"When You Die, Someone Should Die With You": Perspectives on Accompanied Death by Moses Ochonu and Friends on Facebook in Relation to the January 2022 Burial of the Aku Uka of Wukari

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 18, 2022, 5:29:13 AM1/18/22

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 18, 2022, 11:48:20 AM1/18/22

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This theme is just too exciting . No holds barred, I’m looking forward to how the discussion will evolve.

“I believe many people criticize what they don’t understand” , opines Brother Professor ( Full Professor) Moses Ochonu. Exactly what I was thinking last night without any reference backing from Kant or any of the greater sceptics - another instance of argumentum ad verecundiam – as in “ I am the way, the truth and the light – no man cometh unto the Father except by through me!” (Jesus ) or , “ God must be a boogie man “ because wizard Charlie Mingus the super good jazz bassman said so, and as for me, I’m in full agreement with Stevie Wonder here singing, “ When you believe in things you don’t understand , then you suffer : Superstition ain’t the way”

Therefore, the saying is “Two Jews, three opinions” attesting to the glory of the Talmud and the Talmudic sages, I daresay ten opinionated, specially educated Nigerians speaking international English and not the exactitudes of Kantian German as the chosen vehicle for their arguments, as in this transcript, and we get a large number, verily, a multitude of attitudes - and thank God that the Hindu practice of Sati has fallen into desuetude , not due to the outright forbidding/ regulated out of existence by what Adepoju would like us to believe are civilising British Colonialists, but due to post-enlightenment and what 21st century futurists looking back deem to be modernity even then, though for very different reasons the Sotah ritual as prescribed in ancient Judaism – for a wife accused of infidelity, has also fallen into desuetude, since – so the rabbis say, the nation had gradually seeped into stages of unholiness thereby rendering the Sotah ritual ineffective.

With trepidation a modernist/ postmodernist and the village schoolteacher Lakunle, himself not that civilised - if we are to go by Kenneth Harrow’s harrowing questions raised here, please, only use the word “barbaric” to describe the Sotah in the Torah, at the risk of sounding disdainful and anti-Semitic.

Now, isn’t it a paradox that the Hindus infiltrated Creation into the Church of England in Great Britain, as far back as 1918?

Lissen up : “ I warned the people of Jamaica and they did not listen”.. Buju Banton speaking once more in Deep English ( bad words edited out as much as possible.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 18, 2022, 11:55:40 AM1/18/22

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Correction : Should read ; " Now, isn’t it a paradox that the Hindus infiltrated Cremation into the Church of England in Great Britain, as far back as 1918?

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 18, 2022, 5:41:08 PM1/18/22

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First things first ( Africa First!)

Question 1, and in the name of Shalom, I don’t want to quarrel with anyone, but just as Adepopju enquired of Professor Gloria in Excelsis Emeagwali : “could i know what motivated your interest in this at this time? “ , the this being her posting “Atrocities/war crimes condoned in the Bible”, so too I ask Adepoju the same question, in light of his recent altercation with Professor Moses Ochonu: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, please, could we know what motivated your interest in posting the transcript of a discussion involving Professor Ochonu, at this time?

And no mention of the ancient Egyptian burial rites ensuring immortality after death? For example there are certain funeral rites for Mende Chiefs in Sierra Leone, that are sensitive and no business of those not directly concerned...

After reading through the transcript of the discussion, I should only like to make the following observations

1. We are to surmise the Almighty is totally against human sacrifice , as evidenced by the Akedah , a ram being substituted for Isaac, at the very last moment.

The idea that God’s absolute justice required that His only begotten Son should be sacrificed on the cross in order to save sinful humanity, is still being debated by both Jew and gentile, in websites such as Jews for Judaism and Tovia Singer and mythvision

There’s also a necessary distinction to be made between suicide on the one hand – which is forbidden - and martyrdom , such as Kiddush Hashem . But how to characterise what happened at Masada?

It’s a very moving picture of the chivalric horse rider who accompanies his liege into the dark forest at the end of the latter's life pilgrimage – hopefully, Tunde Kelani will make a blockbuster movie out of it. In my not so informed imagination, I imagine a parallel with the last scene of King Arthur’s farewell as captured by the last verse of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Morte D'Arthur...

I imagine the mysterious & anonymous masked rider accompanying the dearly departed King into the dark forest , and who knows, unrecognised and unrecognizable reappearing to continue life as before, in the kingdom or elsewhere

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Jan 18, 2022, 11:53:26 PM1/18/22

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"That it is traditional does not make it right"-Barack Obama.

-CAO.

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Founder/Publisher of, www.publicinformationprojects.org)

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 19, 2022, 5:04:34 PM1/19/22

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Very interesting. For the super-sleuth, the plot thickens; in a non-religious context it would be a or the case of the missing king.

“ Because he does not die, there are no undertaker's, coffin or grave, that will make him mortal. He rides majestically on his royal horse to meet his forebears. The young man with him serves as his sheath bearer. But also serve as the proverbial scapegoat, on behalf of the community.” ( Pankya and its May Mysteries )

Nor does he, like Jesus, in full view of his disciples ascend bodily to our Father heaven, disappearing beyond the clouds, Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha.

What does the conclusion of the Heart Sutra have to do with the bodily ascension of Jesus to Haven? It’s the kind of question that the uninitiated may well ask, and the kind of question that e.e. answers with the first line of his love poem that begins at this beginning:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

“ The proverbial scapegoat “ is reminiscent of poor old Azazel

no crucifixion

no resurrection

no ascension

the goat merely disappears

into the wilderness

carrying his burden:

all our sins

Azazel the scapegoat

far removed from the lofty dream:

O lamb of God who take away the sins of this world !

I cry

tears hide.

At this stage, you have the right to be intensely worried and even the right to remain silent about the trial of Nnamdi Kanu which started yesterday and narry a word about this very significant event, in this USA- Africa series.

Or is it the silence before the tsunami?

Hopefully, Brother Nnamdi is not another Azazel or the case of another failed Messiah who says “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all will be added”

“But He, Himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone”

Cf Your Master

Harrow, Kenneth

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Jan 19, 2022, 5:32:57 PM1/19/22

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cornelius, why do you call azazel the scapegoat? i thought the goat was sent to him in the wilderness.

on another note, i am skeptical of accounts of child sacrifice, most anywhere. i'd want to see real proof and not speculation before i'd be convinced.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 19, 2022, 6:51:41 PM1/19/22

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Profound, profound.

You bring a tear to smile and I can't hide it.

As far as the title of this thread is concerned, I imagine that there are those who have not taken these words of gentle Jesus to heart ,

“ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you..”

I suppose that when such people are at the brink of The Hereafter “When You Die, Someone Should Die With You" , would be putting it lightly, preferably, more honestly it should be

“ When you die, May all your enemies accompany you”

That the prohibition against child sacrifice is made so clear suggests that it was a practice that was prevalent in the neighbourhood, some of the surrounding cultures and possibly still continues in some of the darkest places in the wilderness.

Unbelieving Thomas wants to see real proof and not speculation before he’s convinced.

Mr. Ginsberg was unsparing with his condemnations with much howling about Moloch

in Howl part 2:

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Jan 19, 2022, 7:12:04 PM1/19/22

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TEN FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE AKU UKA'S TRANSITION

1. Unknown to many people, especially judgmental and self-righteous Pentecostal Christians who condemned the beautiful Pankya transition rites from their conceited Christian perspective, the late Aku Uka, Dr. Shekarau Angyu Masa Ibi II was a devout Christian of the Reformed Church of Nigeria. Not only that, he was a trained theologian. A friend of mine recounted in our online forum how the departed Aku Uka used to have theological debates and discussion with my friend’s father, a prominent Bible scholar and missionary. 

But the Aku Uka was also a man who was not ashamed of his culture or the traditional religion and rituals of his people. He skillfully navigated the obligations of both his Christian faith and those of his ancient Kwararafa/Jukun people and kingdom. He was an excellent model for how to be a Christian without succumbing to the colonial mentality of disavowing and rejecting your cultural heritage, history, and traditions. Many of us can learn from his example. 

By the way, the anti-culture Christian brigade have their work cut out for them because there is a growing cohort of traditional rulers who are devout and in some cases Pentecostal Christians. The newly elected Och’Idoma is a Deeper Life Pastor, as is the Tor Tiv. The young Olu of Warri is a vocal Christian. I understand that the Chief of Kagoro who recently passed away was also a pastor. There are many others.

2. One of the sons of the transitioned Aku Uka is a pastor and proudly participated in the funerary rites. He was being a proud Jukun prince, which in no way diminishes his Christian bona fides. 

3. The horse riding escort (Atobe) belongs to a special family of royal courtiers and servants whose job it is to groom male members for the role of escort so that when the time comes one or more of them would eagerly volunteer to accompany the Aku Uka on his journey into the forest to be "delivered to his ancestors.”

4. Being the horse riding escort is a coveted position of masculine honor and prestige, something that members of the designated family crave because whether the person makes it back or not, the family and the person are forever credited with doing the bidding of the ancestors and thus bringing blessings and fortunes to the community.

5. That brings me back to the horse rider. It is considered a mark of great individual martial accomplishment and distinction to accompany the Aku Uka on the three day journey and make it back alive because it indicates that 1) the person is a great warrior who might have encountered wild animals and evil spirits and vanquished them; 2) he is a man with a clean conscience and pure love for his community, otherwise the gods would have killed him in order to save the community from the repercussion of his evil deeds or intentions; 3) the gods are happy with him and the community because if/when he returns from the forest, he brings blessings, powers, and positive messages from the gods.

6. Yes, there is a foreboding possibility of the horse rider not returning, hence the prepayment of a ritualistic token compensation to his family. He goes to the mission fully cognizant of this possibility but yet proudly embraces it as a free-willing adult. How, by the way, is this different from the honorable and heroic kamikaze Japanese pilots of World War II, or from the practice of young men and women signing up voluntarily for war in defense of their country’s or king’s honor knowing fully well that the odds of returning alive is against them?

7. As with every tradition, the mystery is an essential element of it, so trying to rationally explain or understand every aspect of it using the empirical logic of verifiability is misguided. The story in this case is that the gods and ancestral spirits take the life of the horse rider as a sacrifice if they wish. Often, in these types of traditions, such stories serve to further mystify and to thus entrench the tradition once the practice has become accepted. Without such mystifying stories, future generations might do away with the tradition or invent a new one, so there is a perfectly rational political and social explanation for the story. It is a powerful technique to preserve the practice beyond the time of the people who invented it. 

As Zainab Ali explained yesterday, the real explanation may not even be mysterious at all and may have to do with the simple fact that in the old days a man who rode a horse deep into the forest by himself unarmed was unlikely to return because of wild animals, thirst, hunger, physical injury, and climatic vagaries. The community knew this but that explanation would render the enterprise mundane and rob it of its spiritual power. Therefore, in many such instances, even in the Western and Eastern monarchical and sociopolitical traditions, the people construct elaborate myths about gods, spirits, and forces in the forest  or in the sky or in the water that kill and spare as they wish. 

Often such stories kill the proverbial two birds with one stone because, sticking with this example, apart from sacrelizing the possible disappearance of the horse rider, further adding to the mysterious allure of the event, the story mystifies the monarchy, helping to consolidate it, forging obedience to it, and discouraging rebellion by putting sacred fear in the hearts of subjects. I have a similar story from Benin Kingdom down south that I will share soon.

8. Some people say riding a horse with a corpse is barbaric. This is a decontextualized and judgmental perspective. Did the people who invented the tradition consider it barbaric? There are many funerary traditions in the world and in different religions. Some people cremate their dead proudly in blazing pyres. Others may find it unacceptable and barbaric even though research has shown that it is the healthiest way of disposing of the dead. There is an ethnic group in the Indonesian archipelago that keeps the bodies of their dead with them in the community, dressing them up on occasion for many years. Another group puts the bodies in nearby caves unburied so that family members can visit and see their dead loved ones. Again, some people may consider this barbaric but it’s perfectly normal and respectable to the people who practice it. To each their own. 

9. I for one have learned a lot about this beautiful, ancient,  proudly preserved religion/culture of the Jukun, of which the royal funerary right of Pankya is only one aspect. I am now thirsty for more, the curious historian that I am.

10. Most of us criticize what we don’t understand instead of trying to know more about it with an open mind. With that in mind, let me recommend a live Facebook lecture and discussion on Pankya, the Jukun transitional rite of Aku Uka, which is taking place this Saturday (see details in my comment below). I plan to attend to learn more. Join the discussion if you can and come with an open mind and with your serious (not derisive and disrespectful) questions. I am sure the expert presenters and authorities will answer your questions and clarify your confusion regarding this wonderful culture/religion.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/9eb370cf-f986-4e14-aa72-0450bb276e48n%40googlegroups.com.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 19, 2022, 7:20:38 PM1/19/22

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On another note, I also thought like you , that “ i'd want to see real proof and not speculation before i'd be convinced”, each time I came across the blood libel being pumped by the likes of Alex Jones, InfoWars, Breitbart, that Hillary Clinton was the leader of a satanic cult that was practising child sacrifice and drinking their blood in the cellars of the White House

What I thought I heard:

“Hurry down sunset,
Drink up your blood like wine
Hurry down sunset,
Don’t seek, don’t find

No suffering….

( Letter Perfect - from We Got By

On Wednesday, 19 January 2022 at 23:32:57 UTC+1 Kenneth Harrow wrote:

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:30:39 AM1/20/22

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Many Thanks, Professor Moses Ochonu.

That was dignified, sincere, very moving.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:31:03 AM1/20/22

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fine assessment, Moses,

but, while this esotericism has its value, how do we preserve human life while sustaining it?

your facebook post did mention the need to do away with the idea of someone dying to escort another person to the beyond, since, as you rightly put it, everyone dies alone.

you also mentioned that a person may question the death ride and the likelihood of sacrifice the life of the living rider without impugning the value of the entire culture it emerges from.

on a critical note, we become slaves to cultures, our own creations, if we dont critique them and try to refine them.

i wonder about the notion that this esoteric rite loses from being studied intellectually.

how realistic really, are the claims being made for this ritual?

a ruler dies.

it is declared that someone must accompany him. why? what does anyone know about what happens after death? is this not another example of feudalisation, carrying class categories into the unknown of death?

its claimed the ruler is not buried but his body is claimed by spirits. is that not better understood as a fiction? if spirits exist, what's the business of their non-material existence with a dead body, even that of a former ruler?

as for the escort, is it not more humane for us at this time to seek to discourage that culture of people living their whole lives in preparation to die with someone else, death being a solitary process, as birth is?

cant this concept be enabled symbolically, instead of expending a human life in the name of a person already dead?

imagine the distortion of the life of a person who lives his entire life expecting to die when an older man, a much older man, dies. What happens to his relationships? his values, his sense of self actualisation? his pursuit of his own creativity, his development of his talents?

can he commit himself to the extended periods of growth vital for mastery in anything, given that his time of death hangs on the inevitable death of another person, a much older person? what level of education are these people allowed or can aspire to? are they free to travel, if so, how far and under what conditions?

should the creative energies of this class of people, groomed for death, not be unleashed for the pursuit of life?

great thanks

toyin

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:31:47 AM1/20/22

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i'm thinking of ancient times, or older than now.

there are two areas i can think of where real historical responses must be given before we could seriously talk about the topic: sacrifice or cannibalism. i am not counting warfare as the same as religious sacrifices, but a good deal of missionary claptrack has entered into the archives, on both topics, going back to the ancient period, which has polluted serious examination of the topic.

i don't doubt there were some instances where people were sacrificed; but, as you said cornelius, much of it evolved into "blood libels" or their equivalent in african reportage or studies. when anthropologists report this or that on the basis of missionary testimony, and then historians cite it as pure reality, pure practice, on has to learn how much the record has been polluted.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2022 7:16 PM

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:32:12 AM1/20/22

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BBC report on horseman Sallah Atobe

Who be horseman Sallah Atobe

35 year old Sallah dey work with Federal University Wukari and e dey with dia security and safety department.

Na same school e finish from after im secondary school with goment day secondary school Wukari.

E say e go dey continue to dey do im work as e dey do everyday.

Anoda tin wey im dey do na say e be youth leader for di Wukari community wia e dey put together youths wey get interest of community development on how to move dia

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:32:52 AM1/20/22

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In modern societies, are people free to want to die? What would be the cost of such deaths to the society if allowed?

Must we relive these traditions? Are these practices still relevant today? Shouldn't we put records of these practices in museums, where interested persons can go and view them?

By the way, isn't it better to make that young man a medical doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc, than one who escorts a dead king to the ancestors (and may never come back).

A Poet wrote "I took my revolver and killed the gods". Revolver here representing modernity and the gods of course representating tradition.

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 20, 2022, 12:53:07 AM1/20/22

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Agree with Chidi.

Having read the BBC interview with the escort and looked again at his picture, he does not look or sound like a person who ever battled wild animals or evil spirits, talk less having just survived such an ordeal a few days ago.

I expect the Wukari have long abandoned the dagerous aspect of the rites, if they ever existed, but sustained the illusion.

I also suspect the whole account has always been an elaborate illusion.

There has never been any handing over of the king's body to spirits of the forest, I expect.

I expect the king was buried in the forest and the escort either sacrificed or sent into.exile.

Thanks

Toyin

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Moses Ochonu

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Jan 20, 2022, 8:47:12 AM1/20/22

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Toyin, you have answered your own questions with your own conjectures. I insist that the mystery and the myth are essential elements of tradition— any tradition. This is not unique to the Jukun or Africans. As I stated in my reflection, most of these esoteric practices are not esoteric at all and were created at particular moments for practical and strategic social, economic, and political purposes. When I have the time, I’ll recount the Benin story told to us in Ilorin by the great Professor Osofisan.

What you call illusions and the maintenance of it are sometimes what holds a community together, the glue of solidarity, cohesion, and monarchical stability.

Myth-making itself is a rational, logical process, not an idle, archaic relic of superstition. Most modern institutions and nations are sustained by myths that are not tethered to objective, verifiable, or self-evident realities. Yet these myths are so powerful that people are willing to and do die for them, signing up to sacrifice their lives to defend them. There are many examples.

The other thing is that self-sacrifice—-varying notions of it ranging from martyrdom to blood atonement to the extreme of human sacrifice —are integral to many religions. And of course as you know, assisted honorable suicide is now legal in most Western countries.

By all means study Jukun royal funerary rites and religion with academic lens, but don’t expect to unravel or satisfactorily explain it to those outside the overarching religious orbit, to non-initiates. I don’t think that’s possible, as unknowability is a central aspect of the practice, crucial to its sociopolitical function. But even if you could explain or unravel everything about it or fill gaps with informed, intelligent conjectures, would it not be arrogant to do so as an outside interlocutor whose enterprise does not have the cooperative input of the Jukun people?

Critique certain elements of the rites, but my point is that it is disrespectful and even unethical to derisively condemn or dismiss some of the practices as barbaric and repugnant as some have done and for Christians to apply their scriptural and exegetical standards to practices of an African Traditional Religion (ATR).

Finally, cultures of course change and shift with time, and I am certain that Jukun religion and royal funerary rites are dynamic and have evolved over time, but the pace of change and evolution should not be dictated by judgmental outsiders but by the organic momentum of internal consensus and societal evolution.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 19, 2022, at 11:53 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Moses Ochonu

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Jan 20, 2022, 9:05:10 AM1/20/22

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Ken,

Thanks for your usual thoughtful engagement. Indeed, the missionary archive and its taxonomies and ways of seeing and knowing have infected much of our perspective on and terms for discussing practices the missionaries encounterEd and rendered in their jaundiced idiom of Christian civilization and “animist” barbarism. The rhetorical strategy is replete with exaggeration, embellishment, and outright fabrication, especially in cases where locals refused to open up their esoteric and sacred practices and spaces to the intrusive missionaries.

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On Jan 19, 2022, at 11:53 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Toyin Falola

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Jan 20, 2022, 9:05:13 AM1/20/22

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Moses and co:

I have been enjoying this thread, but I am not in a state of mind to contribute to it. I have just completed a long manuscript on metaphysics and I can relate to all the contributions.

Both Moses and Adepoju have intellectual reconciliations to make with their previous arguments.

To Moses, in demolishing Nwolise’s arguments on the strategic use of the supernatural in wars, he questioned him so aggressively, and I pushed him, even suggesting that hallucination is an evidence. He needs to reconcile his earlier position to the admittance in the current. You cannot have it both ways.

To Adepoju, you have centralized mythologies in most of your epistemological frontages—I became attracted to your work because of the sacredness in it. Now you need to reconcile your foundational thinking system with this Jukun one as you cannot have it both ways.

In all, you are all returning to the ideas before Christ, one that gave birth to divine kingship and the idea of the pyramid.

As to the barbaric and primitive, I don’t have any issue with that; anyone can use his mouth and words the way he likes—Islam and Christianity have consistently discredited earlier conceptions of religions along this line. Moses goes to Church, a scholar-believer, and I am sure he must have read the Ten Commandment.

20 And God spoke all these words:

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

³“You shall have no other gods before^[a] me.

⁴“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

In declaring God as jealous, the foundation of barbarism was laid—then and forever. Let us not worry about those and them!!

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Jan 20, 2022, 9:12:26 AM1/20/22

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"Finally, cultures of course change and shift with time, and I am certain that Jukun religion and royal funerary rites are dynamic and have evolved over time, but the pace of change and evolution should not be dictated by judgmental outsiders but by the organic momentum of internal consensus and societal evolution"-Moses Ochonu.

It was a "judgemental outsider" for example, that stopped the culture of killing of twins in Igboland. Now, we have twins, who would have been killed (as prescribed by the culture then), contributing their quotas in all spheres to the advancement of the Igbo society in particular and to the larger society.

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jan 20, 2022, 10:32:18 AM1/20/22

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hi moses

the line between outsiders and insiders, in instituting change, must really change over time.

and not aways be determined by obvious things, like force, or forced conversions. i imagine economic factors are often key, like when cameroonians from northern cameroon identified themselves as hausa, so as to get a job. the pressures related to how one is inside or outside depend on where you are working, as geschiere wrote in describing people who left the village for the city, in s east cameroon.

we change when we get educated in one city vs another.

and so on.

i see change from within as often being a dialectical and very painful process. i am thinking about the jewish community in the u.s. torn over the question of israel's position vis a vis palestine. no unity there at all. the same for our rituals, like being kosher. normally a minor question now heightened by ultra-orthodox who have spoiled so many of our values, especially toward women....

change comes from violence, according to hegel...

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 20, 2022, 2:09:51 PM1/20/22

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Please consider this free fall an aside, in no way meant to impact the evolution or direction of the on-going discussion.

“When beggars die there are no comets seen. The heavens themselves blaze for the death of princes.” ( Shakespeare's Julius Caesar)

The body of the Prophet of Islam, salallahu alaihi wa salaam reposes in glory at the Rawdah Mubarak in Medina.

To this day, nobody knows the exact location of where Moshe Rabbeinu the greatest Jewish Prophet that ever lived , is buried , among other reasons suggested or proposed - thank God – so as to avoid the prospect of his deification or his burial site becoming a place of pilgrimage, idolatry, and worship

Freud of course expressed other ideas in his Moses and Monotheism

How dare anyone use the term “ barbaric” when referring to e.g. Jewish Traditions for Death, Burial, and Mourning

The very last time I was in Sierra Leone (ten days in April 1970) it was this book and a short discussion with its author that got me going :

Harry Sawyerr : God: Ancestor or Creator.

It’s a very revealing discussion, surprisingly , especially the extremism coming out of Ojogbon Falola – Ojogbon Falola probably enjoying himself when he said that “ In declaring God as jealous, the foundation of barbarism was laid “ Ojogbon Falola pointedly referring to the Almighty saying, “I am a jealous God “ - and by extension, to Ojogbon Falola's mind, all the other dichotomies and divisions of Muslim and kuffar, good and bad, We and Them , notions of the sacred and profane spaces and places in the mind and the world outside of the mind, Ojogbon Falola the archdeacon, not the arch-demon of epistemology , Ojogbon Falola who I had previously thought was a very traditional Yoruba man. Only nice man Nimi Wariboko is missing in action so far and should he decide to appear, he’ll probably wrap it all up, at least to the churchman’s ethical satisfaction.

OK, so far, the discussion is not boring because you’ve got so much “deep” thinking in what you’re saying about the limits of knowledge. Based on infinite cosmic ignorance, primitive man and some of the less than omniscient (also a presumptuous and meaningless term) such as the still mortal poets, brain surgeons, intellectuals, scholars, existential philosophers, metamathematicians, quantum physicists, space rocket scientists, atheists, agnostics, various holy men and holy women of God love or disdain to argue and debate some of the fundamental problems of existence...

We can all be futuristically modern , up-to-date with the latest that science can reveal , not that we have to wait or predict the next two thousand years, here and now we could ask and answer the question where is God, and if “He” is everywhere, then “He” is surely here. So, where is thereto go from here? Nowhere?

Concretely, the Holiest book of Islam, the Quran postulates about the Jews ( Al-Baqarah 94 -96):

94. Say (unto them): If the abode of the Hereafter in the providence of Allah is indeed for you alone and not for others of mankind (as ye pretend), then long for death (for ye must long for death) if ye are truthful.

95. But they will never long for it, because of that which their own hands have sent before them. Allah is aware of evil-doers.

96. And thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters. (Each) one of them would like to be allowed to live a thousand years. And to live (a thousand years) would be no means remove him from the doom. Allah is Seer of what they do.

What happens after we die? Well, what happens whilst we are alive? What value and meaning does life have for us right now ? Independently, and personally speaking , this could depend on where we are born and where we are living in freedom or in chains , because from Afghanistan , through Israel to Zimbabwe the question about life and death cultures could be operating at several levels, the physical , the traditional, the value systems based on the ethical, the socio-economic, the political, the religious, the spiritual, the beliefs and understandings of religious / not pagan notions such as “ life after death” , the Vikings had their own after-life expectations, the Muslims, the 72 virgins in paradise, etc.

“Preacher man don't tell me
Heaven is under the earth
I know you don't know
What life is really worth “ ( Bob Marley : Get up, Stand Up

What happens after we die – the question addressed to Professor Ochonu , is an open-ended question depending on so many extraneous factors such as who we think we are, the kinds of lives we live or would like to live whilst we are alive, and the eternal life some of us would like to live, after we die - and some of the more sceptical – like Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet of Denmark, are hesitant about committing suicide , that’s why, “to be, or not to be, that is the question”

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.”

Rabbi Manis Friedman has answered the question, “ What happens after we die? “

There must be hope for believing thieves yet, since whilst on the cross Jesus said to the thief that was being crucified beside him, “ Today , you will be with me in paradise”

I recall siting in the Imam Ali masjid in Stockholm, listening to Sheikh Hassan ( the father of Professor Sheikh Sadiq of Najaf who I was “ teaching” English, whilst he was teaching me Shia Islam ) Sheikh Hassan was saying that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is prepared to forgive any sin except the sin of shirk - at which point I whispered to Ahmed who was sitting on the floor, right next to me, “ So perhaps, Allah will forgive Saddam ?” causing Ahmed to get up and transport himself to the furthest corner of the masjid, as far away from me as possible. I noticed that he started avoiding me for some time after the lecture, until I finally accosted him and he replied, “ If someone like Saddam doesn’t go to hell then how will hell be filled?” I had though that Ahmed was a Shia Muslim from Lebanon, but lo and behold he was from Iraq!

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Jan 20, 2022, 2:11:16 PM1/20/22

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Oga Falola,

No contradiction in my positions to reconcile. I have never said that academics cannot study myth, spirituality, beliefs, religion, and metaphysical claims of power, instrumentality, and amelioration. Scholars have done that for many centuries, applying different critical and research methods to the realm of belief, myth, and supernatural beliefs. They have explained the logics, rationales, and functions of beliefs in socioeconomic, political, and quotidian affairs within Western and non-Western contexts. But these scholars undertake this task with a scholarly detachment and the analytical distance expected of a scholar.

Nwolise's academic "crime," which riled me and others, is that, not only did he not observe any scholarly or analytical detachment from the supernatural claims he was promoting (in fact he was emphatically asserting and describing them as established, verifiable, and cocksure phenomena), he proclaimed with certitude and with no caveats, qualifiers, or tentativeness that spiritual forces and the powers they are alleged to possess by practitioners of various religions, are real.

The unscholarly language of certitude and absolutism he deployed to make these unscholarly claims was jarring to say the least. It's obvious that the man believes, as an article of faith, what he proclaims in the texts/lecture we discussed, but he wasn't making these proclamations on the pulpit, in a religious pamphlet, or in a faith-based conversation. These ideas were contained in a professorial inaugural lecture, academic books, and papers. That was the problem. He was fraudulently and cavalierly passing off his faith and beliefs as scholarly verities and axioms in an academic medium.

My second critique of Nwolise was that, having committed the first egregious scholarly violation of conflating his belief with his scholarship, he proceeded to recommend and to convince the highest military authorities in Nigeria to adopt a military strategy of invoking spiritual powers and forces to help them win the fight against Boko Haram and other terrorist insurgents. That is madness, of course. National defense is a serious business requiring investments in equipment, training, personnel, and strategy. To trivialize it and replace its core military elements with some notions of spiritual warfare is silly and dangerous. Pray, how to you summon or conscript spiritual entities to fight against well-armed terrorists and insurgents?

What people do in their belief systems, religions, and rites in subnational or even national contexts is their business, and we must respectfully engage these beliefs whether as scholars or regular observers. Those cultures and beliefs and their associated myths, rites, and practices pose no harm to anyone or the nation and in fact can serve as ways of forging national cohesion and self-affirming cultural pride. Those of us who are curious scholars can study the beliefs and rites and their underlying logics and ethos to the extent possible with our methodologies and modes of inquiry. But how do you go from that to elevating such beliefs and cultures to the heart of public policy and national defense policy formulation? That was the second and, for me, fatal error of Nwolise.

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Toyin Falola

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Jan 20, 2022, 2:22:52 PM1/20/22

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Great, this clarification is needed and must be restated.

An owner of a university believes in ritual murder, and he killed for ritual murder, relating the theory to practice!

When Nigerian professors who are Christians teach African religions, they teach them as “meal tickets”. Is this a problem? There are those who teach Africa as a meal ticket. Is this not a problem?

When Christian professors teach Christianity, they teach them both as a meal ticket and their own core values, believing that Jesus can cleanse sins. Is this a problem?

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 20, 2022, 4:22:31 PM1/20/22

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I also like Chidi's pragmatic approach to the subject.

Toyin

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 21:23 Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:

I always enjoy Moses use of English. Very powerful. His latest analysis is quite rich. I seriously his stance on this subject as evolving.

I also like Falola's approach to the issues.

The sacred, illusion, reality etc

How does one harmonise them?

I think I might have a response on this Jukun rites issue.

Thanks

Toyin

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 20, 2022, 4:23:01 PM1/20/22

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I always enjoy Moses use of English. Very powerful. His latest analysis is quite rich. I seriously his stance on this subject as evolving.

I also like Falola's approach to the issues.

The sacred, illusion, reality etc

How does one harmonise them?

I think I might have a response on this Jukun rites issue.

Thanks

Toyin

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 20:22 Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jan 20, 2022, 4:24:50 PM1/20/22

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there is also the meal ticket in albino parts, and in witch killings or simply accusations. the question for moses is what is the solution for an accusation of witchery against any older person, say an older woman? say by her children who are tired of waiting for the property; or say by the children's pentacostal preacher, who then performs a cleansing?

nothing comes for free. the positive gains to society you associate with myths are also burdens. when christians wanted to conquest, to perform the conquista of spain, the conquest could have been done with christ's blessing, but it wasn't. there was a price that millions of people paid.

instead of regarding myths as the property of a people and culture, we might regard it as belonging to all of us; and subject to our blessings as much as condemnation. when gloria cites all the killings sanctioned in the bible, whose problem is it? who pays the price?

no one rides alone to accompany the king.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 20, 2022, 8:17:36 PM1/20/22

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Harry Sawyerr 's " God: Ancestor or Creator” often comes to mind when the eulogies and obituaries which surface in this forum usually state that the dearly departed has “ gone to join the ancestors” - an African phrase which even when employed by Christian clergy , is open to more than one interpretation, perhaps more so when ancestor worship is a constant part of some people’s religious and cultural background.

Food for thought, at least for the Muslim section of this discussion:

“And call not those who are slain in the way of Allah "dead." Nay, they are living, only ye perceive not.” (S urah al Baqarah ayat 154)

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Jan 20, 2022, 9:00:58 PM1/20/22

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"When Christian professors teach Christianity, they teach them both as a meal ticket and their own core values, believing that Jesus can cleanse sins. Is this a problem?"

Oga Falola,

It gets even more scandalous. I've heard of many Christian colleagues in Nigeria who start classes with a prayer or even lead praise and worship sessions with the students. It seems to have become normalized in some parts of Nigeria. I have also heard some students--undergraduate and graduate--complain that some of their Christian teachers use their podiums to proselytize, sometimes shirking their curricular commitment to win souls in the classroom.

The conflation of faith and pedagogy is not new in the Nigerian system, however. I remember my first year in the university, learning about different conceptions of history. When the lecturer, a Muslim, arrived at the topic of the Islamic conceptualization of history, it became a sermon, and the oddity of the blatant sermonization was not lost on some of us as we wondered whether this was an Islamic studies class, a mosque preaching session, or a history class.

A few years ago, at your Africa conference in Austin, I heard a presentation by a Muslim scholar from one of the northern universities, which, had this not been the UT Africa conference, I would have thought I was in a mosque listening to an Islamic preacher. I could see the Americans in the audience cringing in disbelief and discomfort, unable to make sense of what they were hearing but prevented from reacting appropriately by their liberal accommodationist and relativist orientation.

At the same conference, I heard papers given by Nigerian Christian colleagues that seemed a rehash of moral admonitions I had heard in my church. The osmotic seepage between the Nigerian academy and the pulpit was on full, dramatic, and scandalous display.

When we talk they will say we're being harsh on the Nigerian academy. How can you nurture an academy in this way? How can you normalize the reconfiguration of academic spaces of critical inquiry and secular debate into platforms of evangelism?

Recently, one of my Northern Nigerian academic interlocutors told me of a new trend of prominent Islamic clerics seeking and being given academic appointments, including professorships, in public universities in the north. This development amounts to a capture of the academy by clerical figures, which portends a radical transformation of such universities away from their core mission.

I am tired of critiquing the deepening dysfunction in the Nigerian academy, and yet you keep goading me to add to my already sizable archive of criticism and commentary. At least future historians will know that we spoke up.

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jan 22, 2022, 8:37:30 AM1/22/22

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“ How can you normalize the reconfiguration

of academic spaces of critical inquiry and

secular debate into platforms of evangelism? “

Moses Achonu

“The osmotic seepage between the Nigerian academy and the pulpit was on full, dramatic, and scandalous display.”

Moses Achonu

“This development amounts to a capture of the academy by clerical figures. ………”Moses Achonu

Who can state this worrisome dilemma more eloquently?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2022 8:20 PM

To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: "When You Die, Someone Should Die With You": Perspectives on Accompanied Death by Moses Ochonu and Friends on Facebook in Relation to the January 2022 Burial of the Aku Uka of Wukari

Please be cautious: **External Email**

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jan 22, 2022, 9:29:30 AM1/22/22

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agreed gloria, moses is a persuasive and eloquent writer.

i was struck by the number of religious universities when i was there. is that a factor in this shift?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 8:32 AM

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 22, 2022, 12:52:28 PM1/22/22

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At this point, after some due reflection, I'd like to point out to Ojogbon Falola that the first two commandments that the Almighty gave at Mt. Sinai, that he quotes here, and which occur in Shemot/ Exodus Chapter 20 , in the Torah portion Parshat Yitro that was read in all the synagogues this Sabbath that has just been concluded this evening, it is The Almighty Himself speaking, and it is the voice of the Almighty Himself that those who were gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai heard , and apparently it was so terrifying that they pleaded with Moses, please, let God speak to you, and you then convey His message to us.

As to the second commandment that Ojogbon Falola refers to, well, for our edification, here's a little discourse on the 2nd commandment by Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin

Muslims of course are very demonstrative if not remonstrative when it comes to any perceived insults directed at beloved Prophet of Islam, salallahu alaihi wa salaam, whereas e.g. the Jews, the assorted atheists and idolaters seem to be less concerned about such perceived insults, but more concerned( worried) about the punishments that are to be meted out to the insulters by the Muslim Faithful. The line has been drawn so that the insulters and would be insulters know that they cross that line at their own peril, both in this world and in the Hereafter.

A word of caution to the sensitive and the not so sensitive, the respectful and the it so respectful about what constitutes blasphemy , according to Judaism, is also relevant here....

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 22, 2022, 5:41:26 PM1/22/22

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To the heart of the contested matter : The Second Commandment :

"You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments."

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 23, 2022, 12:22:45 PM1/23/22

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At Unravelling Pankya: The Transition Rites of the Aku Uka, the live Facebook discussion on this subject yesterday , Dr. Shishi Zhema, a Jukun cultural expert who described himself as also on the ceremony’s planning committee, made it clear that because some of the Aku's escorts had failed to return in the past, rigorous divination is now conducted to ensure the gods guide the planners of the rites in choosing the right person for the job, a person whose personal qualities along with the gods’ own protection will make sure he returns from the journey of escorting the Aku Uka to Nando, the zone of the Aku's transmutation to the spirit world.

He also made clear, if I recall correctly, that Nando, mysterious as it is, is a place with it's own guardians, who maintain it.

I'm struck by what I understand as the Jukun ritual architects’ manner of creating and sustaining mystery, and protecting human life in the process.

I'm also struck by the centrality of the feminine persona in the process, as it relates to the creativity of female biology and the honouring of this by a community.

If I recall properly, Zhema stated that Puje, the place that is the starting point of the Aku's final earthly journey, plays that role because it is strategic in the personal history of the founder of present day Jukun communal life, the first Aku Uka of Wukari, after the fall of the Kwararafa kingdom, a previous social system from which present day Jukun emerged.

On his journey from the collapse of the Kwararafa empire, his wife entered into her period in the place that is now known as Puje, hence he had to wait there for several days.

Having established what is now known as the Wakuri community, Puje became the place where every new Aku's wife receives him when he ascends the throne as well as the point from where his final earthly journey begins in earnest to Nando, the point of his final transition

On ascending the throne, he journeys to from Puje to Nando and back to Puje in a journey evoking motion from the zone of fecundative promise represented by Puje in its association with the power of female biology to Nando, the point of his eventual transition to the spirit world at the end of his terrestrial life, and back to Puje, the location representing the promise of the beginning of terrestrial life evoked by its association with the first Aku's wife's biological imperatives, as I would interpret this reverse progression, if I recall it clearly enough.

A symbolic drama rich in historical, communal and spiritual values.

I wonder what scholarly or more general explorations may have been done of those rich rites. The possibilities are immense.

People are referencing the need for written expositions of this dramatic and spiritual complex.

Essays and books exploring the entire rite and parts of it would be wonderful, dramatising it's wonderful visual power, as demonstrated both by the general Jukun populace, visitors from outside the Jukun and the ritual and other symbolic activities carried out.

Ideally, this complex should have a dedicated website for the transition of each Aku Uka and all linked through a central website or a single website employed to host the official descriptions, explanations and analyses of the rites.

Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and perhaps other social media would be vital locations for the real time dissemination of this information with an official book coming out of the proceedings, a book replete with first class photography.

The coronation ceremonies of the Oba of Benin, likely to be one of the greatest symbolic spectacles in the world, also need a similar concentrated effort of representation and analysis, along with the amazing images and basic explanations that came out of it on Facebook and other online outlets through the general public and privileged participants in those rites.

I am not aware of any initiative from the Oba's palace or the Edo State government dedicated to the presentation of this sublime historical spiritual and symbolic drama.

Such a presentation would benefit from the magnificent three part, richly illustrated essays on the coronation ceremonies and a summative essay on the same subject by Joseph Nevadomsky, along with others by other people, including my own two essays on the subject, with a third one and perhaps more forthcoming, representing a fraction of the possibilities of study of these ceremonies.

In fact, such a ceremony as the Oba of Benin coronation are so rich, a dedicated scholarly team should be set up for it's study, in relation to the entire complex of Benin culture.

Benin culture is every bit as rich as that of the Yoruba, but I'm not aware of any other Nigerian people whose culture has been studied as much as that of the Yoruba by the Yoruba themselves, by African and Diaspora non-Yoruba Africans and by non- Africans.

Material on the Yoruba origin Ifa divination system is everywhere, but much less so on the Benin divination system Ohminigbon, much on Yoruba epistemology and metaphysics, from "oju inu" to "ase", can be read online and offline, but much less so on Benin thought.

The only reference I have seen to the very rich Benin hermeneutic term "erhia", for example if I am getting the name right, comes from one article by Daryl Peavy, while Benin philosophies and spiritualities are not much visible in written texts, in my view, apart from the academically positioned and superb work of people like Charles Gore, Ben Amos, Ndubuisi Ezoluomba and Norma Rosen, whose first hand account of Olokun initiation and symbolism is wonderful, central to my own work on Olokun.

Much is available, in spite of the largely ideational and speculative nature of the material, unbalanced by more investigative aspects of study, on the Yoruba concept "aje" which may be described as referencing a form of witchcraft, correlative as it is with the varieties of witchcraft ideas in Western history from the negative to the positive, often related, in both the Western historical stream and the Yoruba context, to conceptions of the feminine, but the correlative Benin concept of "azen" is little known outside Benin, talk less studied.

My exposure to scholarship and discourse on Benin, however, is even less systematic than that on the Yoruba. I have not looked carefully at such biblios on Benin studies as that by Gore nor looked into most of the issues of the journal of Benin studies set up by Osamede Edosomwan and his collaborators, and so my assessment is more rough than specific, my exposure more episodic than organized but I think that I'm likely to be right on the comparative scope of study between Benin/Edo and Yoruba cultures and their philosophies and spiritualities and on the need for better organized and more extensive effort in representing and studying the coronation ceremonies of the Oba of Benin.

Similar observations may be made about the level of study and exposure to the world, of Jukun culture in it's evident wealth, it's knowledge systems, its forms of visual, verbal and performative symbolism, on dramatic display at the coronation.

Another classical Nigerian system of knowledge crying out for study and depiction adequate to it's evocative power, communicative force, imaginative creativity and structural genius is Cross River and South Eeast Nigeria and Cameroons Nsibidi, organized in terms of a subtle and complex network of associations between graphic arts, gestural arts, arts of arrangements of objects, performative arts of symbolic physical motion, masquerade spectacle and language, convergences structured within a cosmological system.

Some years ago, the masquerade arts and perhaps a surface presentation of Nsibidi were presented to UNESCO for recognition as a monument in the world's intangible heritage, like Ifa has been so recognized.

Not surprisingly, it did not work. The crafters of the application seemed to have focused on the masquerade element. Masquerade is everywhere, including the visually colossal Igbo Ijele masquerade, whose symbolization of the Igbo material and spiritual cosmos is readily learnt about.

The application explicitly stated they would not be divulging the arcana of Nsibidi symbolism. I could not see how their application could succeed without a significant degree of such openness.

The specific symbolism of the primary organizational matrices of Ifa, the 256 odu ifa, are not often discussed in writing, from my last exploration of the subject some years ago but the vast scope of the varied literary works they symbolize is readily accessible, while the structural ingenuity of the system, unifying creative mathematical organization expressed through spatial and graphic symbolism, correlated with literature and the visual and performative arts, is readily appreciable and endlessly presented and discussed online and offline.

Nsibidi, as publicly presented, reveals little of the symbolism of it's graphic forms, it's best known feature, and last I knew, ittle of it's gestural symbolism or arts of stylized motion, while it's arts of object arrangement were never displayed in all in the works I have read on the subject, from PhD theses to book chapters, journal articles and museum brochures.

It's that demonstration of symbolic range and multi- expressive scope that is the unique element of Nsibidi but how will Nsibidi get the recognition it deserves if these qualities are largely hidden from the public?

Can't a method be devised to sustain the economic value of Nsibidi esotericism since it seems people pay to learn this knowledge within the hierarchical structure of such esoteric systems as Ekpe and Mgbe?

Knowledge of Ifa symbolism is not the same as Ifa practice as spirituality or divination, which is centred on the application of the theory of Ifa.

Can't a method be found to balance theory and practice in Nsibidi in terms of public access to knowledge about the system, focusing on making money through book publications and less monetization of the learning process, opening the system up in the name of cultural preservation and projection?

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Jan 23, 2022, 2:50:31 PM1/23/22

to usaafricadialogue

Edited and Expanded

Shaping Mystery in Relation to Human Life in Pankya

At Unravelling Pankya: The Transition Rites of the Aku Uka, the live Facebook discussion on this subject yesterday, Dr. Shishi Zhema, a Jukun cultural expert who described himself as also on the ceremony’s planning committee, made it clear that because some of the Aku's escorts had failed to return in the past, rigorous divination is now conducted to ensure the gods guide the planners of the rites in choosing the right person for the job, a person whose personal qualities along with the gods’ own protection will make sure he returns from the journey of escorting the Aku Uka to Nando, the zone of the Aku's transmutation to the spirit world.

He also made clear, if I recall correctly, that Nando, mysterious as it is, is a place with it's own guardians, who maintain it.

I'm struck by what I understand as the Jukun ritual architects’ manner of creating and sustaining mystery, and protecting human life in the process.

The Feminine Imperative in Pankya as Symbol Nexus

I'm also struck by the centrality of the feminine persona in the process, as it relates to the creativity of female biology and the honouring of this by a community.

On his journey from the collapse of the Kwararafa empire, his wife entered into her period in the place that is now known as Puje, hence he had to wait there for several days.

The Challenge of Pankya Scholarship, Writing and Presentation

A symbolic drama rich in historical, communal and spiritual values. I wonder what scholarly or more general explorations may have been done of those rich rites. The possibilities are immense. People are referencing the need for written expositions of this dramatic and spiritual complex.

Correlative Need for Adequate Study and Presentation of the Coronation Ceremonies of the Oba of Benin

I am not aware of any initiative from the Oba's palace or the Edo State government dedicated to the presentation of this sublime historical spiritual and symbolic drama.

In fact, such a ceremony as the Oba of Benin coronation is so rich, a dedicated scholarly team should be set up for it's study, in relation to the entire complex of Benin culture.

Issues of Adequacy of Cultural Exploration in Relation to Various African Systems

Between Yoruba Ifa and Benin Ohminigbon

Benin Erhia and Other Benin Cognitive Strategies

The only reference I have seen to the very rich Benin hermeneutic term "erhia", for example if I am getting the name right, comes from one article by Daryl Peavy, "The Benin Monarchy : Olokun and Iha Ominigbon" ( on blog and pdf) while Benin philosophies and spiritualities are not much visible in written texts, in my view, apart from the academically positioned and superb work of people like Charles Gore, Ben Amos, Bradbury, Ndubuisi Ezoluomba and Norma Rosen, whose first hand account of Olokun initiation and symbolism is wonderful, central to my own work on Olokun.

Between Yoruba Aje and Benin Azen

Much is available, in spite of the largely ideational and speculative nature of the material, unbalanced by more investigative aspects of study, except for what I understand as the exceptions represented by Hallen and Sodipo's Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft, the relevant section on self initiation in Verger's Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society and Mercedes Morgana Rees' effort to create an initiatory school along such lines, which unfortunately seems to have collapsed under charges of false representation, on the Yoruba concept "aje", which may be described as referencing a form of witchcraft, correlative as it is with the varieties of witchcraft ideas in Western history from the negative to the positive, often related, in both the Western historical stream and the Yoruba context, to conceptions of the feminine, but the correlative Benin concept of "azen" is little known outside Benin, talk less studied.

My exposure to scholarship and discourse on Benin, however, is even less systematic than that on the Yoruba. I have not looked carefully at such biblios on Benin studies as that by Gore nor looked into most of the issues of the journal of Benin studies, Umẹwaẹn: Journal of Benin and Ẹdo Studies set up by Uyilawa Usuanlele and his collaborators, and so my assessment is more rough than specific, my exposure more episodic than organized but I think that I'm likely to be right on the comparative scope of study between Benin/Edo and Yoruba cultures and their philosophies and spiritualities and on the need for better organized and more extensive effort in representing and studying the coronation ceremonies of the Oba of Benin.

Jukun Cognitive and Performative Forms

Between Cross River, South East Nigerian and South West Cameroonian Nsibidi

and Yoruba Ifa

Another classical Nigerian system of knowledge crying out for study and depiction adequate to it's evocative power, communicative force, imaginative creativity and structural genius is Cross River and South East Nigeria and South West-Cameroonian Nsibidi, organized in terms of a subtle and complex network of associations between graphic arts, gestural arts, arts of arrangements of objects, performative arts of symbolic physical motion, masquerade spectacle and language, convergences structured within a cosmological system.

The application explicitly stated they would not be divulging the arcana of Nsibidi symbolism. I could not see how their application could succeed without a significant degree of such openness.

Nsibidi, as publicly presented, reveals little of the symbolism of it's graphic forms, it's best known feature, and last I knew, little of it's gestural symbolism or arts of stylized motion, while it's arts of object arrangement were never displayed in all in the works I have read on the subject, from PhD theses to book chapters, journal articles and museum exhibition brochures.

Knowledge of Ifa symbolism is not the same as Ifa practice as spirituality or divination, which is centred on the application of the theory of Ifa.

The visual artist Victor Ekpuk has done great work in dramatising the evocative potential of Nsibidi, his centre of inspiration as he explores various expressive possibilities and creates his own expressive forms. Literature on his work clarifies and expands the possibilities of his project. I think the novelist Nnedi Okoroafor is also exploring the possibilities of Nsibidi in her novels. The Nsibidi activist Nsibiri is working seriously on developing a readable script from Nsibidi. I am developing what I describe as Nsibidi/Ekpuk Philosophy and Mysticism. These initiatives, among others, are made possible by the evocative power of the fraction of knowledge on Nsibidi available to the public, people responding to the evocative force of its graphic arts, coupled with some exposure to its symbolism.

What more could be achieved with greater opening up of the system?

Akan and Gyaman Adinkra

Another African symbol system that might have much more to it than is conventionally known is the Ghanian Akan and Gyaman visual symbol system Adinkra. Adinkra is not known to be esoteric, to harbour interpretive possibilities known to its adepts which are not known to the public, but Ghanaian esotericist and artist Kofi Agorsor suggests otherwise in a comment he once made on Facebook but did not take further.

The views his wife, singer and dancer Nyornuwofia Agorsor and himself express on Ghanaian esotericism, some of which I have published in my work on her, as in the section on her in my ''Womb Wisdom to Cosmic Wisdom: Women and African Spiritualities in Africa and the Diaspora'' in the Falola and Yacob-Haliso edited Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies, suggests they represent some very rich streams of knowledge awaiting exploration, capable of yielding something different from the great work of Owusu-Ankomah, which, like Ekpuk building on Nsibidi, cultivates the evocative powers of Adinkra, eventually exploding into his own visual and symbolic language in dialogue with a global complex of visual forms.

thanks

toyin

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