By
Obododimma Oha
When John Donne, in a sonnet, wrote "Death, Be not Proud," many critics thought that he was only being literary and hyperbolic. In the "holy" sonnet, Donne wrote:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
In a recent book, blogged at https://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/30425/death-will-be-optional-and-ageing-curable-by-2045-say-genetic-engineers, David Wood and Jose Luis Cordeiro took us to the abandoned narrative by claiming that in the near future death would become optional and aging reversible. Frightening! It is like rushing in where angels fear to tread. It immediately reminded one of the science of rejuvenation in ancient times and the idea of immortality. Two narratives, one from Igbo folklore, the other from Amos Tutuola's The Palmwine Drinkard, are worth considering in this regard.
Generally, to think of death as a tangible thing that can die or can be tied up would be considered the work of cheap fantasy. Maybe myth and folktales would tell that, but it is quite distant and unbelievable. In recent scholarship, there has been an attempt by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju to discuss "Immortality of Self in Upanishadic, Orisa/Ifa, AMORC and Adinkra Thought," on USAAfricaDialogue, a listserv moderated by Toyin Falola. This is an interesting exploration and one is waiting for further installments of the piece, so as to learn more about the subject.
FIRST the Igbo folklore/mythic intervention. We are told that a particular old woman wanted to rejuvenate and went to the back of her house to do it privately, first performing some rituals. Her very inquisitive daughter came and interrupted the process with her questions. In anger, the old woman cursed her, saying since she was impatient, death would begin to rule her life. And so human beings started to die from her, for she knew not the science of rejuvenation the elderly woman could have taught her. What a terrible thing!
Amos Tutuola's narrative is the imaginative tying up of death by the Drinkard and bringing the terrible luggage to the human world as requested, before a direction to the dead tapster's location is given. Death bound up and carried? That is obviously "Death, thou shalt die" in another narrative form. Anyway, as we are told, nobody warned people and advised them to run. They just ran away, for this kind of luggage is too much!
The fact is that humans knew how to use their environment to prolong their earthly existence and to avoid death literally, but it seems that they lost this knowledge somewhere along the line. But they can still recover it. The Maker knows the secret and does not want to share it, thinking it could be misused by humans. Do you blame Him? Humans could be slippery and unreliable. How can be entrusted with that knowledge, that power?
As they build their "Tower of Babel" to recover what they lost, their Maker is also very careful and is watching. The death of death is one such trip to knowledge that could upset things. Maybe the Maker will again take a look at their adventurous project and make it inconclusive. Maybe He would play further with the idea of having intelligent robots who can do things.
These intelligent robots could be very mean to their fellows. Little wonder at a point, the Maker regretted that He created them. If their creation was a joke, it was a very expensive one. Imagine being in one little corner of the vast universe that is not even noticeable in deep space and making noise, even destroying other intelligent robots. Who gave them the right and power to do so?
Well, the narrative. The myths are positive. They are saying that we can learn something from our mistakes of the past and recuperate the knowledge.
The elderly woman in the narrative is the custodian of secret sacred knowledge. It is like a cult knowledge and is not accessible to everyone. As a guardian, she knew the person to entrust it to, but this could not be done. That is how such knowledge has been vanishing from us and this vanishing needs to be confronted.
The narrative may have serious weaknesses here and there, but it points to one sad thing in our existence : the loss of so many forms of knowledge due to carelessness and refusal to learn. Then, when that knowledgeable person goes, the knowledge goes forever. We only struggle in our laboratories to recover what we have lost.
The big lesson in our wrestling with death in our labs and in our narratives is that we need to be humble to learn. Nature can give us the answers to our many questions if we can ask them well and expect answers. Maybe the answer to the question of death is in that root or leaf and utterance. Maybe our Maker is amused at our efforts and waits for us to burn ourselves out.
That somebody can tie death up and carry it speaks about courage. In confronting the phenomenon of death, we need courage. We need it badly, not just fantasize about death or run from its mention or write poems about it, hiding in tropes. In Tutuola's novel, this courage is displayed. So, why are we running? If Codeiro and Wood have courageously entered their labs and are writing about what we only fear, are they not like that Drinkard? Death, you shall die by 2045.Even if one is not alive by then, the fact is that you have also tasted the medicine you ask others to take.
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