Soyinka Taught Me Traditional Society is Not Evil

"If Soyinka did anything for me, the most important thing he did was to [wean] me off the Christian notion that the traditional society is evil – evil in the sense that if you were not a Christian, whatever else you believe in is considered not so moral or straightforward. Everything about tradition which many people saw rather in distracted ways, Soyinka saw as a part of a very well worked out way of seeing the world and the mystic truth in Soyinka’s analysis of society enabled you to see that traditional society had a philosophical underpinning that was helpful in knowing the ways the world worked. I have my own decision on Soyinka’s position; his not allowing himself to be submerged by the grammar of Christian denunciations and the general Islamic assault on so-called paganism help me relate to my two families. My maternal grandfather was a Christian, who once they abandoned the ‘fetish ways’ of the traditional society, adopted Christianity without looking back. My father’s family, first because my father was a motor mechanic, had to be an Ogun worshipper and if you are an Ogun worshipper, you are required to observe tenets that derive powers from mythology and also indicate ways of treating your fellow human beings in a manner that helps a sense of collectivity in society. Myth making is therefore at the centre of the way Soyinka views traditional society. I have managed because I did not quite accept all the hoopla about Christianity; I learnt to see the interconnection between what was Christianity and what was supposedly traditional religion. All religions are the same – they are based on some form of worship which is to say that you have faith in what those who came before you had seen and done. … Soyinka was a strong critic of the religious ways of doing things. … [He] actually did something out of the usual because he took traditional religion on its face value. He took a philosophy out of it which may discount certain material elements but stuck to its core and its core is that the life we live can be understood by the knowledge that has been condensed from the prehistory to the present and that if we understand them well, we could live a good life in lot of ways."

Odia Ofeimun

Punchng.com, March 22, 2020

Africa, Religion, and Female Priesthood

"The ritual and political involvement of women in general and of female priesthood and leadership in particular was an important aspect of precolonial Igbo society that was not recognized during colonial times. Because the male elders of a lineage act as its visible agents, they were recognized as the lineage's representatives. Because vital female rituals are highly secretive and exclusive, male elders commonly appear to outsiders as the dominant agents in charge of resource management, preservation of the custom, maintenance of social order, religious practices, and mediation between human and spirit worlds. Against this background, social structuralists, functionalists, and marxists have all emphasized the gender-based social division of labor and ignored women's ritual and political involvement. The non-recognition of female priesthood and other expressions of female leadership relegated women to the background. In addition, women's power is further eroded by the imposition of Christian and Islamic values and the lack of attention to African religious beliefs and practices. Moreover, Western-style structural inequalities and elitism in contemporary African society and economies continue to erode previously established positions of power held by women."

Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, 1998, 101

"Female Power: Water Priestesses of the Oru-Igbo"

in Sisterhood: Feminisms and Power from Africa to the Diaspora, ed. Obioma Nnaemeka

Negotiating Orunmila: His Mask, His Wisdom

"A mask of Orunmila stared down at him from the wall, or at least the artist in Osogbo had said the large eyes belonged to the god of wisdom. His mother would have been horrified by the serene wooden face, angered even, by what she would dub apostasy.
     When he prayed, he prayed to Allah the most merciful. But what was he to do with all these gods and goddesses and spirits and ancestors that had peopled his village in Kwara before the first cleric arrived with a Koran? He did not worship Orunmila but he thought to himself, this wooden embodiment of wisdom hung on his wall."

Chibundu Onuzo, 2018: 145

Welcome to Lagos

Africans, Traditional Religions, and Colo-mentality

(By Peter Adeosun Keyz) - Yesterday a lady greeted me "As-salamu alaykum" to which I responded "Wa'alaykumu as-salam". We both laughed about it. She's a staunch Christian, a devoted RCCG member and we've been friends for many years now. So we both knew we were just catching fun. 

Then I took the fun further and greeted her "Eríwo yà!" Instead of responding, she exclaimed "God forbid that I should respond to a greeting like that". I told her that if we could exchange pleasantries the Islamic way when she's not a Muslim, why couldn't we exchange pleasantries the Yoruba traditional way? She said she can still cope with Islam. Traditional religion is the one she can never cope with. Why? According to her, Islam is still close while traditional religion being idolatry is far away. 

I shook my head and walked away. I kept thinking about how the two of them successfully made us embrace their traditions and see our own tradition as dirt, a taboo, the forbidden.

When the Gods Have Had Enough

(Dimeji Kayode-Adedeji)--Pastor goes numb while destroying traditional shrine

There was drama in Ketu Community of Ogun State on Saturday [September 24] when a pastor became numb after attempting to pull down a shrine.

The cleric, identified as Wale Fagbenro, reportedly claimed he was directed by the “Holy spirit” to destroy the traditional worshippers’ shrine.

A witness said Mr. Fagbenro became “speechless‎ and motionless” upon entering the shrine‎.

Residents of the area in Yewa North Local Government Area subsequently raised an alarm attracting a crowd to the scene.

The witness said when the priests in charge of the shrine were approached, they declared that the cleric would only regain consciousness after some rituals were performed.

However, the priests eventually treated Mr. Fagbenro after the traditional ruler of Aiyetoro, Abdulaziz Adelakun, intervened.

Decolonizing African Religions

"The last and most important pitfall for the Christian student is his belief in one God and the assumption which rises from it, namely that Africans must also have a High God. It is this assumption which has led Evans-Pritchard to interpret the numerous deities of the Nuer as refractions of God, and Placid Tempels to arrange the so-called 'life forces' of the Bantu in a hierarchy at the apex of which is the supposed High God. This also explains the preoccupation of many writers with some half-forgotten deities which are described as no longer interested in the affairs of men, and yet, they are called the High God. The aim of the study of African religions should be to understand the religious beliefs and practices of African people, rather than to discover the Christian God in Africa."

Okot p'Bitek (2011: 52), Decolonizing African Religions

The Muslim Whose Presence Defiled Christ

Source: loonwatch.com

(Pius Adesanmi)-- ...Modees, obviously, is a Muslim. His best friend who was getting married is a Christian. A Muslim was going to be best man in a Christian marriage! The Christian groom and his Muslim best friend thought nothing of this until wedding day and the officiating Pastor somehow caught wind of the faith of the best man and refused to proceed with the ceremony.

It was bad enough for Modees, a Muslim, to have come to defile the body of Christ in his church! To approach the pulpit as the best man in the wedding was adding insult to injury! All entreaties to the Pastor failed. No Muslims allowed here!

The story of this foolish fundamentalist Christian Pastor in Calabar is the story of Nigeria. It is indeed the story of Africa. It is the story of the failure of critical intelligence. It could very easily have happened the other way round. It could have been Modees getting married and his Christian friend being bundled out of the ceremony for defiling a Mosque.

The trouble with Nigeria, the tragedy of Africa, is that in a world of mutual connectivity and global influences and interactions, we have not figured out a way of making whatever we accept from the outside, whatever is forced on us from the outside, sit on the solid foundation of our own worldviews and humanity.

Of Mmonwu and Spirits of the Living-Dead

The Ancestors and the Dialogue of Religions

Source: timeslive.co.za

"My father was a man of few words, and I have always regretted that I had not asked him more questions. But I realize also that he took pains to tell me what he thought I needed to know. He told me, for instance, in a rather oblique way of his one tentative attempt long ago to convert his uncle.

It must have been in my father’s youthful, heady, proselytizing days! His uncle had said no, and pointed to the awesome row of insignia of his three titles. “what shall I do to these?” he had asked my father. It was an awesome question. What do I do to who I am? What do I do to history?

An orphan child born into adversity, heir to commotions, barbarities, rampant upheaveals of a continent in disarray: was it all surprising that he would eagerly welcome the explanation and remedy proffered by diviners and interpreters of a new word [i.e., Christianity]?

And his uncle Udoh, a leader in his community, a moral, open-minded man, a prosperous man who had prepared such a great feast when he took the ozo title that his people gave him a unique praise-name for it: was he to throw all that away now because some strangers from afar came and said so?

Those two—my father and his uncle—formulated the dialectic which I inherited. Udoh stood fast in what he knew, but he left room also for his nephew to seek other answers. The answer my father found in the Christian faith solved many problems, but by no means all.”

Chinua Achebe (2009: 37), The Education of a British-Protected Child

Oshun: Goddess of Love and Sweet Waters

Oshun is the Yorùbá Orisha (Deity) of the sweet or fresh waters (as opposed to the salt waters of Yemaya). She is widely loved, as She is known for healing the sick and bringing fertility and prosperity, and She especially watches over the poor and brings them what they need. As Orisha of love, Oshun is represented as a beautiful, charming and coquettish young woman. In some tales She is said to be a mermaid, with a fish's tail.

The Yorùbá clans inhabit parts of western central Africa, in present-day Nigeria. Oshun is the Goddess of the river of the same name, and She is especially worshipped in river-towns. During Her yearly festival, She is said to choose one or more women dancers to descend into (much like participants in Vodou ceremonies may be "mounted" or "possessed" by a Lwa). These women then take new names in honor of Oshun and are thereafter consulted as healers.

Oshun was taught divination with cowrie shells by Obatala, the first of the created Orishas, and then She brought the teaching to humans. She was at one time the wife of Shango, the Orisha of storms, as was Oya, the Orisha of the winds and tempests. Oshun is also said to be the mother of the birds or fishes.

Nollywood and Religion

In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, Sola Odunfa considers what Nigeria's movie industry reveals about the country's spirituality.

One major reason why I like Nollywood films is that I easily relate to the stories told and the morals implied.

I do not need a fertile imagination to understand the plots - if there are any serious ones - neither do I find it difficult to connect to the spiritual impulses of the characters.

Nollywood truly reflects the innate character of the Nigerian.

On a couple of occasions some friends have asked how I could "stoop so low" to spend hours watching these films, which are filled with scenes of voodoo and are of poor technical production, rather than spend quality time watching "first-rate" films from Hollywood.

What hypocrites!