By
Obododimma
Oha
One must
confess right away that one is not an expert in religion and religious matters.
The much that one knows about them is that these are some of the forms of
ancient imagination that have persisted on this galaxy. Perhaps when creatures
from other galaxies appear on ours or with the strides currently being made in
science and technology we are able to travel out of our galaxy and reach
distant ones, maybe our ancient myths and assumptions would collapse; maybe
when we encounter beings with ten hands
and twenty legs from other galaxies and who cannot make sense of our religious
assumptions or find them laughable, perhaps we would be persuaded to change our
thinking and make it a bit tentative.
So much has
been written or said in defence of indigenous African religions, wrongly and
collectively termed “African Traditional Religions.” So, one is not putting up
a defence here or justifying the invasion by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.
What one wants to address here is simply this: that these religions we claim to be our own
may not have been ours, but those travelling with individuals and looking for
fertile habitats. It is possible that there was originally no Orunmilla or Esu in Yoruba communities, just as there could have been no Ogwugwu or Okobizu in an Igbo society.
First, we
must clear this issue of “ancient imagination” as religion. We must accept
that ancient people were ignorant; they did not understand many things,
understandably so. They could not, with their retarded thinking, explain
certain things, so they explained them off in the form of now laughable myths.
Humans have furrows at the back because of so and so. Tortoises have shells
because of XYZ. The shells are in joined forms because of so and so experience!
Ancient thinking! And you don’t blame the thinkers. If we were to wake up my
father who died many years ago when Nigerians were not using mobile phones and
show him a mobile phone or somebody in the US is communicating (with it) with
someone in Nigeria, he could bow down to the phone and worship it or think that
you have acquired a very powerful charm or deity! One ancient thinker sat down
and thought about relationship in the community with its outside and speculated
that the spirits of the dead were somewhere in the heart of the Earth (in the
soil), an equivalent of the ancient Greek Hades,
and if we perforated the earth or went
through ant holes, we could burst out in the land of the spirits! Well, the
Earth is really spherical and is rotating on its axis around the sun, just like
other planets. (The sun, too, is just a
star, like numerous others)! If you get to the Earth’s crust, you won’t
see any spirit. If you pass it, you would burst out on the other side in the
sky! No land of the spirits. We are actually aliens to other creatures yet to
discover us, and who may be speculating also, maybe through their religious
beliefs!
Another
ancient thinker might come up with the idea that the land of the spirits was
located on the surface after the agụ, (the assumed boundary between the
human world and the land of the spirits in ancient Igbo folklore) and that if one
was travelling beyond the agụ, one
would encounter seven-headed spirits. NO wonder they relaxed in their communities
until those seven-headed spirits (who spoke through their noses) from a place
called “Europe” came and colonized them, even made them slaves! It was necessry
to take the risk of travelling beyond the agụ
to confront the seven-headed spirits, even one’s chi (like ọjaaadịlị in
the folktale). But these ancient thinkers put fear in them. They did not
explore much. They did not want to find out whether what they were worshipping
was worth it.
I admire
those critical men of Mbanta in Achebe’s fiction who discarded an ineffectual
deity and took their destiny into their hands. These deities were not ordained
deities. They were looking for a fertile garden; they were imperialists and
most of the time never existed! That makes me want to address another means
through which the so-called indigenous deities found their ways into ancient
Igbo communities,into Igbo mind. These were warlike communities who needed to
appear superior to their enemies through the possession of a given deity. The
deity was installed to fight for them; to put fear into the hearts of their enemies.
It is like possessing an armed drone when your enemy has none. You have
advantage. The rulers and dibias (physicians) got the deities or made one for military
purposes. A deity offered inducements (even humans as sacrifice) and could not
do its duty was considered useless. Even Yahweh was a god of war for the
Hebrews, just as Allah is fighting for Muslims. Deities have always been sent
on scarlet-red errands.
In the Igbo
context, the so-called indigenous deities were similarly either installed as
military weapons or the dibias, who
often travelled far (went on their healing missions or mbịa) told their communities lies in order to be contracted to sell
their spiritual wares – bring in and install the deities. It was an old scam in
which communities were easily swindled, especially as the dibias were feared and trusted by their communities. They got the
foreign deities they had come across in their long mbịa installed in the unsuspecting communities, pocketing the
precious cowrie shells, eating the goat and fowls on behalf of those deities.
Some deities
were imposed, especially after a conquest and the community had no choice but
to worship them. Igbo communities particular dreaded the kings of Edo (Eze Obodo Iduu na Oba) and Igala who also
imposed their deities to rule from the spiritual sphere on their behalf. Igbo
communities looking for advantage also copied these kingdoms and furhter
frightened their local enemies. The dibias
once again, as merchants of spirituality (think of today’s pastorpreneurs) also
got these “powerful” deities for some communities in Alaigbo and so they
achieved the status of the indigenous. I have said their intention was mainly
commercial.
In Alaigbo, a
recent attempt to have an imperialistic deity is in the dominance and
adjudication of Chukwu of Arochukwu.
Igbo people were fooled into thinking that Chukwu
was in their midst or was nearby, and travelled from far to have him settle
disputes. Some of those who travelled far to consult Chukwu never returned. They were either eaten by wild animals on
their way, or were taken by Chukwu (Chukwu riri ha). In reality, they were
captured and sold as slaves or were offered as sacrifice somewhere. Anyone taken
by Chukwu forfeited his or her other belongings. Relatives even had to run
away, in order not to incur the wrath of this deity. Gradually, Igbo
communities discovered the ruse in ịga
Chukwu or ịla Chukwu and freed
themselves. That Christianity or any other religion came and stopped these
things was a mere exchange of one travelling religion for another.
If these travelling deities cannot take us to the next galaxy or would just sit there and not strike dead offensive tyrants, and are merely sent as hirelings to carry out terrible, retrogressive acts, then they should be discarded as the men of Mbanta did, or at least, be re-imagined and made relevant to modernity.
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