A SON,HIS FATHER AND HIS FATHER'S SERVANT:THE AESTHETIC AND COGNITIVE POWER OF BENIN OLOKUN NARRATIVE AND VISUAL SYMBOLISM
toyin adepoju
A SON,HIS FATHER AND HIS FATHER'S SERVANT
THE AESTHETIC AND COGNITIVE POWER OF BENIN OLOKUN SYMBOLISM
A story from Benin in the West African forest region of what is now Nigeria, tells about a son of a great king who is convinced he can defeat his father in a contest comparing the splendour of their clothes.
This Voodoo symbol used in this essay to indicate the convergence of spirit,consciousness and matter, of space and time evoked by fundamental Olokun symbolism and the related symbolism of the Yoruba and Pan- African Opon Ifa.The multiplication of intersecting lines is used here to evoke variations in the forms of time and space,consciousness and matter.
Voodoo art http://www.geocities.com/xeroiii/Voodoo/9Ververs.html
at
The 7th Star
http://www.geocities.com/xeroiii/Index1.htm(Defunct with the scrapping of Geocities)
He issues a challenge to his father. The father agrees to the contest.
On the day appointed for the contest, the son dresses in his most elaborate and gorgeous clothes, the most exquisite fabrics from the most renowned couturiers, designs that represent the most accomplished skills of the world’s master designers and shoes that make even the sun shine in envy at their dazzling power.
His father’s servant comes to his door to invite him to the arena of the contest.
But, what is this?!
He sees that both the servant and himself are dressed in identical clothes!
What?!His mouth opens and falls without any sound coming out. If his father could have his servant dress in exactly the same clothes as himself, then the contest is already lost. What his father would have chosen to wear would then be unimaginable by himself.
He asks the servant to carry his apology to his father and request that the contest be rescheduled for another day. One year from now.
Imaginatively, certainly, as suggested by this fourteen themed radiation from a central unifying ground.
The unity of Osanobua,the ultimate, and Olokun,the immensity of being evoked by the majestic ocean waters that encircle the earth, in the intersection of time and space imaged in the subtle but potent sensitivity of line and shape created by one who venerates this insight in the ancient city of Benin.
Drawing by Norma Rosen of Benin Olokun art in " Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989), pp. 44-53+88.52.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336778
In that year, he prepares himself as powerfully as he can. The fabrics from the most exquisite suppliers, the designs from the most famous designers, were no longer enough. Those shoes from the most expensive and exclusive providers would no longer do.
He sources fabrics from the remotest corners of the universe, bands of light from Aranos, which can be woven into fabrics, rays of sound from Camos, which are worn as wrist bands, the droplets of sound which adorn the feet and resonate with the precise movements in the revolutions of the earth around the sun, and, finally, the bands of blue colour from the sky at early morning which adorn his buttonhole.
On the fateful day, he again receives his father’s servant at his door to escort him to the place of the contest.
But what is this?
Again, his father’s servant is dressed exactly as himself. No difference.
Crushing. There must be a conspiracy here. The extremely exclusive materials he has assembled in one year of the most excruciating and far flung effort were understood, on the strongest promises, to be exclusive to him alone. Could the god of commerce, the omnipresent activity of greed, have twisted those promises into lies? How could that be, since the last item, the droplets of sound, had been delivered to him only this morning, after a month of anxious waiting?
He cannot allow himself to be disgraced. He has to call it off. But something whispers in his ear that he can not back out now. One more effort, at least.
He again asks that the servant take an apology to his father and request another date, again a year from now.
The arrow of time as it bisects space evokes the x that is the question posed to the human being by existence.
What will it be today,sickness or health,death or life?
Here is the east and there is the west.
See the truth come riding on the rays of the sun!
From "What will it be?..." to "sun" from "An Igbo Diviner Invokes Truth before Consulting his Bones" trans by Romanus Egudu in
Black Orpheus.
Drawing by Norma Rosen of Benin Olokun art in " Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989), pp. 44-53+88.52.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336778
This time, he spends six months doing nothing, except examining his options. Yes. The situation was dire. Having scanned the cosmos and got the best the second time around, only to be defeated before the contest began, where could he go? What more could he do now?
That was the problem. There was nowhere to go since everywhere had already been explored and found wanting. There was nothing to do since everything possible had been tried and it had failed even without his having a chance. There was no longer any margin for any initiative of any kind.
Or was there? Perhaps that was the key. It slowly dawns on him in the ninth month that the problem might have been that he has focused on what he could do, places he could search out for his materials, scouring his brains for a way to succeed against such a formidable adversary. Perhaps a key to victory might emerge from doing nothing. Yes. Nothing. If doing everything possible ends in failure, then doing nothing is the only option left. But, a voice whispers to him, is doing nothing not tantamount to giving up? Not necessarily, another voice whispers. Doing nothing and taking no steps to win are not necessarily identical. The key is in the attitude. Be like the man who remains at home and the world comes to him . Be like the person who remains at the foot of the tree and yet can see what the person who climbs the tree cannot see .
As the planet revolves on its axis;
Two things fill the mind with ever newer and increasing admiration and awe,the more often and the more steadily they are reflected upon:the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.
The first begins at the place which I occupy in the external world of sense,and broadens the connection in which I stand into the unsurveyable magnitude of worlds beyond worlds and systems of systems,and moreover into the limitless time of their periodic motion,its beginning and continuation.
The second begins at my invisible self,my personality,and depicts me in a world which has true infinity...
The first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates my importance as an animal creature who must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the universe) the matter of which it was formed,after it has been provided for a short time (we know not how)with vital power.
The second,on the other hand,infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence [revealing] to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole world of sense...a destination [not]restricted to the conditions and limits of this life, but reaches into the infinite.
From "Two things..." to "infinite" from Immanuel Kant,Critique of Practical Reason.
Picture by Norma Rosen of Benin Olokun art in " Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", by Norma Rosen in African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 , 1989, pp. 44-53+88.46.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336778
The day of reckoning comes again. His father’s servant comes to summon him once more. Once again, he sees that the servant is dressed exactly as himself. But he is not worried. Whatever spirit has led him to initiate this contest will see him through to the end.
He gets to the appointed place for the contest to find that he, his father and his father’s servant are dressed in exactly the same manner.
Can the circle spin away from its own centre?
COMMENTARY
In the original version of the story,which is transposed from its oral form into writing in Bolaji Idowu's African Traditional Religion:A Definition,where I read it, the father is Osanobua, the creator of the universe, the son is Olokun,the sprit of all the rivers and oceans in the world and son of Osanobua, and the servant of Osanobua is the chameleon.
The chameleon is one of the more ubiquitous figures in Classical African discourses .From the first time I encountered this story in its basic form in Idowu's book, I found the roles of all the characters in the narrative most intriguing, with the chameleon, for me, playing a pivotal role around which all the other characters constellate. Olokun initiates the contest, but the chameleon turns out to be the mouthpiece through which the contest truly progresses.
What significance could be attributed to his always wearing the same clothes as Olokun, in spite of all Olokun’s efforts? Of course, the narrative suggests that this is possible because of his powers of mimicry, so, regardless of whatever is worn by Olokun, it can be duplicated by the chameleon. The question of how he manages to see what Olokun is wearing and duplicate it at such short notice is not addressed but might be rewarding for reflection. It is also curious that Osanobua never appears in person in the narrative. He only makes his presence felt through the chameleon. Might this structure of absence and presence, in which Osanobua is physically absent but his will and perhaps his character are made present through the chameleon, suggest the notion of the expression of the ultimate through material existence rather than being apprehended or related with directly?
One reason given for the absence of altars to Olodumare, described by one perspective as the supreme being in Yoruba-Orisha religion, which has a lot of similarities with that of Benin, from where this story comes, is that he is understood as present and pervasive in human existence but as so remote in his essential being from human conception, that there is not much point in trying to erect material forms for relating with him.It is more practical to relate to him in terms of the Orisha, who exist in relation to him.
Can this story be interpreted in terms of a conception of ultimate being, like that of the Jewish and Hermetic Kabala, where the ultimate is beyond human conception? Within this perspective, the ultimate is apprehended in terms of the absence in the human mind of any imagistic or ideational correlate for it. At the same time, however, it is related to by analogy with the material world, which demonstrates its activity, and to some degree its qualities, but never its essential being .
I see the circles and half circles as evoking wholeness of self and cosmos. I interpret the waves as suggesting the dynamic ground of being evoked by the motion and transformations of the sea,the manifestation of Olokun. As described in Afrik Art-Babatunde’s exposition of the symbolism of one of his batiks called Olokun, this dynamism is expressed by “the endless expression of the sea which is the manifestation of Olodumare. The designs are so many with different faces and facets[just as ]No one can say Olodumare is strictly like this[or that], He is a mystery, thus he is a spirit, so he changes from time to time just like the sea or the sea waves do. The designs you see there are so aged. Some are "mine" in the sense that God is using me to create more”.
This creative dynamism is further demonstrated by the multifarious beauty of the terrestrial realm symbolised by the perfection of the half circle, the point from which the ladder of aspiration and ascent rises as the initiate climbs the seven runged ladder, encountering challenges and opportunities at points of intersection between realms of being symbolised by the intersecting parallel lines, as the initiate wins their way to the unity of self and cosmos evoked by the convergence of the vertical lines of their ascent and the circular forms symbolising the interrelationship of each point and aspect of the cosmos.
The design on the fabric is called "olokun" or "okun".
What is Olokun? The owner of the sea.
What is okun? The sea or the waves. The design is talking about the endless expression of the sea which is the manifestation of Olodumare. The designs are so many with different faces and facets. No one can say Olodumare is strictly like this[or that].
He is a mystery, thus he is a spirit, so he changes from time to time just like the sea or the sea waves do. The designs you see there are so aged. Some are "mine" in the sense that God is using me to create more.
It will never end. I create new ones as they come to me. I see some in dreams.I see some whenever I'm taking a bath.That is why I like water.Some are revealed [during my ] waking hours, especially when im travelling, I dont know why.But i think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm usually closer to my being when I'm seeing nature...you know movement around you in a vehicle.
My art is highly spiritual. Many artists have come to the world to perform likewise and some are still coming after me to perform theirs.
The art belongs to Olodumare, he is only using artists to express His mind at every point in time.
Wale Art-afrik Babatunde
Why not? The narrative structure of this story certainly allows for such an interpretation, whether or not this is within the known corpus of conceptions of relationships between the ultimate and material existence in Classical Bini religion.
Drawing by Norma Rosen of Benin Olokun art in" Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3,1989, pp. 44-53+88.52.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336778
Not only is every work of literature, at some level, the property of the audience to interpret or adapt as they wish, but I wonder to what degree one can actually arrive at an understanding of the various interpretive possibilities developed by the creators of the largely oral traditions in terms of which Classical African traditions were originally developed.
Another interpretation of this story, by the historian Ehimika Ifidion, is that the story could be a cautionary tale used for political ends in which the crown prince of the then Bini Kingdom is portrayed as being ultimately subject to his father, regardless of whatever his own achievements or qualities might be, thereby helping to maintain the discipline necessary for an orderly succession from the Oba, the king, to the crown prince on the Oba’s death.
One could speculate further in relation to the role of the chameleon in this story. The chameleon acts as a messenger of the Absolute, a messenger who communicates information directly-as the readiness of Osanobua for the contest-as well as indirectly-as in the chameleon’s demonstration of Osanobua’s absolute superiority in the sartorial realm, and by implication, perhaps, in all other aspects of being.
Within that context, the chameleon becomes a hermeneutic guide to the significance of the material character of existence in relation to the Absolute. The material world becomes, through the activity of the chameleon, who symbolises it through being a character within that world, and through his ability to mimic any configuration of colour in that world, a demonstration of the will of the Absolute.
http://www.greatbenin.org/Igbinokun.html
The structure of the narrative, on the other hand, within which Osanobua never appears, may be interpreted in terms of the absence or transcendence of the essential being of the Absolute in relation to the material world, which, as suggested by the figures of Olokun, the animating spirit of the world’s rivers, and the chameleon, an animal, is the setting of the narrative.
The chameleon’s role as messenger of the Absolute could also be understood as representing the possibility of gaining an understanding of possibilities of being represented by and underlying the material universe.
This is similar to the idea of Osanobua, though the creator of the universe, as not visible within it, an absence demonstrated by the absence of the direct presence of Osanobua from the action in the narrative.He is not shown as interacting with any of the characters. We are left to presume that he does interact with the chameleon, off camera, as it were. The chameleon represents his will,the only form in which his presence is demonstrated in the story.
Agemo,the chameleon,was suspended over the expanse of the still inanimate water(omi,ordinary water,nameless and not yet entrusted with spirit).
[Stretched out between Obatala and Oduduwa,agents of the primal creation] remaining attached to both by his prehensile tongue and tail. Agemo (or oga) is a living metaphor of wisdom.Meta-intellectually,he is the symbol antipode of the Tibetan 'cloud of wisdom'...The analogy lies in the assumption shared by both religions on opposite poles of ethical mankind,that wisdom is that which most sensitively reacts,ingests,transmutes ethically,adapts and reflects back on its author the all-inherent spirit of sacredness.The cloud reacts and adapts its form and volume through even the slightest atmospheric changes.The chameleon takes on its surrounding colouration without changing its own nature.
From A Life with the Gods by Susanne Wenger and Gert Chesi,Worgl (Austria):Perlinger Verlag,1983.89.
Chameleons are squamates that belong to one of the best-known lizard families. Chameleons have incredibly long tongues (sometimes longer than their own body length) which they are capable of rapidly and abruptly extending out of the mouth. The tongue whips out faster than our eyes can follow, speeding at 26 body lengths per second. The tongue hits the prey in about 30 thousandths of a second — one tenth of an eye blink.The tongue has a sticky tip on the end, which serves to catch prey items that they would otherwise never be able to reach with their lack of locomotive speed!
Some chameleon species are able to change their skin colour, which has made them one of the most famous lizard families. Changing colour is an expression of the physical and physiological condition of the lizard. The colour also plays an important part in communication.
Despite popular belief, chameleons cannot change colour to their surroundings. Chameleons are naturally coloured for their surroundings as a camouflage )
One could transpose the quasi-theistic characterisation of the Absolute presented here to that of the possibility of understanding the meaning and structural organisation that underlie material existence, the source as it were, of the messages communicated by the material world, represented here by the chameleon.In terms of this reading,therefore,the chameleon could represent both the material world, which one studies to understand whatever meanings and structures it demonstrates, as well the messages, or meanings one sees as demonstrated by material reality. These meanings and messages could be understood literally.They could be understood as emanating from a source within or outside nature.They could also be understood metaphorically, as suggesting possibilities of understanding, regardless of what one thinks about the source of such cognitive possibilities.
powdered white chalk (orhue) at the Olokun shrine of priestess Aigbovia.
Oredo Local Government Area, 1985.
Picture by Norma Rosen of Olokun art in Benin from " Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship" by Norma Rosen in African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1989, pp. 44-53+88.44.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336778
Interpreted along these lines, the chameleon becomes evocative of the interface between the human person and the possibilities of understanding the universe.These possibilities could be perceived in relation to the character of the universe at various levels.One of these levels could be the underlying grounds of possibility that constitute the universe.These underlying grounds could be understood in relation to the constitution of matter, in relation to the laws of nature, or in terms of relationships between mind and body, mind and spirit, between aspects of consciousness,between the material and the non-material,between the human and the non-human.These interpretive possibilities could be monocentric or variegated.
Understood along these lines,the chameleon becomes a hermeneutic portal into possibilities of a grasp of the field of existence,a meaning simlar to the evocative value of the Chameleon Gate, a gate in the sculptural and architectural complex created by Susanne Wenger and her atelier in the Osun Forest in Nigeria, shown below,where the vagina of the chameleon becomes a point of entry into a section of the forest, a forest which she interprets as a microcosm of the cosmos.
The Vagina of the Chameleon,a Gate at the Osun Forest in Nigeria. The gate becomes both portal of access and a demacator of zones of being as represented by the state of the individual before and after they have passed through that portal. The portal represents both an ontological as well as a metaphysical conception. Ontological, in that it separates one aspect of being from another as it separates the part of the forest outside the portal from that part reached through passing through the portal. Epistemological, in that it suggests the penetration through cognitive thresholds that enables realization of aspects of being, an aspect suggested by the difference between the various zones of existence symbolised by what is outside and what is inside the field accessed through the portal.