Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Being Ogboni is being sensitive to the fact that you are alive.
It is awakening to the beauty and power of the earth on which you live.
It is alertness to the force and grace of the complex of bones, blood, flesh and nerves that enable you walk the earth.
It
is aliveness to the magical significance of the brief moment of
illumination between the two great immensities of entry to the great
sphere of Earth and exit from it.
The mother's milk is sweet, we all drink it.
That
which enables the two legged creature move to and fro on the
ellipsodial sphere, its immensities of waters patterned by its
continental mappings.
Ogboni is as old as time.
The
possibility of Ogboni was born at the moment of the cataclysm that
created the cosmos, enabling the emergence of matter, space, time and
energy.
Ogboni existed in embryo within the uncreated cosmos.
Whichever view of cosmic emergence is held, Ogboni is implicit to it, is inherent within it.
Are you Ogboni without knowing it?
Do you thrill to the quiet rhythm of waters falling to earth in the darkness of dawn?
Do
you hear within that rhythm the sound of eternity, calling you to your
true home, a state of consciousness rather than a place?
Do you wish to become Ogboni?
Do
you desire to delight in the magic of every moment, body and mind flexing
at the tender caress of air on skin, of neurons fired at great speed
within cranial chambers, of the flexibility of bone, of the vibrations
of speech?
Do you desire to hear the earth speak to you, the Great Mother reveal her magnificent beauty to your amazed eyes?
Ogboni is not only a group of men and women who meet to honour her, the Ultimate One.
Ogboni is also those who carry her within them, the Greater Ogboni Fraternity.
Mother of quiet beauty and composed power
quiet simplicity and evocative force
your horns
exuding the controlled centring of archaic, chtonic potency
Onile, the Owner of the Earth, the mother from whom all life issues and to whom all return
embodiment of numinous vistas
opening the
mind
to the conjunction of the transcendent and the terrestrial
your delicately molded breasts jutting forward with a tender ripeness
the sweet breasts we have all sucked
delicate mammaries suggesting you as Iyan Nla, Gelede Great Mother
Yewajobi, mother of all
Iya Agba, the venerable aged woman, who, having aged,
withdraws into the earth
within a nexus of four calabashes
containing substances
, from mud to dust, symbolizing foundational aspects of human
existence
empowering all who approach her
in her location under the market
aye loja, oja laye,the world is a market,the market is the world
eda waye wa naja ni, humans are in the world to bargain and negotiate
aye loja, orun nile, the earth is a market, orun, the world of origins, beyond time and space, is home
Ogboni is the Yoruba version of what is perhaps the world's oldest spirituality, veneration of Earth as mother of all. This essay presents my understanding of the universal significance of Ogboni philosophy in relation to the evocative force of Ogboni sculpture in its inimitable aesthetic power.
My understanding of Ogboni thought is derived from literature on the group, interpreted through the lens of my own practice of earth centred spirituality inspired by the conjunction of sacred natural space and cityscape in Nigeria's Benin-City, a practice fed by multicultural inspirational streams. I aspire to develop a form of Ogboni spirituality and philosophy that can be engaged with in an individualistic manner for those so inclined, as different from the concrete fraternal character of Ogboni, priceless as that is.
Ogboni has a lot to offer that the world can gain from, treasures concealed behind the order's esotericism and the limitations of the visibility of the academic contexts in which most research into Ogboni is presented. People also need to appreciate the fact that they can take advantage of the inspirational power and spiritual dynamics represented by Ogboni without having to navigate the controversial character of the Order's reputation as a group with deep roots in conflicted historical and ideational aspects of Nigerian cultural, social and political history.
Immediate Sources for Sections of this Essay
Line 6 : "The mother's milk is sweet, we all drink it"
: from Babatunde Lawal
"À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni"
"In [a] ceremony inside the [Ogboni] lodge [ iledi, Ogboni meeting house and sacred space], members touch the ground or edan [ sacred Ogboni sculptural form representing Ile, Earth, as universal mother] three times, reciting each time the slogan 'Mother's breast milk is sweet.' "The breast-holding and breast-feeding female motifs in Ogboni art] emphasize the maternal
affection and generosity of Ile and Edan, recalling the Ogboni slogan: Omu iya dun u'n mu; gbogbo wa la jo nmu u ("The
mother's breast milk is sweet; we all suck it"); it is usually recited three times by members when greeting each other or
touching edan with the tongue".
Line 27 :
Onile, "the Owner of the Earth, the mother from whom all life issues and to whom all return"
From Dennis Williams "The Iconology of the Yoruba Edan Ogboni"
39-41
: On the world as a market place: from Ropo Sekoni in "Yoruba Market Dynamics and the Aesthetics of Negotiation
in Female Precolonial Narrative Tradition", the significance of similar ideas in relation to Igbo
thought expounded by Nkeonye Otakpor in "The World as a Marketplace".
Images of Ogboni art from various online sources.
