By
Obododimma
Oha
Okoro ịtọ na agbọghọ ịtọ (or, “Okoro atọ na agbọghọ atọ”).
Three young men and three young women. Does that stimulate your gender thinking?
Well, take it easy. It is only an Igbo parallel name for a constellation.
I like oral traditions of astronomy or folk astronomy. They bring up
interesting explanations and associations, deploying narratives such as myths,
folktales, epics, etc in telling you about life out there. It was in one of
those after-supper night entertainments that I learnt that one of the star
constellations is called okoro ịtọ na agbọghọ ịtọ. I kept thinking how those
young men and young women got up there in the sky in the first place. Was it in
a chariot of fire? Did they fly on a long stick, with apịa the long-distance flyer holding the stick on
each end as they did in the emigration of the tortoise? I thought and thought
and thought about the three young men and the three young women in the sky
until I fell asleep.
But that habitation of space by three young men and three young women stayed longer
with me as I grew up and wondered whether humans were alone in space filled
with numerous heavenly bodies. In church as at home, one was told that where
one was – called the world or the “earth” --was the only place God chose to house
humans. All those heavenly bodies are empty, except that there are three young
men and three young women up there! Maybe God’s creative power got exhausted
after the creation of humans housed in our world. Or, He is warming up to
put beings on those heavenly bodies, the same way that He decided to put three
young men and three young women up there.
But one
always likes looking at the night-sky and wondering. Those stars, hmmm. Those stars.
Didn’t somebody say they would one day fall like ụdala fruits and we pick them
up? Are those stars empty, too?
Now, this
rebuking voice! You come out at night and look at the sky. You see trillions
of stars - suggesting many other galaxies. Your sun is just a small star
somewhere in a corner of the universe. We can't, in a lifetime, reach these
galaxies, even with the magic of our current technology. Yet you conclude there
is no other life out there! My late gradma did not know she was on a continent
called "Africa." The day she heard me call her "an
African," she was greatly and visibly amazed! So, stay on your tiny
country on a tiny continent on a tiny galaxy and conclude that there is no
other life out there. But prepare for a shock when you, like your ancestors,
encounter those who "speak through their noses" who have navigated
and have sought you out!
So, NASA was
right in launching an album of a naked man and a naked woman, plus some
scientific symbols, into space some years ago, hoping that some aliens who may
be wondering whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, would find them and
be able to decode them? That was obviously okoro ịto na agbọghọ ịtọ of NASA at
work! NASA knew that the first challenge facing alien meeting alien for the
first time is signification. Now, they have discovered the Black Hole. It is no
longer a speculation. So, our narratives that explain life should get ready to
be re-written and be careful with their myths
Let me return
to my bed and dream about okoro ịtọ na agbọghọ ịtọ!
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