Owere Creation Story

Photo: Mbari votive shrine in Percy Amaury Talbot (1926). "The peoples of Southern Nigeria." Vol. II, fig.13. via the Musée du quai Branly.

Creation of the days from the Owere (Owerri) area:

Chineke created four people [...] and put those four people inside the house in four rooms. Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo. These are men, and he also put women in a separate room. Then Eke suggested it would be a good idea for Ala to exist. The land just came out, and existed before we met it. The land and the sky are the same. [...] No one gave birth to them. Then Chineke called in all the gods and fixed a time for creating the days. Chineke asked, "Which of you knows the days?" Agwushi [god of divination] said he knew. "This is Eke, the next is Orie, then Afo, then Nkwo. These are the four days of the world." Chineke took Agwushi and gave him to all [...] to feed them....Then Chineke told Agwushi to go to man and leave part of himself [...] [Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo], and also to [...] every god—Amadioha, Ala, and all the others.

– Ugo of Ihette via Herbert Cole (1982). Mbari.

According to this record of a creation story from the Owere (Owerri) area, the days are four men put into four rooms, but there's also mention of women, although their number and relation to the men isn't substantiated, it's plausible that they are also four. Could the Izù ukwu, the eight day week, be a pair of four male and four female primordial entities making eight in total?

Also, it's interesting how the name for week or group of the days is ízù, when the entities are said to congregate in various Igbo creation stories, like ìzù, a meeting or council. Even the nsibidi signs for the four (or eight) directions is similar to the nsibidi sign for meeting or congregation, which is also similar or the same as the four and eight rods.

'Fishery in the Lower Niger'

Image: 'Fishery in the Lower Niger' c. 1890 engraving from the travels of the officer of the French Foreign Legion, Antoine Mattei.

[...] I had before observed below Onitsha, along the shores, rustic sentry boxes, supported on six poles about 12 feet above the ground, and had taken them to be stations for guardians of the river. They are stations, but for the fishermen. They perch themselves up in these watch-boxes, whence they can command the neighbourhood. A large oblong net, a sort of seine, with a basket in the middle, made of vegetable fibres, is suspended over the water. By the aid of a long rope of the same material, the fisherman lowers or raises his net. Near at hand, in a canoe moored to the shore, two negroes, silent and motionless, are on the look-out. As soon as the net is raised the canoe comes up and the catch is thrown into it ; the sentinel, who does not move from his eyrie, then again lets down the net into the river. This method appears to answer very well, for I have seen the natives thus catch a large quantity of fish ; they swarm there, and they are as fine as they are abundant. This does not prevent them from also using harpoons and fish-hooks, which they manufacture themselves. [...]

– Adolphe Burdo (1880). "The Niger and the Benueh." p. 174–175.

Asaba Jewellery

Asaba, turn of the 20th century. Igbo jewellery [cropped].

Model of Igbo Cosmology

Some of the ideas are theoretical like the placement of the days. Some of the structure and ideas are partly via Obiakoizu A. Iloanusi (1984) and from the Kongo cosmogram.

The sun is an analogy, if that's the right word, for a person's life through the mortal (elu ụ̀wà) to the spirit (Àlà mmụọ), a person may be reincarnated with a unique Chi and the Ekè (characteristics) of their ancestor, and may pass through morning, afternoon, and evening.

When the person has a complete mortal cycle (reaching ụ̀wà mgbèdè, the evening of one's life), they enter the spirit realm awaiting burial, a second burial guiding them to ancestorhood, and then ancestorhood awaiting reincarnation.

The Chi and Ekè duality is repeated, or represented, in or by several other principals of the universe, the numbers 2, 4, 8, as alluded to in another post, are important numbers.

(The circle, the path, may be likened to, or represent the Igbo allusion to ụzọ̀.)

Aro Woman [Postcard]

A woman from Arochukwu, early 20th century, a postcard via the US Library of Congress.

Palm-winetry

Consider this made up example of a scenario:

The Igbo people were invaded by the British and the British met a people who tapped and drank wine from palm trees. The British found this strange and abominable and so they condemned what they came to call 'palm-winists' who practice 'palm-winetry.' The Igbo people where confused by the idea of palm wine being bad or them being defined as 'palm-winists' and wondered what was wrong with palm wine, but the British officers and leaders of the church and mission schools kept reiterating the idea of 'palm-winetry' and that they were better because they didn't drink palm wine but rather they drank tea. Over time this was built into the psyche of Igbo children and they decided to abandoned the abominable practice of 'palm-winetry' and insisted on only the finest British tea.

An Igbo man climbing a palm tree for palm nuts photographed by G. T. Basden, early 20th century.

Over the generations, however, a new generation rose up to counter what they considered misinformation by the British and they started what they felt to be a renaissance and a revitalisation of the culture that the previous generations had abandoned because of colonialism. One of the first things they wanted to attack was the idea of 'palm-winetry' and that Igbo people were 'palm-winists.' They insisted that the Igbo people, contrary to earlier colonial reports, were not drinkers of palm wine but that rather the Igbo people only took a sip of palm wine to check whether a palm tree was ripe enough for its palm oil to be harvested. The palm oil was the real target, according to them, not palm wine; Igbo people did not drink palm wine! In fact, Igbo people were the original drinkers of coffee and it was the British who drank other kinds of wines. Further more, the Igbo people were the original growers of tea leaves.

The story is a long winded analogy to challenge manipulative colonial-era language which introduced ideas such as 'idolatry,' 'paganism,' 'heathenism,' and the like, the suggestion is that instead of attacking a particular classification of indigenous practices, perhaps it would be wiser to take a wider look at what these classifications are and why they exist in the first place. If 'palm-winists' and 'palm-winetry' are replaced with 'idolators' and 'idolatry', what would justify the absurdity of the condemnation of palm wine as abominable that also wouldn't justify the same for 'idolatry', that is, outside of the worldview and frameworks designed by the inventors of such classification? In other words, what was the word for 'idolatry' in Igbo before colonial education?

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Igbo worship is 'pagan,' 'pagan,' according to Western tradition, usually refers to religious practices outside of Abrahamic beliefs. The idea in this post isn't to challenge being labelled 'heathens' or 'pagans,' the idea is to ask what makes being 'pagan' bad for example and how can this manipulative language impact how people handle and evaluate their own worldview.

In other words, 'pagan', 'fetish', 'idolatry,' etc, are words and ideas from the European Judeo-Christian worldview and tradition, they are ideas that were solidified by them without the input of Igbo people for example, so these ideas cannot be used to judge or evaluate the Igbo worldview which is a totally different tradition and worldview.

Two-storey building

Another Igbo tower or two-storey earth building photographed by Northcote Thomas. Öka (Awka), c. 1910-11. MAA Cambridge.

Chi nà Ekè

Interior of Chi shrine at Nkarahia, an Isiokpo Ikwere settlement. Photo: P. Amaury Talbot, early 1910s.

An interview of an Urata man about the High God:

“Chineke molded the world; then Eke divided the world. Eke came out of the hands of Chi, so they became the same. They are the same mother. It is like the creation of the world: the world is one. That is the way Eke came out of the hands of Chineke. But they are the same.

If it were only for the hands of Chineke no one would die a violent death. It is Eke who divided the world and after that people died in power [probably transliterated from ‘ọ́nwụ́ íké’, literally meaning "powerful death”, but metaphorically a painful suffering death]. Eke is the tricky one who portioned out these things. Chineke is straight and long, and he [no gendered pro-nouns in Igbo] made the lives of the people upright and good. Eke played this trick we are now inside.“ [in notes: (Parts of creation stories related by the cult priest of Afo at Umuoye Etche)] [Igbo group in southern Imo, northern Rivers states of Nigeria].

[Cole:]

Chineke (or Chukwu) [in notes: (In many parts of Igboland, as in Owerri, the high god is also called Chukwu, an ellision of chi and ukwu ("great”), but in Owerri Chineke is the more common usage.)] is the creator, the high god. Though distant and not the object of images or direct sacrifices in Owerri, he is often addressed by name in prayer and does receive offerings indirectly. He knows what people are doing but does not himself intervene or punish. The etymology of his name suggests that he is both a deity and a concept, for “Chineke” is a contraction of chi, na (“and”), eke: chi apparently meaning “god” or “soul”, with eke approximating “creation” or “division”. Chi and eke are also personifications, as suggested by the quotations above and the words of another informant: “Chi and Eke represent male and female. Chineke—I don’t know if he is a man or a woman. He is up, up, up, and we don’t see him.”

– Herbert M. Cole. MBARI: Art and Life among the Owerri Igbo (1982). p. 54. Indiana University Press.