one location to another.
It is encouraging at this point in the history of thought to find that one need
not be forced away from this approach to time and space because of its apparent
conflict with the standard western attitudes to the concepts. There has been a
growing disagreement since the time of Einstein’s' Relativity Theory about the
concepts of absolute time and absolute space in the ranks of the philosophers
and physicists of the western world like G. J. Whitrow, Reichenbach, T. S.
Kuhn, Grunbaum, and others. The same principle of content as against
structure is apparent in Igbo definitions of such other concepts as beauty,
manhood, womanhood, and ultimately personality. Agwa wụ mma, mma
nwanyị wụnwa, and other such expressions emphasize the concept
of being as action. This idea naturally demands group definitions of what
constitutes the essential functioning of each concept as here embodied in song. Nwanwanyị na-enweghị nwa, ọ naghj
ekwu ihe wụ ezi Eziokwu, ọ naghị hi ekwu
l'ezi, ọ naghị ekwu ihe wụ ezi. Nwanwoko na-enweghị ego, ọ naghị ekwu ihe wụ ezi Eziokwu, ọ naghị hi ekwu
l'ezi, ọ naghị ekwu ihe wụ ezi Abstractions
are thereby formed into culturally sanctioned ideals to which individuals have
to aspire. 0.3.4
ABSTRACTIONS IN LANGUAGE AND ART The tendency to abstraction also
influences Igbo perspectives in language and literature, in art and music and
drama. The tendency to put what has to be said in as brief and symbolic a form
as possible appears to be a key characteristic of Igbo expression and artistry,
whether it is in song or speech, in masquerade configuring or in body movement. For some reasons which have yet to be
explored, the Igbo have abstracted certain numbers and given them symbolic
significance, In offering kola, multiples of two and four are given and not the
odd numbers-thus events demand four, sixteen, sixty-four kola nuts and some
multiples of four in between. When kola is split, the number of lobes found in
the kola nut has been given symbolic meaning-three is aka dike, four is
peace, five is wealth and children, and so forth. Seven appears in speech and
in folk tales to represent the limits of distance and suffering so that when
one is said to have crossed seven rivers and seven deserts, it is implied that
he has reached the limits of the world. In areas of Igboland, offerings in
great ritual events are made in multiples of nine. Romanus Egudu has reported
on this in connection with Igo odo. The origins and implications of
these symbolic numbers still need to be explored. One of the statements often made to
explain why it is necessary to continue to use English in serious discussions
in the Igbo area is that the Igbo language is short of vocabulary. In one sense
this is correct since the Igbo are in contact with a much larger frame of
experience than the origins of the language anticipated. But the history of
language shows that the present English language which we use has more than
sixty per. cent of its roots from outside the English root system. The
Igbo who have been expert at borrowing other people's anything that they find
useful will, I believe, not hesitate to take as many words and as quickly as
may be necessary to make it possible to give Ahịakọkụ lectures
in Igbo in the next five years. There is however another sense in which the
assertion that the Igbo language is
short of words is wrong. It cannot be claimed justly that Igbo is
short of abstractions. The Igbo language has a surprisingly large number of
techniques for forming abstract words. From the root -ke (ike), (to
divide), it evolves okike, (the act of dividing); eke he who
divides), oke (the share obtained from the sharing). The language forms
abstract nouns of process, nouns which indicate result of the process, the noun
of the action itself, and noun of the agent of the action. Thus, as another
illustration, we have -che (wait, preserve); and from that root iche (to
wait); nche (he who looks after, or what is used for preserving _ in the
nche for palm-wine in the Ngwa area); oche (the seat on which you
wait); uche (waiting, as in izu uche-(to buy ambush, that is to pay people to wait for.
somebody and beat him up or kill him). Through variety of prefixes and root
repetitions the Igbo language can develop a large body of stable vocabulary to
contain our experience. The villagers are doing it. High Blood pressure is ọbara
mgbala elu, and the electric generating plant is ite ọkụ. More to our purpose, it is clear that
the Igbo language is consistent with the Igbo world view in the extent to which
it is interested in viable abstractions.
It is also the case that Igbo literature tends towards the didactic and
thereby the use of symbols and abstractions. Most of the canon of Igbo fiction
is centred on the tortoise. The physical characteristics of the tortoise are
naturally accommodated in the stories but the tortoise really represents a
concept and it is this concept that is called up whenever the tortoise is
figured in the stories. Other stories are told and there can be no gainsaying
that they are told for the fun of language usage, patterns of behaviour and style
of narration, suspense, and all the elements that make for mental and emotional
and imaginative excitement. At the end, however it is usually possible to say
that "that story is about humility", "that story teaches us
that. . .". Moral abstractions tend to give focus to the narrations. The
story of Obiadi warns parents against "izugbu mmadụ maka a
hụrụ nanas, ya na-emezi isi ike” , ". The story of Ọmalinze
teaches us that "ụwa na-eme ntụgharị. . . Ọ
bụrụ na ụbọchị adịrịghị mmadụ
mma taa, ọ dịrị ya echi”. The tendency to abstraction is not only found in
the goal of the story. It is also seen in
the form of literature which tends to find the best formulation of
an idea and stay with it, admitting variations but mainly around the central
form. The most prominent form of this type of encapsulation is course in the
proverb. The proverb represents somebody's observation at some point in time
encapsulated in a form of words that, for their succinctness and imagery, have
been found attractive and memorable. This form of words is then found
applicable in a variety of situations in which the meaning, when extracted
makes a valuable and poignant comment. Proverbs, I am reminded I have said
before, "are not atrophied
capsules of traditional wisdom but living vehicles of situational
statement." The point being made here is that Igbo literature, perhaps like
most oral literatures, tends to formulate permanent images rather than give
extensive analyses of the topics and themes. When, for example, women in a
dancing group chose dance
names, they try as much as possible to fit a whole history into a few words – Ụgbọ
ten m na-eji agụ oge Nkwụ
opere ahịaghị ike Ụwa
ji ama ka Sunday Ụha
ọcha alaghị ahịa Nwanwanyị
silva goldu, etc Each of these names tells the story of the woman's
experience or appearance. If you are impressed with the name, you may then seek
explanation, and once you have it, each time you hear the name you will
remember what it says and means. The tendency to abstract encapsulation
of statement is most evident in masquerade performance. Studies of Igbo
masquerades (Ugonna, Enekwe, Odita, Onyeneke, Amankulor, Ottenberg) emphasize various
aspects of the performance-music, art, drama, social control, social structure,
and so on. They are all agreed also that each masquerade tends to represent one
concept and that all aspects of the masking -costume, music, movement, speech
if any, highlight the concept. The work done by Horton on Kalabari masquerades
and some current work being done
by Chike Aniakor in Igboland give deep insights into the system of
representation. In my own experience, this symbolism can be temporarily
hidden from most of the audience, but it is clearly there for those who can
understand. During the Ụzọ iyi festival in 1973, the masquerade
gallery contained a set of ugly masquerades called ntoromafọ. They
came from two or three sections of the town and their competition appeared to
be of which one would be most outrageously ugly. The mask face was most
significantly indicative of a leprous eaten-up face with lost nose, largely
rotten mouth, with exposed half-destroyed teeth, and tongue lolling out. In the
middle of the figure was a grossly distended stomach below which was hanging,
outside the clothes, pendulous oversized genitals. Each was a really horrible
figure that spoke through its nose, unashamedly trying to court the prettiest
girls that came to the masquerade festival. It was clear that its vulgar
sexuality and bloated rottenness gave to the observers, especially the women,
the experience of shocked horror. At the same time, there were observers that
hid behind others in fascinated revulsion, giggling at the bestial but
unashamed exuberance of the ntoromafọ. In spite of the apparent
ease with which the audience reacted to the masquerade however, there were not
many who were willing to risk any verbalization of the symbolic significance of
the mask. Ultimately, it turned out that the mask had a historical background,
being a representation of somebody who had contracted decay through sexual
excess. More significantly, however, the masquerade was presented as a periodic
reification of the concept of punishment for excess. In each masquerade
festival, each masquerade has its symbolic meaning the exploration of which
would lead to valuable insights into the life of the people and their world view.
The Odo Achi in the series of masquerades in Aku in the Nsukka area,
for example, represents the peak of ancestral authority and its various
decisions and proclamations are taken very seriously in the community. In the visual arts, there is the same tendency to
abstraction which results in the establishment of certain key motifs in body
designs and mural decorations. The direction of artistic effort is not to
reproduce the reality of the object in its static characteristics but to
recapture the action and meaning of the persons and situations of life.
Geoffrey Parrinder saw this tendency as characteristic of African Art when he
wrote that "most African Art aims at expressing feeling, not by copying
faces and bodies, but by emphasizing muscles, power, facial character and
mystery" African Mythology. In the actualization of this artistic
tendency, however, it has been pointed out by other Art scholars who have been
more comparative that Igbo Art subjects adopt more vigorously dynamic postures
than, say, Yoruba Art subjects which show more repose in their postures. Mbarị
Art Centres are centre-pieces of very dramatic art embodying symbolic and
satirical recreations of the events and people in the communities of the
period of their creation (Ulli Beier, Herbert Cole). In music, themes turn into motifs which are
identifiable with occasions. Motifs are characters which belong to the funeral
of successful men and of fulfilled elderly women, specific to the funeral of
those who did "strong"
things and for the returning of a woman's body to her kindred land for burial.
Wrestling music is identifiable and the music for success and failure is also
clear to those educated in their traditions. In my younger days, during the ekpe
dance, one looked forward to the music of the nwanyị arụ masquerade
which was very enchanting in sound- Nwanyị
arụ abịamana, idigiridi Idigiridi
giridi, digiridi. Till one heard this special rhythm one
was not ready to leave the dance grounds for the day. Dance
steps are also another area of symbolic action. It was \he dance steps of some
Igbo women which (Sylvia Leith-Ross) observed that made her speculate that the
Igbo must have had a long history of civilization which had given way to the
corrupt state in which the white men met the Igbo of this century. I must admit
that most of the symbolism of Igbo dance movements still have to be explored,
But there are certainly dance movements that one cannot but suspect were
abstracted from general body movement in order to recreate certain ideas. 0.3.5.
STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL LIFE I will
conclude this section by indicating briefly the implications of the micro
issues raised above at the macro revel of the management of physical, social
and religious action of the Igbo people. For the
Igbo, nothing is purely physical or merely spiritual or abstract. Things exist
as combinations of elements. When somebody is sick, the Igbo do not fail to
recognize that there are physical causes to the illness. That is why the 1gbo
have scoured their environment and found out that most of the leaves, roots,
and barks in the forests and bushes of Igboland contain medicines that can cure
all the illnesses in Igboland. But, beyond the physical elements of the illness
they also see the counterparts of the illness that could have been caused by
the actions and wishes of other people, the abstract entities that could have
been interjected by others with whom he has had differences of opinion or will.
This attention to the forces set up by people, or by the ancestors, or by
deities, makes it impossible for Igbo people to accept that anybody could die,
even by a publicly recognized motor accident, without its being something produced
by others which one has to go and "find out", So that in a case of
sickness, infertility, failure of examinations, when an Igbo man says he is
going to find out, he is not going to the laboratory, or to the psychiatrist or
the gynaecologist only. He is more importantly going to find out the influence
that is causing the undesirable result. In the same way, when somebody is going to
cultivate his farm, he must, of course, know the signs in the sky and on the
earth which indicate the appropriate time, which indicate the state of the
soil; he must use the right seeds; he must put in his best efforts. But beyond
these, he must also ensure that the spirits of his ancestors, his chi, and
the earth are propitious for his best knowledge and endeavours to yield fruit.
Neither factor goes without the other in Igbo thought. As the priestess
screamed at the lazy Ụnọka of Achebe's Things Fall Apart, "….
when a man is at peace with his gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be
good or bad according to the strength of his arm," This is a wholistic
rather than a magical perspective on the workings of reality. With regard to the structure of religion, the
principle of dualities and the concept of being as action predispose the Igbo
to the acceptance of a wide range of deities and being forces. There is between
these deities, not a hierarchy of being as such but a hierarchy of function,
which makes it possible for a deity that is very powerful in one area of
Igboland, to be completely disregarded in another community. Which also makes it possible for a deity that
is very powerful at one time, to become discarded at another time or conversely
for a deity that was thought to have disappeared, to return and start asking
for sacrifices. This later idea is graphically represented in the Mkpor proverb
that emechapụta Nwangwụ ọ waba n'afa. Never mind that
the proverb is usually used in the context of what happens when an ugly
unpersonable girl gets married to a man that prunes her up and she begins to
look glamorous. The surface statement of the proverb affirms the changeable
status of deities on the basis of how much power they continue to wield. Another aspect of religion is that the
nature and importance of deity depends on whether one is talking about the
individual or about a community, The religion of the individual centres on his
or her chi and for this religion the individual is his own priest. At
the town and community level are ala and any other deity that the people
have found necessary and useful, derived from either the natural environment of
rivers (Idemili, Wiyi, Idoto, Nwangene, etc.) and hills; or made by
"dibias" (Ibinụkpabi, Igwekala, Udo, Ogwugwu,
Obịlịkpa); or acknowledged from physical phenomena, like
Amadịọha Eze Elu,
Abalị Ujuchị, Igwe. The worship of these other deities would be
under the control of priests who look after them on behalf of their communities
or on behalf of the deities themselves, Members of the community associate with
these other deities, not out of choice, but because of some problem which they
are causing in their lives, or some good which they believe the deities can
provide for them. Then they would go to Chukwu of Arochukwu, or Ekwuruocho, or
Igwekala of Ụmụnneọha, or Agbala. of Awka, or Ọnyịlịọra
of Ezira, or any oracle that is very strong at the time in order to attract
children-(yata ọmụmụ), and this can even be more specific-yata nwoko if there have
been too many female children in the family. They could also go to attract
wealth, or to solve any other kind of problem-too many children dying, property
getting lost inexplicably (igbochi ọnwụ na nfu). When the
particular problem is solved or their request is obtained, the Igbo leave the
deity alone with his priest because mmụọ na mmadụ anaghị
akpakọ. There are of course other forces that I have not mentioned,
but they fit into the scheme of those forces, powers, and neighbours that the
Igbo recognize their presence in the environment. The Igbo ensure that they
keep in good terms with these powers and forces and use those that are required
for the welfare of man. A final factor which I will mention with regard to
religion is the democratic nature of the Igbo approach to the deities. The Igbo
do not go into the dangerous role of deciding between the deities which of them
may be senior to the others. More importantly, they do not refuse to
acknowledge the deity of any deity that is proclaimed deity. An old man in
Ukehe whose morning prayer was recorded in my project on "Igbo Religious
Literature", Ani Nwatuejide showed wisdom in his concluding invocation.
After calling on deities of town, of farm and home, after calling the spirits
of trees (like ọjị, ụkwa, etc.), after calling on the
ancestors of his line, concluded: A magịm ndị dị,
ndụ ma ndị nwụrụ ọnwụ, bikonu,
arịọ m ụnụ, chịrị' nụ ọjị
tama nụ (I don't
know all the living, not to speak of all the dead, so please all of you accept
my kola nut and eat). By that formula he had included all those who might have
felt offended because their names had been omitted. In the same way while we
may be laughing at the non-Christian villager who concludes his kola prayers
with: N'aha Jesu Christi Onye nwe anyi (Through Christ Our Lord), the
villager is engaged in the serious business of saving himself from blame and
punishment by accommodating a new and obviously strong deity brought in by the
missionaries. Father At the social level, the world view I
have explored above should give theoretical support to some of the
characteristics that mark Igbo social life. The ontological status of community
identity, for example, would give some explanation as to why there is a near
instinctive rejection of opposition within the community. There is violent
resentment against those who say anything that might be construed as reducing
the sense of group solidarity (Opposition appears to be seen in terms of
sickness, as if a part of the body started fighting against the rest of the
body). The principle of government among the Igbo is one of consensus rather
than the oppression of the minority by the majority. And this consensus is
achieved at the expense of long and tedious discussion as every person has to
have a chance to make his or her contribution. As Mazi Njaka once put it:
"To the Igbo, a Government that does not afford him an opportunity to
participate actively is not parademocratic and cannot be countenanced." (Igbo
Political Culture). Within this ontological unity, there is
the paradox of highlighted duality. Complementarity becomes the principle of
social justice rather than equality. There is an acknowledgement, as in
the Abigbo Mbaise song that oke amadị nwe egbe anyị nwe igu. But
there is crisis when there is justified complaint that anarakwala anyị
egbe Within this context, there is a balance between
the claims of community and the claims of individualism. The individual is a
member of the community and it is this community that sets the goals that have
acceptability within that community. It is the community that sets up reward
and punishment systems. To a large extent, the individual in Igboland is subsumed within the requirements
of the community. At the end of Achebe's Arrow of God, the people can
absorb the tragedy of Ezeụlụ within the framework of his having
been punished for his arrogance in thinking that he could hold to any decisions
that defied the general wishes of
his people. He should have known that nobody ever won a case against his community. The
proverb which says that "a gbakọọ a gbakọọ kwaịgha
nwanwa n'ohu, ọ naghị awa n'afa" is another
indication of the strength of community
in its corporateness. In all these aspects, the individual is subjected to the community. But,
as in all that I have proposed as relevant to the Igbo world view, we have to
see things in dualities and acknowledge that the strength of the Igbo Community
is dependent on the extent to which it promotes the individuality of the
person and encourages the individuals in the community to achieve
self-fulfilment. It is in the nature of the goals and aspirations, and the ways
that Igbo traditions have established for the fulfilment of the Igbo, that we
must now seek the fullness of the Igbo world view. 0.4 "NKA NA
NZERE": THE IDEAL OF THE GOOD LIFE Ultimately the world view of the Igbo is
concretized in what the Igbo individual senses as the attitude of the external
realities of nature and society to him. Does the world confront him with hope
or despair? Is the Igbo person the plaything of the gods or does he determine
his own fate? Does society overwhelm the individual or can each person have his
freedom for fulfilment? What does the Igbo world view provide for the
individual as aids to the achievement of recognized goals? And how does the
Igbo person assess success or failure in life? In sum, what constitutes the
good life in the thought
of the Igbo? Answers to these questions would represent the fullness of the
Igbo world view. The various attempts made so far to
summarize the outlook of the environment to the Igbo have differed in their
main thrust. In one summary, the Igbo world is "a world of moving
equilibrium. . . .that is constantly threatened, and sometimes actually
disturbed by natural and social calamities" (Uchendu); in another it is
seen as "a moral order in which man's well-being or failure could be
determined by the inscrutable will of the gods", one therefore in which
"human existence, in spite of occasional joys, was perceived as being precarious)
(Kalu). On the one hand, somebody has suggested that the Igbo see their world
as "a universe marked by harmony and unity , a Universe which favours the
continuity, augmentation, and full realization of life" (Uzukwu); on the
other, another has described the Igbo perception of the world as probabilistic
such that life is seen
as a journey through a market place in which humanity may be divided into
winners and losers. (Chidi Osuagwu). My thesis is that the Igbo see the world
as operating ,with a system of intrinsic dualities such that good and evil can
come from the same universe. Basically, the world confronts every Igbo person
with both moral evil and moral good, with existential creativity as well as
natural destructiveness. It is through this maze of a world of dualities that
the Igbo person has to move, with his wits around him, in the pursuit of the
goals of life. The philosopher mad man put it brilliantly: ụwa
wụ mgbanwe mgbanwe. The cosmological framework combines with
the social environment to establish the context of the Igbo person's quest for
fulfilment. As described above, this social environment completely envelopes
the individual and sets the limits to the exercise of his independence, it prescribes acceptable
goals of achievement for the individual, but it also provides systems and
facilities to aid the individual on his pursuit of fulfilment and assigns
rewards for the fulfilled. To that extent, it also provides the individual with
spurs and restraints just like the cosmological environment. The specificity of
the Igbo world view is in the kinds of goals that have been set for Igbo men
and women and the paths they are encouraged to travel and the tools they are
allowed to use on their way to those goals. Writing about life in ` If
the people were tough and resilient, it was because the land gave them no
opportunity to be otherwise, those who were faint in heart or lacking a
fanatical streak of endurance did not stay long in the Great Northwest".
(Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds). In the same way, one may search for and speak of
the character type favoured by the Igbo environment and people. The ontological system which I have been
struggling to present applies also to the Igbo identification and assessment of
personality. This means that validity of existence and the status of
achievement is influenced by two factors. The first factor is that there is a
basic concept of humanity. One has first to be a human being. And in the
tradition of Igbo assignment of being to action, it is not everything that
looks like a human being that is a human being. And so, the question, when
somebody is seen to behave in a certain way: Ihe ọ wụkwadị
mmadụ; ka ọwụ anụ ọhịa? has
meaning in ontological terms, not just in the assessment of behaviour. And in a
similar manner. the expression ezigbo mmadụ does not have moral
implications only, but also ontological implications. The Igbo person is principally an
IDENTITY. The reflexive pronouns-oneself, himself, myself, yourself, are not
merely compliments to emphasize statement but they are based on the pronoun,
self which a dictionary goes into great strains to define as "an identical
person, personality, ego: a side of one's personality: what one is:
personality: identity: . . " When the Igbo person uses onwe m, I believe we are dealing not
in imagery but in primary statement of reality. For the Igbo, it is this
identity that is made manifest in the biological, social and religious
activities in which the individual engages or in which he is involved. That
identity has a reality of its own which has characteristics that cohere to it.
The biological processes are essential to the person. He has to eat and drink
and keep the body from harm. Religious activities invigorate the person,
supplying him with help from deities and unseen external forces and also
protecting the person from the dangerous activities of spirits. But though the
person is dependent on these activities, they do not define the person. There
is still the person whose valour is aided and abetted but not subsumed under
these other activities. That is the identity that sickens and/or strengthens to
determine the status of the person. Initiatory rites act on that identity to
release it for heightened performance of the person. Ima ọgwụ refers
to the strengthening of this personal identity and is quite a different thing
from religion. Religion involves interaction with deities. Ima ọgwụ
is more internal to the person, invigorating the inner forces of the person in his
interaction with both men and spirits and deities. In masquerade performance,
it is this identity that is transformed. The second factor has to with the actual use one
has made of the humanity which is his or hers. With the concepts of mutability
of reality and of proper states of being, just being alive is not enough.
"No condition is permanent” and people are to be assessed within the framework
of reality not being made of static characteristics but of what beings do. 0.4.1 The EQUIPMENT
FOR ACHIEVEMENT Before I actually suggest the definition
of achievement in the Igbo world view, I will suggest the direction of that
definition through the exploration
of those elements which the Igbo consider necessary towards fulfilment. Three elements
appear prominent in this regard. The first of these is not within the control
of the individual the chi that guides the person and determines his fortune.
The other two are within each person's control, the thrust he makes into the
world --lkenga, and the manipulative ability to adjust to the fortunes and tracks of life-Akọ na uche. The important place which chi holds in the
life of the Igbo person has been the subject of several studies. Disagreements
abound as to various facets of the chi, the exact interpretation of the
nature and function of chi, the source of the chi, the manner of
representation of the chi. the relationship between the chi and Chineke
and Chukwu, and so forth. My own recent explorations of these issues
are to be found in my monograph on The Supreme God as Stranger in Igbo
Religious Thought. What is agreed however is that every Igbo person has his
or her chi and that the achievement of each person is limited to the
destiny which each person is tied to with that chi. Success and failure
are within the competence of the chi and, as Achebe has pointed out, “chi
is more concerned with success or failure than with righteousness and wickedness”.
To a large extent, we have now, as a people, begun to transfer the
responsibilities which were exercised by the individual chi and eke of
the Igbo world to a central Chiukwu similar to the Christian God but the
consciousness of the individual chi still persists in the statements
heard in song and life. Stephen Osadebe warns us not to gloat over the poor: Ọ fụlụ nwa ogbenye n’ ụwa Ọ bido
mụbazianị ya amụ Ọ bụzi ngị bụ chi kelụ
mmadụ n'enu ụwa Onye mazi
isi ga-echi eze echi. Many of the incidents in Flora Nwapa's novel, Idu,
are dependent on an understanding of the peculiar providential relationship
between an individual and his chi. Above all, the Igbo person has very
easy access to psychological satisfaction in his failure of achievement with
many proverbs and songs that put the blame squarely on the chi. One
recent song with a lilting tune says: Anọrọlam ele chi m lee Onye ụwa
la-ara ahụ ọ ragha ya la chi ye Owe
aya mma aya mma Another song advises people to be aware
of the influence of chi before they attach blame to failure in life: Onye meme ma chi ya
ekweghị Onye
ejile ụwa kọọ ya ọnụ. The Igbo are careful however not to give
a loophole to the lazy to get away with blaming their chi. The proverb
says that onye kwe chi ya ekwe. Any appearance of contradiction should
be taken in the context of the recognized dualities of Igbo thought-we are
dealing with the extremes of the continuum of reality. Even then, it should be
clear that even if somebody has a good chi, if he folds his hands and
puts them between his thighs, no chi can save him from a worthless life.
And so the Igbo insist on a second ingredient to a fulfilled life: the thrust
which man makes into his environment. The Ikenga is the most prominent
and important of a group of forces which the Igbo abstract and reify, to which
they attribute agency and power in the individual's achievement of success in
his life's endeavours. The women have ekwu,
the men have ọfọ, ụfọ, ọbọ, odi, and
if they are titled, they also have alọ and otosi. If they
are traders, they may also have mbatakụ and ụkwụ-na-ije.
All these have to be seen however for what they are, representations which
reinforce the actual input which the person makes to the status of his life. In
other words, they are so many ways of reinforcing the demand which the Igbo
world view makes on the Igbo consciousness to be always struggling and working.
The same philosopher mad man declared that Ụwa wụ ndọlị
ndọlị. I believe the most prominent aspect of the Igbo
concept of man is that of a struggler for survival, a hard and determined
person in confrontation with the environment to force out of it a means of
sustenance, And so we have statements like "nwoko ezughị
ike", nwoko anọghị ọkpọrọ", "kama
nwoko nọrọ ọkpọrọ ya arụọ ataghị
eze" (" A man does not rest”,” A man does not stay idle",
"Rather than a man being idle, he will cultivate inedible yam".)
Though the following statement is made as a joke, it does expose the extent of
activity expected of women: “mere kee mere kee, anaghị ekwe nwanyị
gbaa ahụọnụ” Blind struggle is not enough, however.
As Ezinihitte Mbaise people say, “ịdọbise akwara
awụghị ikesi ọgba ike”. In the Igbo perception of life as not having either a benevolent or a
malicious intentionality, since things happen in the ineluctable fulfilment of
their dualistic existence, man must learn to make his way to achievement. The
ability to manipulate one's world and the events in it becomes consequently a
prime factor for success. And the quality which the Igbo see as most important
for this manipulation is QUICKNESS OF MIND. With it, one can adjust quickly and
intelligently to situations in life. To achieve intelligent adjustment, the
first thing is to be
intelligent. And the Igbo start early to instil consciousness of this need for
intelligence in the children. The chief means of doing this is through stories
of the trickster tortoise. No story telling session is complete in which the mbe/nnabe/mbekwu-nwa-anịga
does not feature, and when he features, he is using his quick brain to
outwit one animal or the other. There are far too many stories of this type for
illustration to be needed here. The tortoise is of course largely symbolic of
human persons in these stories. His position in ritual as the most common
animal for cleansing the earth, his mythological age, and the fact that his
carapace is also used for the beating of invocation rhythms to the gods of the
clans by the diviners, all these show the high respect in which the tortoise is
held in ordinary life. It is this actual position in life and ritual that gives
greater poignancy to the stories in which he becomes the object of immense fun
and games. It is important to note here that the Igbo do make
a distinction between different kinds of intelligence. Some tortoise stories
are used to show the difference between wisdom, and cleverness "akọ/uche"
which are praiseworthy on the one hand, and on the other trickery and
treachery aghụghọ which deserve punishment as
over-cleverness. In the story of "Ewi na Mbe" the tortoise,
after a successful trick against the squirrel, ends up being boiled to death in
his wife's soup pot through the squirrel's cleverness and we are told at the
end of the story that "onye aghụghụ nwụọ, onye
aghụghọ elie ya", One positive side, tortoise stories are
used mainly to teach that one can survive very great odds if he is quick witted
and intelligent. When the tortoise uses his brain to work out his salvation in
difficult circumstances, he is gloriously successful. But tortoise stories also
warn about the limits of clever manipulation in the pursuit of selfish,
short-term gains. For when, as is often the case, tortoise tries to cheat to
satisfy his long throat, he is caught and punished. Mike Ejeagha has been able to transfer
the tortoise motif into the modern context in one of his most interesting
ballads. The tortoise tricks the elephant into becoming the gift with which the
tortoise marries the daughter of the king by playing on the vain ambitions of
the elephant. The elephant was to come along to be the chairman at the king's Ọfala
festival: Ọ bụkwa enyi ga-abụ isi oche / Enyi na-aga na
anyị so gị n'azụ, gwogwogwom gwo. Ejeagha concludes Ya
bụ ị na-edugakwa mmadụ ozi, uche gị dịkwa ya. Outside the tortoise cycle of stories,
the Igbo also teach the importance of intelligence through dilemma stories. In
dilemma stories moral problems are set to which there are no definitive
answers. Through them, a growing mind is made to realize that there are
situations in life when one cannot depend on memory for approved answers but
one has to work out, on the basis of extant principles, the best or most
efficient position to adopt under those circumstances. You are travelling with your wife, your mother and
your mother-in-law. All of them are blind in one eye. You pick up two eyes,
healthy and bright. How would you share these eyes out? Hopeful1y, you give one
without hesitation to your wife. But who is to get the other eye? If you give
it to your mother you lose your wife. If you give it to your mother-in-law you
lose your mother. What is an Igbo man to do in such a circumstance? This kind
of dilemma story provides entertainment and much money to Igbo minstrels, like
the ekere-na-udu performers of Ngwaland and the nkwa-udu performers
of Mbaise from whom you have to buy answers to their puzzles and dilemmas-even
if the answers are only valid for that occasion. Another type of teaching story uses test motifs.
These are stories like those of Nwa-evule-akọ who has to survive
by being one step ahead all the time of the tasks he has to perform for the
tiger and the dibịa, and the dangers he has to encounter. A very
significant story in this context is the one recorded by Northcote Thomas in
the Awka area in the first decade of this century. In this story, a boy called
Amachamifeụwa outsmarts Chukwu who comes to him for a haircut. While the
boy was shaving Chukwu's head he gave Chukwu some corn to remove the seeds from
the cob for him. When, after the shaving, Chukwu demanded that his hair should
be returned to its state on his head, you can imagine Amachamifeụwa's
answer. Stories of the effects of stupidity also
abound to warn the Igbo person of what happens if he allows himself to be
outsmarted. Nza ended up using the bones of the ovu to blow as a
flute. Over the same flute, the kite Egbe ended up setting fire to his
mother's house and burning her to death, which is why, up till today, wherever
there is a bush fire,
the Egbe, may still be seen, hovering around and looking for his mother. Intelligence, cleverness, quickness of wit are
aspects of what the Igbo person needs for adjusting himself to, and thereby
manipulating changing circumstances -and circumstances are always changing.
This change is not only the progression of different situations and events. It
equally also involves the ontological status of things, since things are not
always what they seem or what they were. The Igbo person is supposed to be
regularly conscious of the difference between appearance and reality and to
react to the potential deception before it takes place. Inability to adjust to
changes usually leads to tragedy. The negative result of this preparedness
for things changing often and being different from their appearance is the
irreverent pragmatism of the Igbo and their lack of patience. In social
management, there is the constant consciousness of the possibility of one
person taking others for a ride, something which must be avoided. In
divination, though they have firm faith in its possibilities, they will also
not allow the dibịa to impose on them. Thus, they will say that dibịa
na-akụwanye okoliko mbe, adịghị afụwanye ndị mmụọ
(The dibịa that knocks the tortoise shell loudest does not
necessarily see the spirits clearest). Though the Igbo are full of ceremony,
they quickly become impatient if the ceremony begins to be taken too seriously.
Their egalitarian instincts will not allow them to allow anybody to take up too
much of their time. Each person also wants to be heard and to contribute his
own activity to the total of the experience. This is partly the reason that the
Igbo performer has to be very sharp with his activity, whether it is in action
or in speech. Whether the masquerade is beautiful or powerful, the quicker he
performs and leaves the scene, the better for him and for the continued success
of such performance. For the Igbo, mmụọ nọka n' ọgbọ
ogbodu ekpoo ya aja. This cynicism enters into practically all spheres of
life so that the best politicians need not expect that the Igbo will continue
to respect and follow them if they stay on the political arena for too long.
Each person develops the ability to disapprove of what is good, purely on the
basis that there has been too long a presence of that good thing. The belief is
that you get the best out of a masquerade festival by moving your vantage point
regularly. And life is like a masquerade show and even the best figures are
only one out of many possible figures and there is nothing that has not been
seen before. Ife wụka, o wue izu n'abọ. O nweghị ihe anya hụrụ gbaa mme. On the positive side, the Igbo inclination to
intelligent adjustment has given rise to the vast travelling propensity of the
Igbo, and their belief that travelling gives more wisdom in a shorter period
than age. The lecherous exponent of the advantages of travel is nwamkpi, the
he goat who visited his maternal kindred and returned with the advanced level information
of how beautiful and sexy it is to lift his upper lip. The outstanding Igbo
poet, the late Christopher Okigbo, immortalized nwamkpi's discovery
excellently, though cryptically, in the lines Emigrant with air-borne nose, The he-goat-on-heat. The Igbo will go anywhere and live
anywhere and will add the habits and dress styles of those people to their own
on the principle that it is what is new that enhances what exists. The
distressing prevalence of these new items often hides a surprising degree of
continuity of the old goals and characteristics. The Igbo appear to engage in
the process of addition, not replacement. Or rather, the Igbo change the dress
that covers the same old body of goals and aspirations surrounding the core motivation
of excelling other individuals and other communities. The tragedy of the two great characters of Igbo fiction,
created by our great writer Chinua Achebe, depends to the largest extent on the
fact or of intelligent adjustment or failure of adjustment. Okonkwọ of Things fall Apart took the Igbo
principle of manliness to its limit and neglected other societal requirements of always acting
in concert with your people. More than other members of his community, he
failed to adjust to the coming of the white man. In the end, he had to commit
suicide. The great thinker, Ezeụlụ of Arrow of God, adjusted
to the coming of the white man. But he failed to adjust to the balance which
the Igbo people consider absolutely essential between the demands of the
deities for which they have established certain procedures, and the demands of
the community which require certain processes to be concluded at established
times. He became blind to the balance between materialism and religion and
ended up in the lonely grandeur of a mad man. The ability to adjust enjoins on the Igbo person
limits to the expression of emotion. A man must be ready to take pain and
suffering and bear it without complaint and in silence. Even if a man has plans
for removing or revenging injury done to him, he must keep it within himself: Ihe
dike na-eme dị ya n'obi. There is something which in my dialect is called
ịta mpirima. It covers both patience and endurance in the silent
bearing of pain. There are convenient goals served by this ability to hold in
both pain and plans: community secrets, especially in the context of group
rivalries and warfare, had to be preserved. It was for this that during the
initiation process of young men, they were made to undergo very drastic and
painful experiences at which they must not flinch, and secrets were given to
them which they were enjoined under pain of dire consequences never to divulge.
For the individual, though this ability to bear pain without showing it, to
make plans without divulging them, became requisite qualities for the
manipulation of experience with manly dignity. 0.4.2. COMMUNITY
AIDS TO ACHIEVEMENT Communities make intense contributions towards
equipping the individual for his struggle with life. One of the ways in which
this is done is through satires and praise songs. In the Igbo context, those who need praise have
often to compose their own songs and sing their own praises because there are
rather few professional singers and they would rather sing of more important
things like life and death, than about other human beings. The Igbo access to
sycophancy is a recent phenomenon. In spite of this, there is a literary corpus
of what I would rather call SALUTATION POETRY in Igbo. These are declamatory
verses composed and performed by those who have achieved high success, or
performed by others in their honour. The careers in which such success is achieved
range from farming (which is the most prominent source of traditional success),
to trading palm-wine tapping, poetic and masquerade performance, and a host of
other areas of activity. Romanus Egudu has reproduced some of these
'salutation poems in our anthology called Poetic Heritage. An example
which makes farming very attractive is the praise which an Ọzọ title holder broadcasts himself: A bụ m Egbulie
m ugwu Ọ
pa ji eche anị Mma
na- asụ ọffịa Ọha
dị iwe Ọffịa
dị akụ Ọffịa
dị ugonodu Ọffịa
dị egwu Agụụ
egbugh onye ji ọgụ (I am: / One who tills hills/ One who with yams
challenges soil/ Knife that clears bushes/ Barn that is wide / Bush that is
wide / Bush that yields wealth/ Bush that is colossal/ Bush that is fearful/
Hoe-user is never touched by hunger.) Salutation
poetry has cultural utility in the sense that the praise poems "speak of
socially accepted good things the group referred to has achieved" and
"if one is praised because of the good things he did he will strive to do more" (R. O. Maduakor). Satirical
poetry is even more socially regenerative because of the impact which it can
have on people in a shame culture in which it is believed that mmevọ
ọgalanya ka ogbugbu ya (it is
worse to disgrace a man of standing than it is to kill him). Uchendu
suggested, and I have every cause to support, that the Igbo person's most
operative moral
control arises, not from
the consciousness of sin, but from the consciousness of shame. My grandfather
once caught a woman of the village stealing cassava from his farm. The story
has it that the woman's
cry was "Kaa, Nwọga, emevọdịlam. It is the resulting reduction
in the estimate of the human person that gives satire its inherent
destructiveness and that is why satire is ritualized in some communities and restricted to
the cleansing period before the eating of the new yam. Alternatively, a special
cycle of ceremonies is established for satirical songs and people are
restricted from singing the songs after the period is over. In Afikpo, for
example, there is a festival of caricature songs and dances known as ite mbe celebrated in October during which "evil
deeds and humorous events that happened In the village during the .course of
the year arc caricatured in songs and dramatized in dance steps" (Anụ
Magazine). In Igbere, in
the Bende area of In an earlier section I have discussed
the social implications of ritual and initiatory systems. In addition to those
values, there is the fact that it is during those ceremonies and rituals that
the key concepts of the communities are transferred to the younger generations.
The main role of the initiatory activities is to help to invigorate the Igbo
person to substantiate his status, and to generally encourage the community
towards pursuit of fulfilment. Here, I will explore the effect of ritual on the
individual and its contribution to his achievement of the goal of
self-realization. The adolescent rituals are directed
specifically at preparing
young people for their roles in life. For young men the rituals kill them to
them life of children
and "open their eyes" to the life of meaningful participation in the
affairs of the community. In some places, as I have indicated earlier, the
initiation is called itụ anya and actually involves, both in name
and in action, the use of drugs
injected into the eyes as part of the awakening. In other places, it is ima
mmụọ... The opening of the eyes is more symbolic but the
process does give the young ones access to new knowledge. In all cases, the
initiates are tied, for the rest of
their lives, to keep secrets from all those who have not gone
through the same initiation process. The young women also go through
initiation processes which prepare them for their role as married women and
mothers. The initiatory processes differ from place to place: emume ụdara in Ohafia, ime nwa
ụdara in Ndizuogu, oriri It is through the adult initiatory
rites, however, that the community equips the Igbo person for the fullest
realization of human potential. These ceremonies do have an explicit dose of
social value. For example, once you have been initiated, you begin to share in
the proceeds of other such initiations. Belonging to the title society is
therefore some form of life insurance. Though social advantages may begin to
take prime value in some people's consciousness, it is clear from the processes
of such initiations that the rituals are expected to wake up in the initiates
new levels of awareness of the extra dimensions of their humanity. The cynical
Igbo yet believed that man was both animal and spirit and that the fuller the
spirit in man was activated the higher would be the status of the identity of
the man. I must qualify that statement about
access to spirituality. In the tradition of thought in dualities, there is a
mean beyond which spirituality becomes a handicap in the status of the person
within the community. Those for example who become possessed at specific
festival times, like ndị amụma are looked upon with
suspicion, people do not like to go too close to those who see beyond present
things into the future and the past without the help of divination like ndị
na-ahụ ahụ. Both those who have been dedicated to deities as
ritual slaves and some of the more mysterious dibịas have low
social status. Beyond a certain point then, contact with the spirit world leads
to one being reduced in human status. But within the appropriate limits, the
access to the extra-physical dimensions of the human potential which people
arrive at as a result of mature initiatory rituals, increases their stature as
fulfilled members of the community. 0.4.3 THE TRAGIC
LIFE In spite of aids from inheritance and
training, in spite of whatever help might come from the society, there are
those whose lives fail. For the Igbo, life, NDỤ, has an absolute
positive value. This does not give credibility to some of the over-rating of
the value of life involved in taking some names too literally out of context,
names like ndụbụisi and ndụkakụ. There is
a point in life when the Igbo believe that one were better dead than alive.
That point in time defines the tragic life. The fullness of tragedy will emerge as
the opposite of the fulfilled life which will be presented later. Some brief
specific comments will define the concept and its implications here. It is not
poverty that is tragic. In line with the world view we have been exploring, it
takes more than the mere physical absence of some good to make life not worth living. Poverty is soul-killing because it makes the Igbo
man depend on another, requires him to subject his identity to that of another.
This explains why when an Igboman goes borrowing, he has to weave a long tale
about what circumstances have led to his temporary
handicap, circumstances which will soon be over and he will repay
the loan. This story is necessary to save the faces both of the borrower and
that of the lender-the lender cannot enjoy the loss of face of another man if
he is a genuine Igbo person. Not to be self supporting makes poverty a terrible
situation. But still, the essence of tragedy is in the personality it
prescribes for the person before others, and becomes reality when that person
becomes the object of ARỊRỊ/ALỊLỊ. " The regular response to the enquiry as
to what is the worst thing that can happen to an Igbo person is arịrị.
With its three down tones, arịrị means something worse
than disgrace. It involves action which denies human status to somebody by not
taking him into account in matters, even those that concern him. Because of the
Igbo person's regard for his individual identity, arịrị will
provoke the most vicious reactions in the Igbo person. And so elelịan
nwa ite, ya agbọnyụọ ọkụ. And the Igboman
will proclaim when he senses that he has been that terribly insulted that ma
ya agbaghị ọbara, ya agbaa mmiri (If he has no blood to shed, he will shed water). Stephen Osadebe's worst lament is Alịlị egbuonụ m n'enu ụwa/A ga m
agaba na be Olisa je bili. Arịrị is a strong motivation for action in Igbo
literature. It explains the action of the tortoise who when he had been
captured by the tiger, requested and obtained permission to step down back on
earth. He took the opportunity of touching the ground again to scatter the sand
and the grass, saying: "Now, it will at least look as if there had been a
struggle here between one man and another". One acknowledges the rationale
behind the annoyance of the chicken that complained that when other beasts are
killed their heads are given to elders and- first sons to eat but when chickens
are killed people go looking for small kids to eat their heads". Ile arịrị
made it possible for a man to come into another man's house and beat his
wife as if she had no husband-which led the woman, impersonated by the Abigbo
singers, to complain: Mị na di m kwụrụ ije egbuo m ilu m
ga-ịkọrọ onye ihe m whụrụ? Ike fụrụ
ya la bed ị mụrụ m nwa… Onye adịghị ka
ibe, akwa la-agụ ya. Indeed to be valued at below the human
level is the worst thing that can happen to an Igbo person. Even in the scheme
of punishment this is taken into account. The slave is a human being and a
human limit is put to his punishment. This is the background to the proverb
that says that Agama ahịa hụ
ohu n’anwụ, a jụọ “onye ma ke o mere”: a lọma
ahịa hụkwa ohu n’anwụ ajụma “Ọ wụkwa nwa
mmadụ ka emeghe ihe a” The Igbo person is in a tragic condition when
he cannot achieve physical well-being; the deities, including his chi, have
deserted him: he cannot rally any forces or persons to help him; and he has to
continue to live without hope with other human beings looking down at him. In
his lament for a fellow, the Omambala minstrel Uru uh uh une eh Ka ma adị ndụ na-ekili
ndụ anya ọnwụ aka ya mma Onye ọ bụ je zulu ike
ụwa n’ofu nị nị Ọ bụlụ na
mmadụ ga-abụ ubịam chi gị bịa gbue gị ka
ị naa Na ndụ ada-atọrọ ụbịam
ụtọ, na amalị m amalị Onye bụ ụbịam na-fụjụ
anya kwada, ive enu na-eme eme Ogbenye fụsịa ive dị ya mma ọ
na-ekili ya n’anya Ogbenye fụsịa ive na-atọ
ụtọ ọ na-eno ọnụ mmili Kedụ ka aga-esi kwazi nwanyị
ụkwụ warily awarị Ewe eh, Dimkpa dị na afụfụ Ee ee e mh mh Onye nwụrụ ka o zulu ike n’enu ụwa. 0.4.4 THE ORDINARY LIFE OF FULFILMENT What the Igbo person expects as his right and due
reward for hard work is the ordinary life of fulfilment. “Fulfilment” is used
here to highlight the relativity of achievement. People have different
destinies and cannot expect the same levels of success. The first element of
the fulfilment relates to the Igboman’s sense of self-hood. The Igbo person who
is independent and lives in his own house with his wife and children and looks after
them with any measure of satisfaction considers himself as much a man as any
other. His identity is not subject to the will of other identities. In support
of easy retention of the sense of self-hood, the Igbo have a system of beliefs
that acknowledges that there are limits to the capacity of the individual to determine
his achievement. These beliefs depend on the key concept of the
individuality of each person’s chi
and eke may be recalled here in an
aphorism which says that mgbalị
wụ iriju afọ: ụba si la eke. The bulk of the population of Igboland is made up of
people fulfilled to the limit of their Eke.
They are to be found at the village meetings, refusing to have anybody for any
reason put clever tricks over them. Within the limits of individual variations,
they are neither optimists nor pessimist.
They do not depend on the goodwill, nor do they feel overwhelmed by the
ill-will of deity or man. It is or was such people who confronted the forests
and hewed out home and farm from them. The dynamic and dualist world challenged
the Igbo person to make choices and intelligent decisions, to persist in hard
work, so as to constrain this world to serve his goals. He confronts that
challenge with the will to win, to fulfil the destiny that is his lot. I have deliberately mixed my tenses above for there
is the question of determining to what extent the Igboman being described still
exists or could exist. We shall comment on that question in the conclusion
where we hope to discuss briefly the Igbo world view and modernity. Meanwhile,
though the above picture represents what the Igboman will expect, there is
still to be described what the Igboman would wish, what on his death bed he
would pray for his next incarnation by ibi ebibi-what constitutes the
fullness of fulfilment within the Igbo consciousness. 0.4.5 NKA NA NZERE:
THE FULLNESS OF FULFILMENT Through initiations, training and ritual
observances, the Igbo instil into members of the community the ideal of
personal identity. This ideal involves mental and moral ability, it involves
dedicated use of physical strength, bravery and restraint, it involves
developed contact with the innate extra-physical powers of the human being,
finally it involves the nature of, and one's access to, one's deity. With a
fairly competent combination of these one should have a respectable and
satisfied. The hope of every Igbo person, whether during a given life time, or
if it fails in this then in the next life time, is to have these elements
combined in their fullness. There was once a man who was very young
when his prosperous and numerous families fell into the hands of enemies. Many
were slaughtered; many others were sold into slavery. He survived and ran into
exile. While living in exile, Chukwuọcha developed strength of body and
character and kept in close contact with information as to what was going on in
his home community. After many years, when he was already fully adult and
married, his opportunity came during a war between his people and some
strangers. He returned and fought so bravely that the whole town had to rally
together and bring him back to his home. The return set him many assignments, the first
being not to be killed like his kindred had been. Then he set about recapturing
all the lands that had been looted in his absence. Using his intelligence and
his knowledge of the traditions, he lived for a short time in each location and
moved on to the next. Since nobody now could have access to where he lived
before because it was now okpu ụlọ, his land increased. He
also needed people so he married wives and he went to Amadịọha at
Ozuzu to ask for male children. His first child was a daughter that he simply
called Nwada. His next child was a son. The name, Ụzụ
egbugh, indicated how boldly he stood against enemies, calling all their
efforts against him mere sounds of boast that cannot kill a man. The next
child, a daughter was called Chi egeghi ụka onye iro m. Progressively
other children came and were named, depending on the state of the family and in
this case showing the growing fortunes of Chukwuọcha: Nwanyichukwu, Ojini
na-ere, Amara egbule
m, Ọgụledo, Egeghe ihe ọnụ kwughe. All this while, the fortunes of Chukwuọcha
had improved to the position where he was a respected man in the community, his
yam harvest had prospered to the level where he had taken a double yam-master title eze ji and he
was on to take the Ọkọnkọ title. He looked around him
and saw that he had achieved and when he had another son he called him Ọha
jụm ni. (What more could be world ask of him which he still had to
achieve?) Chukwuọcha was a fully achieved
man. With patient endurance, hard work, intelligent avoidance of abominable
things, with favour from the deities and his fellow human beings he had
obtained those things which make life full-wives, children, prosperity and
dignity. Other fulfilled Igbo people would declare their fulfilment in similar
names-Asị m mee ole? Ole fọrọ, and the ridiculously boastful one-A ga
m ịdọdụ igwe?
More recent names are
even more boastful: O mee ọkachie, A kwaa akwụrụ, etc. These names are in the tradition of recognizing
the fullness of achievement and giving expression to the state of reality as
revealed by action. The two words that I have used as the keys
to my exploration here, NKA and NZERE need to be discussed a little developed
here. Nka derives from the -ka root. The dualities of Igbo thought make
possible a positive and a negative interpretation of Nka. On the positive side
is the idea that the object is hard and ripe (like earth that is firm and
solid, like the coconut that is ready for eating). On the negative side, it means _old and tattered (like over-used cloth-akwa kara
aka, like a case that is dismissed). Even when used with regard to human
beings, it would be disrespectful to say of a woman, for example, Ọ
koala, implying thereby that she is too
mature for tricks-.as in the pidgin expression "i don old!" But it is the positive implication of
nka that everybody hopes for-to reach a ripe old age. Hence a town could abstract the wish and reify it in the force Isi-ka-nka. NZERE has even more intensely distant poles. Ihe
ana-eze eze are things that should be avoided with a measure of revulsion
because they are taboo.
In a community in which superhuman forces are prevalent, whether the deities or
in the abstracted forces in man and in the environment, there is a large
number of things, conditions and people to be abhorred, avoided and run away
from. To go through life successfully, one must always be careful to avoid
contact with such things, especially abominations
(zeere arụ). At the other end of the: spectrum of meaning of the -ze root is
the positive element, the respect given to an object or a person that is
distanced by beauty, worth or achievement. A younger colleague at the Among the Mbaise Igbo, when a man or woman or both
have achieved a ripe old age, and have children and grandchildren, they have
merited a ceremony called 1gba Ọnyịma. During this ceremony,
the children and all their dependents come" and make them presents of livestock,
food and symbolic representations of the feelings they have towards them. Some
of these things the celebrants have to share in three places, one going to
their maternal kindred, the second going to their paternal kindred, and the
third being retained by the celebrant. In a world view which recognizes the
power of abstract forces, presence at such a ceremony can have a positive
effect. During this ceremony, friends and colleagues come and make presents to
the celebrants and make bodily contact with them in order that the good fortune
evident in their achieving the status involved in having ọnyịma celebrated
for them should pass on to the givers. The greeting that is most common at the ọnyịma
ceremony is KARUO, ZERUO. That greeting is often to be met too when titled
people meet and greet one another. It is a wish that one should arrive at
mature old age and the fullness of dignity. In those concepts, NKA NA NZERE
lies the focus of the Igbo world view. 0.5 IGBO W'ORLD VIEW AND
CONTEMPORARY LIVING The study of world view has not been too
keenly taken up in scholarship because, for a long time, the kind of knowledge
which the subject is supposed to generate has been taken for granted in the
developed world. From the
vantage point of established civilizations, western scholars have concentrated
more on specific topics related to their lives--literature, political science,
religion, art, science and technology, and so forth. Even philosophy which was
the basic thought integrating study has declined mainly to logic and epistemology. World
view studies have tended therefore to be reserved to anthropologists who
studied “primitive" societies. Looking at such primitive societies
emphasis has tended to be placed mainly on the religious elements. The essays
in the premier work which gave impetus to the subject, African Worlds (1955),
leaned heavily on the religious topics in spite of its general definition of
"world outlook" as relating to "the intricate interdependence
between a traditional pattern of livelihood, an accepted configuration of
social relations, and dogmas concerning the nature of the world and the place
of men in it". A recent review of the topic, while advocating for the expansion
of the perspective of the subject beyond "the level of the mystical",
then goes ahead to define world view in terms of a "space-time framework
for the conduct of social life" (J. P. Kiernan). It would appear that in
western scholarship some aspect must be paramount in a hierarchy of aspects. A
thing must be defined in terms of its most prominent tendency. The democratic
principle of letting all aspects operate equally in a people's way of life is
not allowed full recognition. The study of world view is important
however in our context where we have to reconstruct a totalistic framework with
which to understand our traditions and our behaviour, our characteristics and
tendencies. The approach which I have adopted in this exploration of the Igbo
world view has emphasized the abstract background of thought with regard to
basic and micro realities, but the activities dependent on this view have been
from the totality of Igbo life. I can only justify it on the basis that such
knowledge is valuable in itself at the same time as it forms the basis for the
explanation of other realities of the Igbo way of life. With more people participating in such
an exercise, we can go beyond the ethnology and agree on the framework
stabilizing reactions to statements like Ndị Igbo, dị ka anyị
maara, bụ ndị na-adịghị azụ ahịa uru adịghị
(Osuagwu). We can then make valid choices between "the Igbo are ultra
democratic and highly individualistic" (Forde and Jones) and "Igbo
political institutions were designed to combine popular participation with
weighting for experience and ability" (lsichei). Is it true that Igbo enweghị
eze? Is the individual made for society or the society for the individual?
Who and what are the Igbo such that it is valid to ask when somebody is seen
not to struggle hard Onye a ọ wụkwadị onye Igbo? And
we are speaking here not only of static characteristics as existing but of the
dynamic sources that govern reaction in a progressive sense. In defining such a world view, the essential
programme is not to assert what is peculiar or different but to reveal what is
consistent and explanatory. What makes a people's world view cannot be defined
in individual units but in a combination of elements. Even if people share many
characteristics, as they are bound to do since we are dealing with the common
human species, it is in the nature of their combinations that we have their
specific identities. As the scientists tell us, there is a limited number of
elements but through their combinations in different elements and different
ratios, we have a near infinity of different objects. Moreover, there are bound
to be differences between different areas of the subject world view but with
the concepts of centre and periphery it is possible to give an overview of what
constitutes the core of the people's world. Looking at our people, we are tempted to discard
them and some of their practices as ignorant and superstitious; we consider
their actions as the results of wishful misapplications of hope and
charlatanism. Often, our doubts are supported by the naiveté of the beliefs and
practices. But we should make distinctions between results of 1. excesses of irrationality within popular
behaviour. There is no doubt that the so-called magico-religious perspective
tends to such excesses which are deplorable; 2. our misapplication of logic, such
that what we think is in the area of belief or superstition is really in the
field of mechanistic causality only we did not know; and 3. differences between what is
acceptable and what is not on the basis of vision of reality. The mechanistic
vision of reality has, on the basis of technological achievements, tended to
extend its efficacy to areas that are not accessible to such mechanistic
causality in the human, social and religious aspects of life. We are
called upon to open our eyes and look again at the actions and traditions of
our people and see whether perhaps there is not a more authentic and
homogeneous direction from which it can be better understood. A post-graduate student of the English
Department at Nsukka, Mr Nathan Nkala produced a very revealing thesis for his
M.A. in Literature, based on a survey of the festivals of his town,
Ụmụawụlụ in the Awka Local Government Area. Many
rituals are shown to centre on the New Yam Festival which, itself, is at the
centre of the ritual year. During the year, various deities have been served.
Rituals that men perform and those that women perform have been undertaken to
placate the appropriate beings and strengthen town and people. Now the yam is
being harvested and the fullness of life is about to return. First, each man who has a household, who
has farmed and is expecting a harvest, calls down FEJIỌKỤ and
refreshes a shrine to him by the yam barn. This is followed by the offering of
yams to AKALOGOLI and AGWỤ in order to avoid their jealous ill-will. The
next celebration is carried out by the household head again, this time it is iwa
okike during which the man celebrated his Okike, "a man's
personal being force". Finally, there is the Ịgọ
Ọjị Obu Nshi Ji. Ịgị Ọjị Obu Nshi
Ji marks the actual
festival of the eating of the new yam. During the ceremony which now takes
place for the whole kindred in the obu of the kindred ancestor, before
the ancestral shrine and the icons of the ancestors, the head of the lineage
officiates. All the males of the kindred attend and participate in the rituals.
The lineage head calls on the deities with whom the people associate, starting
with Anyanwụ na Agbala Ebulu Ụkpabj, nwoko owholowho
anya. Nọ
na ngụ igwe emezu ụwa anya. and informs them of the reason for the
gathering. Then he calls on the ancestors of the kindred by name, praising them
and asking them for help and protection. He is not restrained in the praise of
those ancestors, like Ọnyia Ọnyịbalụ, Nyịlụ uke nyịa okike Ọgalanya ngada Filu akwụkwọ ite ji shịlụ Anya saa, anya gbadaa: . . He even threatens that if they should
not watch the generations that they have started, they may starve, and so they
should all answer Zazuọnu ka eze azụ Maka na mmetụkọ mmetụkọ ka egbe ji
ekwu okwu. The man
then calls on FEJIỌKỤ and asks that he allow them to eat him
without distress and ill-will. The constant refrain to all these prayers and
pleadings is Ọ yaha aghọ anyị, Ọ yaha enụ
anyi. Finally, running, around
the compound with a cock that has been turned into the scapegoat, evil is
driven away with the shouts of- Ekwensu mee! Ekwensu mee! Gbatịa,
Jetịa! Everybody
follows the example of the leader and runs around with the scapegoat cock. The
cock is sacrificed at the shrine of the ancestors and the new yams now become
available for the festival or revival and fullness. All the forces, the spirits
of both the deities and the ancestors, the social community, the yam and its
dualistic counterpart, Ahịajọkụ, have been invited and
treated in the appropriate manner. The human community now feels safe and happy
and ready to confront the future with confidence. Was all that activity a stupid waste of
time, provoked by ignorance and superstition? In any case, that ceremony gave
religious support to the types of individualism. It gave ritual support to the
position, both of each man in his household and the kindred elder in his larger
lineage. His command and authority meant something because a world and its
people depended on him. He could confront other men on an equal footing because
he was priest and protector of his own people. On his welfare and progress also
depended the welfare of his kindred so they owed him a special kind of
allegiance. Is there nothing to learn from such people and their lives and
beliefs? Beyond
merely understanding the past and our own traditions, there is the more
practical advantage that decision making for a people in the present requires
knowledge of what motivates such people. One can therefore anticipate what
directions of planning will attract the greatest co-operative enthusiasm from
those people. One can plan on what characteristics of the people to use and
what aspects of their way of life must be sacrificed for the new and dynamic
developments which must be. I will now briefly suggest some of the continuing
issues of contiguity between the Igbo world view and contemporary living. At the social level a major change in
our circumstances is that in the less blood related, more complex and more
heterogeneous context of our living, we have now a one-to-one relationship to
both the social and the phenomenal reality. We are no longer cushioned, or some
people say muddled, by the systems set up by tradition to mediate between the
individual and the experience of the world. We do not have, unless we go to the
village, the depth of ancestral history and sense of spiritual protection
derived from the founding fathers of the kindred whose blood flows in us.
Neither our neighbours where we live, nor our colleagues at work, share the
same psychic and blood relationship. Neither the God nor the saints of our new
religions have historical or time sanctioned intensity of relationship with
us. When the Hebrew said in the Psalms that the hand of the Lord had saved him
and his generations in the past, the history of the Jews justified his
statement. What does the Igbo person mean when he reads the same passage in the
Psalms? These separations from the fountains of
our traditions, I believe, have helped to release the Igbo into the
superficiality of aggressive materialism. There is no going back to the past
but a recognition of what is lost can engender a search for viable alternatives
adequate for the present. Our study reveals to us that there was a
dominant concept of the individuality
of the person and his dignity as a human person such that every effort was made
in the past to establish a context of government by consensus. Leadership was
not encouraged to succumb to the temptation to tyranny, and if it did, there
was always some Igbo person who would become “Eji ndụ eme
gịnị" and put an end to the tyranny even if it cost him
his own life. Mike Ejiagha has just released a new Akụkọ n' Egwu
about the dog and Anịkọtụlụkpa. The dog refuses to
stay in his home and have the cloth removed from his waist by another man no
matter how highly placed. He ended up defeating
Anịkọtụlụkpa, but that was a bonus. Before be left to
fight the tyrant he warned his wife to look after his family if he should die
in the effort. The aspect of consensus went through both government and
religion and the Igbo did not quarrel as to whose deity was the supreme. That
was a quarrel which the deities could fight for themselves. The Igbo used the
deities as the need arose. As a group, Igbo communities, respected the
specific qualities of the members of their groups and found the best way to use
individual talents. We are called upon, I believe, as a group to develop the
best strategies to accommodate and use the individuality which is characteristic
of our people to our best advantage. I think, for example, that any attempt to
build a strict hierarchical structure of the type necessary for the management
of large political structures will not lead to any Igbo success. It is perhaps
necessary to curb the extent of individualism for the Igbo to cope with the modern world. Must the
messenger in the office assert his individuality by not taking immediate orders
from his superior officer? And must the extensions of individualism which allow
Igbo persons to seek redress to the last limits of the multiple chains of
protection continue to create lack of disciplinary immediacy in the present. All the same, such a quality as individuality is
not to be taken as mainly negative. It is individualism that makes each man
strike out on his own and make new fortunes and status in spite of whatever was
his origins. It is not only in government that this individualism should make
us realize that the Igbo may be led and not governed, we can take it further
into the economic sphere where, beyond the individual achievements for which
the Igbo are now famous, they can add groupings based on the indispensability
of each individual in the group. This requires, not the combination of funds,
but the combination of talents and expertise. Each person's contribution can
only be made by him for the welfare of the total organization, otherwise the
tortoise archetype into which perhaps every Igbo person has been trained will
take over and the bigger will eat the smaller fish and grow. Igbo society
operated a sophisticated system of checks and balances. Whereas the men of the
kindred appeared to take all the decisions, there was ọha ndịom that
has to accept the decisions otherwise they were not valid. If ọha ndịom
is provoked into disagreement, then the community is not at peace till the
matter is given a more acceptable turn. For each person there was the
patrilineal kindred. But if the person had any serious problems with that
kindred his maternal kindred became involved. If there are problems in the
family which the men folk are reluctant to solve or over which they are proving
incapable, the daughters of the family the ụmụ
ada come home and their decision is final. Perhaps we have not in the present
given enough attention to the place of women in the community. In general, we
might be forgetting the great virtues of complementarity. At the larger political level, our
traditions explain the predominant ethnic chauvinism with which we
unfortunately confront national and political issues. From the tradition of
expanding rings of identity and loyalty, however, one should be able to draw
out strategies for the more intensive establishment of nationalism. At the personal level, one cannot but
wonder whether we still retain the aggressive dignity and the independence of
our forefathers who cut down the forests with their bare hands and made them
yield them a living, who made and unmade gods and achieved accommodation with
those they could not control. One wonders whether they are real Igbo who can
now cringe and crawl before uncreative and oppressive leadership for individual
and short term gains. There is no doubt that part of the
problem is the loss of group initiatory rites. There is now no ritually
instilled consciousness of what one may do and not do, or rites that bring out
the full powers that are contained in a human being. When there itụ anya as part of the initiation
activities, a pot was set on the boil into which had been put all sorts of
things ranging from succulent goat and cow meat to toads and millipedes. The
initiate had to dip his hand quickly into the boiling pot and, extracting
whatever came to his hand, he had to throw it immediately into his mouth and
chew and swallow. Life came out from such a ritual as a pot of uncertainties
into which entered with bravery and manly fortitude to take whatever came from
it. If we no longer require rituals, what substitute have we put in their
place? The sense of self which the Igboman had
must not also be taken out of context. No work was too hard not to be
attempted, no job was too menial to be used in the struggle with the world for
achievement. One did not develop independence in the sense of refusing to do
anything that had to be done because of dignity. Dignity was achieved as a
reward and it was after one had taken certain titles that it was possible to be
choosy about the employment. Moreover, it is easy to exaggerate the
implications of the individualism and forget that there was a finely tuned
balance between the individual and the community. The discussion has emphasized the goals
of individual achievement. But that the goal can be so firmly defined marks the
limitation of individualism. In Igbo society the individual does not have the
freedom to choose his own goals. He has a freedom of choice as to means. It is
this freedom that encouraged the Igbo to rally quickly to any new methods
likely to lead to the required ideal of fulfilment. In the stable context of
traditional society, the spiritual and psychic sanctions restrained how one
pursued the goals, what he may do, who he may hurt or not hurt what other
people's rights he must safeguard or trample upon in his progress towards the
ideal. The unit of value judgement was also the community. There was no
question of the individual setting himself value judgements with regard to acts
and persons. But every individual was part of the making of the acceptable values.
The Igbo community had every few absolute values. The ones acknowledged as
absolute related only to those most crucial aspects that involved life itself.
The dynamism of the Igbo value system was not in the recognition of individual value
choices, but in everybody contributing from his experience to the pragmatic
adjustment of communal values. Finally, and briefly, how valid was this
world view? How sensible it is in this period of the twentieth century in some
of the things to which the Igbo attributed reality. More particularly, is it
possible that there are those abstract beings that the Igbo found useful as
agents in the management of their lives, both individually and as communities ? Do the
objects that we handle, the plants and trees with which our environment is
populated, do they have realities beyond the physics and chemistry of their
existence? The movement towards the "purely Intellectual"
approach, towards the perception of nature, reality, situations, manifestations
of an "inanimate, impersonal" world, is inevitable. Yet it must be
seen as a consequence of the crowding, non-homogenous environment of modern
life. It is also a
progressive paring off of elements of humanity to accommodate the modern
context, which also is a reduction in the scope of reaction and interaction with the environment. This is
true of the larger poetical structures. It is also true of the perception of
reality. The world has made incredible technological developments based on the
mechanistic approach to reality. But is it the only reality? What then is the rational attitude to
the belief in the agency of natural objects and the powers exercised by the
so-called extra-physical force both those found in the environment and those
generated by human processes? What justification is there for attributing
rationality to people who can believe in such non-mechanistic causality? A recent writer in the Daily Star, Onoimi
Iyida was very sarcastic about what he called "back-door entry into
African science". He was reacting to a newspaper report that British
doctors were now using magnetic beads to cure neoroblastoma, tumours of
the lungs and breasts. Onoimi asked why it is that African scientists refused
to learn this magnetism and superior technology from our traditional medicine.
In tradition, he claimed, children were cured from convulsion by being given a
“harnessed monkey bone to wear and the convulsion is magnetized off the child
and he becomes free". He also referred to the treatment of women in whose
wombs umbilical cords remained after delivery. "She is given a bead. She
puts it in the mouth and the chord is dislodged". Our first finding then is that, perhaps,
some of what we have been discarding as based on abstract and superstitious
principles are actually based on intelligent and programmed observation, if not
from experimentation to which we now have no access in our oral traditions.
Fortunately, there are young scholars in the pharmaceutical sciences like Drs
Cletus Aguwa and Maurice Iwu who are pursuing the totalistic approach to our
traditions of health sciences. There is also the fact of rain-making to which
some young physical scientists like Mr Obinabo are paying scientific attention. We cannot discard the abstract realities
which our people use without further investigation. Some people hear sounds
that are not there. That is no reason, however, why we should accept the
evidence of the deaf about the absence of sound. Because the radio has been
made available to us we now knew that if you have the right equipment, you can
tune in to the atmosphere and receive broadcasts. Perhaps there is a world
beyond physics and chemistry. Our ancestors believed in such a world. Perhaps,
if we are to make an original contribution to the progress of the world, it
will be through discovering this world and its system of operation. Then we can
turn the abstract into a comprehensible reality and extend what is available to
man for the management of his world. Meanwhile, I wish for each of us a
mature old age and all the dignity that comes from the realization of the
humanity and spirituality in each of us. Ọha
na Eze, onye na chi ye Karuonị
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Lucerna 4.1 (1983): 9-24 A CITATION ON 1984
AHỊAJỌKỤ LECTURE By CHRIS DURU Chairman, 1984 Ahịajọkụ Lecture Planning
Committee The Ahịajọkụ Lectures
started with the search for Igbo identity when in his maiden Lecture in 1979
Professor M. J. C. Echeruo shared thoughts and reflections with us Igbos on the
Matter of Identity. He agreed with the views of many that centuries of slave
trade and colonization disorganised the Igbo man and uprooted him from his
pristine culture. He however identified lingering hopes of survival of the Igbo
since in his views he was uprooted without being transplanted. In his calling
"Ohanaeze me me nụ", he recognized the immense role the
Ahịajọkụ Lecture Festival will play on the onerous search for
Igbo identity and Igbo cultural revival. In 1980 a world famous agronomist and an
eminent Igbo scholar, Professor B. N. Okigbo in his erudite and uncompromising
exposé took us to the farms and bushes of Igboland and revealed the wonders,
the wealth and the systematic exploitation of the 'promised land' of the Igbos. Professor A. E. Afigbo transported his
audience to an age that may, never come back to the Igbo; "The Age of
Innocence". In the present "age of wickedness" only nostalgia
for what was noble can point the way to regeneration and cultural
reconstruction. A new dimension in the search for Igbo identity was
added in 1982 when another academic juggernaut, Professor A, O. Anya introduced
one more theme-the scientific approach to which the search for Igbo Civilization
may be directed, as identified by Professor Onwuejiogwu. His was on the Ecology
and Socio-biology of Igbo cultural and political development. The age of five witnessed a doddering
period in the life of Ahịajọkụ Lecture. Like any organism it
developed a curable disease which denied us this annual ritual in 1983. Happily
the Military Administration of Imo State Government through its agency in the
area of culture-the Culture Division of the Ministry of Information, Culture,
Youth and Sports, readily provided a cure. Today we are here again all attention,
ears aching to hear, mind eager to digest the expositions and reflections of
yet another Igbo son on the wonders of Igbo civilization. Professor Donatus Ibe
Nwoga, Dean of Arts at the If you suddenly see something like a
shadow around you, please don't hit it hard, for we are not alone. The spirits of
our fore-fathers are also here. They are keeping a watchful eye over their
off-spring as they increase and multiply to fill the earth. The theme today is on Igbo Cosmology, a
lofty topic indeed and one that has generated much anxiety and intuitive concern
in every right thinking Igbo man and people who are interested in the Igbo. No
topic can be more appropriate especially at this time of our national
development when the nation is working hard towards the discipline of her
citizens. This is more so if we realize that many of our problems of life-style,
social and economic development are generated by an inadequate consciousness of
our people's system of relationship, work values, organization and technology,
their concepts of achievement and failure and of ultimate relationship at the
cosmological and metaphysical levels. Today our worthy lecturer will no doubt
put us and the future generation in the right frame of mind. For the sake of clarity our lecturer will focus
attention on two areas of Igbo Cosmology namely:-Nka na Nzere, meaning old
age and reverence. The past years have witnessed unbridled spate of irreverence
to our elders, our ancestors and our God. "Is that the Igbo way"? one
may ask. Today we shall be treated to this subject of profound interest and
significance to our people and civilization. At the age of six, the Ahịajọkụ
Lecture spirit is already mature and restless and is urging all its high
priests, you and me, to reach out for greater heights in the consolidation and
propagation of the culture and civilization of the Igbo. Today is harvest day.
Let us all prick our ears and open our hearts to attend to the great teacher of
today as he unravels and spins out the looms of the cosmology of the Igbo. May the Festival of Ahịajọkụ prosper and last for all time. CITATION ON PROFESSOR DONATUS IBEAKWADALAM NWOGA 1984 AHỊAJỌKỤ LECTURER BY PROFESSOR ROMANUS N. EGUDU We have as our
Ahịajọkụ lecturer today a professional educator, a social
servant, an Igbo scholar, an Ahịajọkụ votary: namely,
Professor Donatus
lbeakwadalam Nwoga. Professor Nwoga had taught and served
mankind for thirty-two (32) out of a total of fifty-one (51) years of his life
so far. He had taught at St. Peter Claver's Junior Seminary, Okpala; Holy Ghost
Teacher's College, Umuahia; and Christ the Professor Nwoga's university teaching
experience is climaxed by his most effective leadership. Currently the Dean of
the Faculty of Arts of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he was also formerly
Dean of the same Faculty, Head of English Department, Director of General
Studies Division, and Director of the Institute of African Studies of the same
institution. One major characteristic of Professor Nwoga's leadership is his
accessibility. To his staff followership he is a ready colleague and companion:
to the students he is a loving father and friend; to the oppressed and
distressed he is a defender and guardian. Like the Ahịajọkụ
titular crop, the yam, Professor Nwoga can rightly be described as "Ọ dị uru, ọ
dịghị Ọkpụkpụ": flesh with no bone;
softness with no hardness; gentleness with no harshness; sweetness with no
bitterness; and that is to sat, that one who is led by Professor Nwoga is under
the leadership of humaneness itself. It is thus natural and proper that the services of
this humane and humble friend of humanity should be demanded by the greater
society outside the university community. And this must have accounted for his
roles as Secretary of the Planning and Management Committee of the former
Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (1970); member of the Board of the
former East-Central State Broadcasting Corporation (1974-76); member of the
former East-Central State Library Board (1975-76); and former member of Imo
State Library Board (1977-79). This devoted teaching and serving man is
also luminous scholar, whose educational background had been a logically
marvellous preparation for the epic height he has attained in scholarship
today. For example, he passed the Cambridge School Certificate Examination in
Division One, with exemption from matriculation in 1950; he passed the General
Certificate of Education Advanced Level Examinations in English Literature, Latin
and Ancient History at a sitting, with exemption from Inter B.A. of the
University of London In 1955; and in ]960, when he obtained his Bachelor's
degree from the Queen's University of Belfast, he won in the same breath the
highly coveted "High Graham
Mitchell Bursary" for the pursuit of the M.A. degree which he
accomplished in 1962; and within the three following years, he combined
full-time teaching at the University of Nigeria with dogged working for the PhD
degree of the University of London and obtained it in ]965. These early
academic feats could only foretell the emergence of a high-ranking scholar,
such as Professor Nwoga has most meritoriously become with seven books and
about forty journal articles to his authorial credit. But, what has made Professor Nwoga appear to be a
providentially "ready-made" major actor in this Ahịajọkụ
"drama", which we are celebrating today, is not so much the fact of
his being a great scholar generally, as that of his being an Igbo scholar and
therefore an Ahịajọkụ votary in a very special way. It was
indeed twenty-four years ago; when Professor Nwoga was in a foreign land
studying for his M.A. degree, that the spirit of Ahịajọkụ
Lecture with its focus on Igbo culture and Igbo world-view first twinkled
inside his research self, but it got quickly suppressed. His first proposal for
the Master's thesis was "Translation
of Chaucer into Igbo", but because none of his professors could
supervise the project, he dropped it. But even then the spirit did not die, for
just four years later (1964), Professor Nwoga published a paper titled "The Chi offended" which
became a prodigious event that pointed the way to the bulk of his subsequent
publications. Thus after some scholarly sojourn into Shakespeare, the short
story, and African and West African literature generally, Professor Nwoga
concentrated his research and publication efforts filially on Igbo oral
literature, Igbo culture, Igbo social life, Igbo dialectology, Igbo language
education, Igbo religion and Igbo philosophy. Any serious scholar of Igbo
language, culture and thought should therefore have reason enough to say of
Professor Nwoga as T. S. Eliot had said of Ezra Pound: "II miglior fabbro del parlo materno" (the better
craftsman of the mother tongue). It is
this international teacher and scholar, this pace-setter in Igbo literary
scholarship, this ardent devotee to the cause of Igbo literature and Igbo
thought and world view, this humble man, Professor Donatus Ibeakwadalam Nwoga,
that I have the singular honour and pleasure of calling upon today to perform
as chief celebrant in this 1984 Ahịajọkụ lecture service. And
I confidently say: “hear ye him”.
Romanus
N. Egudu Professor
of English |
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Prepared for Online Publishing by Dr. Chidi Okorie - Igbo Heritage Foundation |
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Igbo Foundation | Igbo Heritage Foundation | Ikenga Think Tank |
of people there is a time when they must consciously recognize the things that form the cornerstones
of their excitement and depression, the things that characterize them so that they see their true representation
in some forms of behaviour and not in others, the modes of intention which when attributed to them they will acknowledge
as valid. The hesitancy is provoked by the nature of the assignment. It is a risky activity trying to affirm the
motivation of a person. It is even more dangerous postulating the motivation of a group, especially of a group
as dynamic and individualistic as the Igbo. Moreover, the topic calls for expertise in a wide variety of areas
of learning and one would be presumptuous to claim such inter-disciplinary competence. And yet the assignment is
one that is so necessary that one has to undertake it even at the risk of inconclusiveness; one has to start it
even if the fulfilment of the intention cannot be in the lone efforts of the speaker. Only when a speculative synthesis,
no matter how outrageous, is offered, can scholars then get to tearing apart the offering in order to put it together
in a more efficient manner.