By
Obododimma Oha
My ancestors -- great guys, indeed – were wrestling and fighting and merchandising and loving and creating in their communities a long time ago. They knew many things, even had philosophers and thinkers of all sorts. But they did not go far from their communities and so did not, unfortunately, know some things they thought they knew. They did not , for instance, know that there were other beings that could be like us, unlike us, wiser or unwiser than we are. One day, when one of them was probably taking his bath by the great body of water, he thought he saw “double”! Or that he was asleep and had seen spirits. Oh no! These were also people like he was. But he wasn’t sure. He had hands; they had hands! He had feet; they also had feet, even two feet! He had a face; they also had faces! And so on! The only differences were that these beings had a different complexion and hid the hands and feet and hair and also spoke through their noses the same way that spirits in their folktales were said to speak! So, they must be spirits in human body. Spirits sometimes play tricks and put on human bodies, as the folktales say. Anya ya ahula ntị ya! (Let his eyes not see his ears!). He had seen enough: he came out of the water and ran all the way home, naked, no animal skin on, to report what he had seen. Of course, no one believed him: they thought that he fabricated his story or that he was drunk. Some even postulated that there was a mad streak in his family and perhaps it was at work. But he knew he was wide awake and sane and sober! He could not be drunk that early!
Anyway, it is just a work of imagination. I am trying to fabricate a situation when one of my ancestors in Africa encountered White sailors for the first time. I am sure the sailors were surprised, too. They must have been taught to believe that everybody on earth was white. They were expecting to see people like they were, but were surprised to find a Black being who probably had every feature they had and who made noises that could also be language. They must have first thought that, he too, was a spirit or something. Anyway, he ran off, which clearly indicated that he had legs and was a homo erectus.
Then, fast-forward to the scene when more of my ancestors arrived for verification. For, as it is said in Igbo, Agwọ otu onye hụrụ na-aghọ eke (A snake seen by only one person can be misinterpreted to be a royal python. So, they went. At least, to be witnesses. And think of them trying hard to communicate with these spirits who spoke through their noses. They must have laboured hard, gesticulating and demonstrating. Comprehension was not an easy task. There was even some miscomprehension at a stage, with serious consequences!
But, finally, they were succeeding. My ancestors still held that these were either spirits looking for worshippers or water-borne creatures that could be eaten! Maybe sea apes, just like enyi mmiri or sea elephants (literally). Or maybe varieties of mermaid or mammywater! Anyway, they were taken to the village, to more elders, who could talk to and recognize spirits. At the village, there was confusion....Well, beings had to search for beings and discovered them. Since that first meeting, things have not been the same, either in the village among the descendants of my ancestors or in the relationship between our village and the visiting spirits who spoke through their noses.
I said that I was only imagining this, but I want to place it side-by-side with the meeting we can have with beings like us and unlike us in the future, beings that have travelled from other galaxies just like the sailors. A first meeting is a first meeting. But it shatters beliefs, speculations, imaginations, fabricated narratives, myths, etc, about where we have not been to all this while. So, we should get ready for surprises. We should get ready to run off to our villages naked to report that we have seen spirits, but who were like us and unlike us.
If we are lucky, the effort at trying to achieve inter-group communication won’t be too torturing. Maybe after seven days we or one year we could understand the visitors. But that would be after they or we are cocksure that the other means well, that the other is not looking for a way of being deceptive. We should, in fact, worry about communication during that first meeting between being and being!
I know that there are forms of cultural production that have taken this seriously, making it their theme. Science fiction (sci-fi), in written literature and film, is taking us in that direction. When I watch Hollywod’s SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, among many other narratives. I know that there are still some whose thinking maybe as crazy as mine, even crazier, concerning this meeting of being and being across lifeworlds.
But your countries you are fighting hard to keep are a cause for amusement! In fact, you are like the people of Lilliput and Blefusco who are fighting over how an egg should be opened before it is eaten in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. And you could be amusingly gullible! Why behave as if they have just dropped these countries from Heaven? What if they mean nothing serious to the explorers from other worlds? This reminds me about an encounter I had over identity with my paternal grandma. I told her one day that she was an African. She was visibly surprised and said: “Mụnwa! Onye Afrika? Isi ọdịkwa gị mma? Anyị bụ Ndị Uri! Nne m na nnam bụkwa ndi Uri. Keduzi ka m siri bụrụ onye Afrịka? ị chọrọ ire m?” (“I? An Afican? Are you out of your mind? We are people from Uri! My mother and my father are from Uri. How then am I an African? Do you want to sell me?”). Grandma died as the oldest person in their village. He was also known to be highly talented and wise. So, we cannot call her a fool! It was just clear that I was imposing an identity, a label, on her, and she didn’t like it.
That does not show that an identity one does not accept or does not know it exists actually does not exist. Your world ends in your village unless you have explored outside. Are you waiting to run out of your bath water stark naked to report that you have seen spirits from another galaxy? It is an expansive and expanding universe!
Obododimma Oha
My ancestors -- great guys, indeed – were wrestling and fighting and merchandising and loving and creating in their communities a long time ago. They knew many things, even had philosophers and thinkers of all sorts. But they did not go far from their communities and so did not, unfortunately, know some things they thought they knew. They did not , for instance, know that there were other beings that could be like us, unlike us, wiser or unwiser than we are. One day, when one of them was probably taking his bath by the great body of water, he thought he saw “double”! Or that he was asleep and had seen spirits. Oh no! These were also people like he was. But he wasn’t sure. He had hands; they had hands! He had feet; they also had feet, even two feet! He had a face; they also had faces! And so on! The only differences were that these beings had a different complexion and hid the hands and feet and hair and also spoke through their noses the same way that spirits in their folktales were said to speak! So, they must be spirits in human body. Spirits sometimes play tricks and put on human bodies, as the folktales say. Anya ya ahula ntị ya! (Let his eyes not see his ears!). He had seen enough: he came out of the water and ran all the way home, naked, no animal skin on, to report what he had seen. Of course, no one believed him: they thought that he fabricated his story or that he was drunk. Some even postulated that there was a mad streak in his family and perhaps it was at work. But he knew he was wide awake and sane and sober! He could not be drunk that early!
Anyway, it is just a work of imagination. I am trying to fabricate a situation when one of my ancestors in Africa encountered White sailors for the first time. I am sure the sailors were surprised, too. They must have been taught to believe that everybody on earth was white. They were expecting to see people like they were, but were surprised to find a Black being who probably had every feature they had and who made noises that could also be language. They must have first thought that, he too, was a spirit or something. Anyway, he ran off, which clearly indicated that he had legs and was a homo erectus.
Then, fast-forward to the scene when more of my ancestors arrived for verification. For, as it is said in Igbo, Agwọ otu onye hụrụ na-aghọ eke (A snake seen by only one person can be misinterpreted to be a royal python. So, they went. At least, to be witnesses. And think of them trying hard to communicate with these spirits who spoke through their noses. They must have laboured hard, gesticulating and demonstrating. Comprehension was not an easy task. There was even some miscomprehension at a stage, with serious consequences!
But, finally, they were succeeding. My ancestors still held that these were either spirits looking for worshippers or water-borne creatures that could be eaten! Maybe sea apes, just like enyi mmiri or sea elephants (literally). Or maybe varieties of mermaid or mammywater! Anyway, they were taken to the village, to more elders, who could talk to and recognize spirits. At the village, there was confusion....Well, beings had to search for beings and discovered them. Since that first meeting, things have not been the same, either in the village among the descendants of my ancestors or in the relationship between our village and the visiting spirits who spoke through their noses.
I said that I was only imagining this, but I want to place it side-by-side with the meeting we can have with beings like us and unlike us in the future, beings that have travelled from other galaxies just like the sailors. A first meeting is a first meeting. But it shatters beliefs, speculations, imaginations, fabricated narratives, myths, etc, about where we have not been to all this while. So, we should get ready for surprises. We should get ready to run off to our villages naked to report that we have seen spirits, but who were like us and unlike us.
If we are lucky, the effort at trying to achieve inter-group communication won’t be too torturing. Maybe after seven days we or one year we could understand the visitors. But that would be after they or we are cocksure that the other means well, that the other is not looking for a way of being deceptive. We should, in fact, worry about communication during that first meeting between being and being!
I know that there are forms of cultural production that have taken this seriously, making it their theme. Science fiction (sci-fi), in written literature and film, is taking us in that direction. When I watch Hollywod’s SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, among many other narratives. I know that there are still some whose thinking maybe as crazy as mine, even crazier, concerning this meeting of being and being across lifeworlds.
But your countries you are fighting hard to keep are a cause for amusement! In fact, you are like the people of Lilliput and Blefusco who are fighting over how an egg should be opened before it is eaten in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. And you could be amusingly gullible! Why behave as if they have just dropped these countries from Heaven? What if they mean nothing serious to the explorers from other worlds? This reminds me about an encounter I had over identity with my paternal grandma. I told her one day that she was an African. She was visibly surprised and said: “Mụnwa! Onye Afrika? Isi ọdịkwa gị mma? Anyị bụ Ndị Uri! Nne m na nnam bụkwa ndi Uri. Keduzi ka m siri bụrụ onye Afrịka? ị chọrọ ire m?” (“I? An Afican? Are you out of your mind? We are people from Uri! My mother and my father are from Uri. How then am I an African? Do you want to sell me?”). Grandma died as the oldest person in their village. He was also known to be highly talented and wise. So, we cannot call her a fool! It was just clear that I was imposing an identity, a label, on her, and she didn’t like it.
That does not show that an identity one does not accept or does not know it exists actually does not exist. Your world ends in your village unless you have explored outside. Are you waiting to run out of your bath water stark naked to report that you have seen spirits from another galaxy? It is an expansive and expanding universe!
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