The Agbarha-Otor Nexus of Spirituality and Art: A Potential UNESCO World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Site: Mapping Classical African Sacred Spaces and Activities

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

The Agbarha-Otor Nexus of Spirituality and Art:  A Potential UNESCO World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Site: Mapping Classical African Sacred Spaces and Activities

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros  

Agbarha-Otor Spiritual and Artistic Culture

Agbarha-Otor is a town in Ughelli North local government in Nigeria's Delta State. It seems to be  the one town in the  Agbarha community, composed of perhaps twenty five villages and one town, Agbarha-Otor. Agbarha is part of the Urhobo ethnic group, one of those constituting the Niger Delta.

Agbarha-Otor  is a constellation of classical and more contemporarily inspired  African spiritual activity and associated arts.

They exemplify what humanity has been able to achieve in making sense of existence, at the nexus of natural and human creativity, in relation to perceptions of the universe as shaped by spirit.

Bruce Onobrakpeya and Agbarha-Otor

I was exposed to the network of Agbarha-Otor spirituality and arts through my ongoing research in writing a biography of the artist Bruce Onobrakpeya, who is from Agbarha, and who has sited in Agbarha-Otor his Onobrak Art Centre, the location of galleries containing representative examples of his greatest works, of mostly sacred art from various African cultures,  as well as art from his decades old annual Harmattan Workshops, bringing together participants from across the world to practise and discuss art in a convivial environment.

Onobrakpeya's art reworks the inspirational force of Urhobo sacred arts, in dialogue with the cognate Yoruba, Benin/Edo and Fulani spiritual arts, both classical and Christian, in relation to Nigerian and particularly Niger Delta history,  generating a unique expressive universe within which he develops his own symbolic language, including his Ibiebe alphabet.

Ekene Groves, Ekene Shrines and the Ekene Festival 

At different parts of the town, directly at the side of its main road or slightly off the road, are the three Ekene sacred groves, dedicated to the water spirit Ekene, described by Ekene theologian Ejiro Ogbumere as a link between Ekene devotees and Oghene, an Urhobo name for the creator of the universe.

Each of these groves represents an aspect of the triadic nature of the Ekene deity, as Father, Mother and Child.

Near to each of the groves is a beautifully painted, carefully structured shrine dedicated to the aspect of the deity closest to its respective grove.

Each shrine has a priest and priestess, it seems, leaders of a congregation that meet regularly at the shrine, singing, chanting, praying and performing rituals and dances  various days in the week, climaxing in the activities leading up to the fifteen yearly Ekene festival and the spectacle of the festival itself. The latest round of these activities began in March 2024, working towards the festival holding in 2027.

Ochuko Moses

On the side of the town's main road, almost opposite a health centre, is the shrine of Ochuko Moses, a wonder of expansive construction in the maximization of space, an ingenious assemblage of different kinds of shrines to various deities, constituted by traditional Urhobo shrine sculptures, Hindu paintings, cascading animal skulls and even a teddy-bear, among other elements in this visual devotional  universe built within a relatively small space fronted by a non-descript exterior without a door, for, as Moses put it, his Eziza deity, one of the deities he works with,  instructed him to leave out a door in constructing his shrine.

"Does a cave have a door?" the deity stated, from what I recall of Moses' account.

"Animals, humans, spirits of various kinds may thereby go in and out of a cave, as it should also be with your shrine", Eziza concluded, in instructing his devotee, from what I recall of the story.

The  Onobrak Art Centre Galleries and the Network of Shrines Near the Centre 

At the outskirts of Agbahar-Otor, near the Onobrak Art Centre, is a  configuration of shrines within the home of the priests of the deities the shrines relate to, composed of an astonishing variety of items, exquisitely constructed artistic pieces carefully selected and painstakingly arranged in pyramidal splendour.

I am not mentioning the name of the shrine owners beceause I dont know if I have their permission to do so, since they value a degree of distance from public view.

Also near the Onobrak Art Centre is the shrine of a priest of Igbe, an Urhobo origin spirituality known for its use of dance as a primary means of approaching the divine, a shrine that is another unique conjunction of diverse elemnts, exquisitely organized.

The Onobrak Art Centre itself contains Onobrakpeya's wonderful shrine creations, diverse engagements with Urhobo, Benin, Fulani and Christian sacred arts, shrine constructs by various artists and a gallery of images and text showcasing the insights of Perkins Foss' landmark edited book on Urhobo sacred arts, Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art.

Shrine Culture in Ughelli and Beyond in the Niger Delta

About a thirty minute vehicle ride from  Agbarha-Otor is Ughelli, a city possessing a rich network of sacred groves, complemented by others in the Ughelli local government complex beyond Ughelli North, where Agbara-Otor and Ughelli are.

Not far from Ughelli are the Itsoko and other ethnic concentrations, demonstrating their own vibrant classical African sacred cultures.

The Benin City Shrine Network

A cheap vehicle ride from Ughelli is Benin-City, a centre of classical Nigerian sacred cultures, represented by tree shrines and human made shrines, from those of the Oba's palace to the massive iroko tree, the sacred irhimwin tree and courtyard shrine of the Ezomo's palace on Ekenhuan Road, David Ebengho's awesome, multi-roomed, multi-deity shrine assemblage mapping decades of his spiritual activity into his current 80s, on 2nd Cemetery Road, the awesome okhan tree at the Edaiken palace grounds on Uselu-Lagos Road, Osemwegie Ebohon's majestic shrine and cultural complex, composed of sacred trees, dramatic sculptures, striking architecture and other elements, this recounting representing my recent exposure to Benin sacred cultures and arts.

Range of Knowledge About the Internal and External Networks of the Agbarha-Otor Shrine Nexus

Agbarha-Otor, therefore, is part of a nexus of ancient and yet continually renewed spiritual and artistic creativity.

The significance of Agbarha-Otor as a cultural jewel,  a creative centre of global significance, is largely unknown, however.

      Challenges from Inadequate 

      Documentation

This is partly beceause of inadequate documentation and projection. Documentation is vital for highlighting the significance of individual cultural centres and mapping their interrelations. Such mapping is strategic to understanding and projecting the significance of the Agbarha-Otor cultural complex.

              Picture Taking Taboos in Ekene 

              and other Agbarha-Otor 

              Spiritualities and Arts

This situation arises partly beceause of the resistance to visual documentation by devotees and associates of  Ekene, the principal spiritual culture of Agbarha-Otor, an attitude also demonstrated by some of the individual spiritual practitioners I have described here.

The  no-picture policy is described as the wishes of their deities, an injunction particularly strong with Ekene devotion, trespassing of which is described as attracting a violent response from members of the Ekene Society, the principal  dedicates of the deity, and those who identify with them.

Even if such an attempt at photography is done in secret, it is held that the image might not appear in the camera or that Ekene will visit the transgressor to exact vengeance.

                   Challenges from Contrastive

                   Attitudes to Interest of Non-

                   Agbarha Indigenes in Ekene                       Spirituality

The implications of this no-picture policy for record keeping are amplified by the resistance of some Ekene devotees and associates to non-Agbahar people showing interest in Ekene, talk less taking part in the shrine activities dedicated to the deity or even approaching the shrine during Ekene activities, as I experienced first hand in my visiting the three Ekene shrines in Agbarha-Otor and briefly attending the commencement of the mini-Ekene festival on the 2nd of March 2024.

My observation is that the majority of Ekene Society members welcome non-Agbahar people to Ekene activities, such welcome being part of my attraction to Ekene, but that a small but vigorously insistent  minority are not welcoming, a situation that may emerge from the understanding of Ekene as integral to the cultural identity of Agbarha, as different from all other communities, a communal identity and cultural integrity some seek to protect by insisting on an Agbarha-Indegenes-Only policy in relation to Ekene.

           The Irresistible Lure of

            Beauty, of Lofty Ideas

            and of Camaraderie 

But, can beauty be hidden when it is open to human gaze? Can radiance be ignored when it confronts the beholder? Can any lover of nature fail to be struck by the majestic solemnity of the Ekene groves, the magnificent verticalities of the trees reaching to the sky, eloquent in their silent language, both compelling and remote from the human cosmos, the groves an effort to preserve humanity's original habitat in nature and its spiritual associations, alongside the built environment, the houses, roads, shops and other evidence of human development from humanity's primal home in nature?

How did the Ekene theologians develop the family unit image of Ekene, a water spirit believed to be expressed as Father, Mother and Child, a triadic constitution evocative of Hindu Tantric  theology, expressed with particular force in the opening lines of some of 

Abhinavagupta's  works, such as the Tantraloka and the Paratrisika Vivarana, identifying the God Shiva with his father,  the Goddess Shakti with his mother and describing his own heart, the product of their union, as palpitating in rhythm with the heart of the cosmos, a family unity which the Christian trinity suggests but does not actualize, since it has a father and son, but no mother, replacing that with the holy spirit.

One has to go to such sacred economies as that of ancient Egypt, in the relationship between Osiris, as father, Isis, as mother and Horus, as son, to find a similarly correlative mirroring of human family relationships in spiritual culture.

How did the Ekene thinkers arrive at this interpretation of their deity in terms of human family structure and relate this to sacred groves, natural spaces striking for their beauty and sacred associations, particularly in the understanding that Ekene is invoked or called into the groves at the time of the festival from his dwelling in a river distant from Agbarha-Otor?

Even without understanding Urhobo, one may appreciate the plaintive beauty, the haunting melody, of the songs chanted in Ekene devotion, resonating with the vibrations of drums.

Even without being an Ekene devotee, one could take delight in  the elegant dramatizations of Ekene ritual and the visual power of Ekene shrines, finding memorable the shrine core constituted by a tapestry of skinned animal skulls hanging above an open space where rituals to Ekene  are performed. One may  be  moved by  the exquisite artistry of Ekene ritual implements.

These are observations I made as I enjoyed the camaraderie of those Ekene shrines where I was welcome, sharing the sense of unity in difference, of community within individuality, people construct in relating with the sacred.

Other Institutions in Agbarha-Otor 

Along with the Onobrak Art Centre, Agbarha-Otor has the Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, the Ibru Ecumenical Centre, Ibru College and a number of hotels, of which Sunny City Hotel is the most ambitious known to me, with good customer service and good food

In my last visit to Agbarha-Otor I was struck by the description on the front of the palace of the Ovie of a book initiative the palace was conducting.

         Problems of Synergy Between

         Agbarha-Otor Institutions and                     Between Them and Individual 

         Agbarha- Otor Creatives

I have not observed any synergy, however, between the town's wonderful achievements in classical African spirituality and arts and the Western civilization influenced cultures represented by the university, the college and the Onobrak Art Centre.

This lack of creative interaction implies that the unique achievements, unreplicated anywhere in the world, of classical Agbahar-Otor spiritualities and arts remain in the domain of undocumentation, appreciated only in fragments even by those who live in the town, and even those fragments largely unknown beyond the town.

The culture of written literacy and scholarship represented by the town's Western educational institutions and the Onobrak Art Centre are yet to complement the non-scribal spiritual and artistic culture of the town, thereby perpetuating the information blackout.

Promoting Cultural Visibility in Agbarha-Otor for Communal Gain and the Benefit of Individual Spiritual Practitioners

What needs to be done and how could it benefit Agbarha-Otor?

A good part of Agbarha-Otor has no electricity, a situation that has persisted for seven years in spite of the prior presence of state supplied electricity in the town, an inadequacy that persists even though Agbarha is described as an oil producing region.

Highlighting and promoting the cultural significance of Agbarha-Otor and its potential as a tourist destination could work together with encouraging the state government to restore electricity to Agbarha-Otor and further develop the town by tarring more of its roads, most of which are untarred.

The sustenance of historical memory and of longevity for classical African spiritual systems in the face of Westernization and the impact of Christianity and Islam is a real challenge.

Should a policy of documentation and of disciplined exposure for non-Agbarha indigenes not be a necessary part of such plans for the future, an initiative that could attract visitors and ensuing economic infusion into Agbarha-Otor?

The various Agbahar-Otor shrines, those belonging to individuals and those belonging to the Ekene Society are magnificent constructs that everything helpful should be done to protect  from the vicissitudes of time.

Would the effort to have them designated part of the UNESCO World Heritage List and the Ekene Festival part of the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List and hopefully eventual success in that endeavor be helpful?

What would need to be done on the part of the Agbarha-Otor spiritual practitioners in pursuit of such a goal?

Classical African sacred spaces, those comprising natural forms and those made entirely by human hands, seem to me to be significantly underrepresented among the more globally visible of sacred locations.

Mapping, publicizing and protecting these magnificences is an urgent task.

Images

Top,  an Agbarha-Otor woman.

Next, myself in front of edan ogboni, symbols of the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order, in the Onobrak Art Centre gallery collections.

Next, detail of an Onobrakpeya artistic work, suggesting the co- inherence of mysterious presences framed by enigmatic symbols.

Next, detail of pillars in the Akporode shrine.