Unoka: Self-Indulgent Fellow, Rapturous Artist, and Wretched Farmer

“[Okonkwo’s] fame rested on solid personal achievements. … [Okonkwo] had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with is father. 

     Unoka, for that was his father’s name, had died ten years ago. In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbours and made merry. He always said that whenever he saw a dead man’s mouth he saw the folly of not eating what one had in one’s lifetime. Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and he owed every neighbour some money, from a few cowries to quite substantial amounts. 

     He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop. He wore a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute. He was very good on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace. Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. Sometimes another village would as Unoka’s band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with them and teach them their tunes. They would go to such hosts for as long as three or four markets, making music and feasting. Unoka loved the good fare and the good fellowship… 

     Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure.

Ajofia Nnewi: Onye Na-Ezi Uzo

 

Ajofia Nnewi: Onye Na-Ezi Uzo

Afamefuna: The Headstrong Historian

Illustration by Yvetta Fedorova

(By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) – The Headstrong Historian

Many years after her husband had died, Nwamgba still closed her eyes from time to time to relive his nightly visits to her hut, and the mornings after, when she would walk to the stream humming a song, thinking of the smoky scent of him and the firmness of his weight, and feeling as if she were surrounded by light. Other memories of Obierika also remained clear—his stubby fingers curled around his flute when he played in the evenings, his delight when she set down his bowls of food, his sweaty back when he brought baskets filled with fresh clay for her pottery. From the moment she had first seen him, at a wrestling match, both of them staring and staring, both of them too young, her waist not yet wearing the menstruation cloth, she had believed with a quiet stubbornness that her chi and his chi had destined their marriage, and so when he and his relatives came to her father a few years later with pots of palm wine she told her mother that this was the man she would marry. Her mother was aghast. Did Nwamgba not know that Obierika was an only child, that his late father had been an only child whose wives had lost pregnancies and buried babies? Perhaps somebody in their family had committed the taboo of selling a girl into slavery and the earth god Ani was visiting misfortune on them. Nwamgba ignored her mother. She went into her father’s obi and told him she would run away from any other man’s house if she was not allowed to marry Obierika. Her father found her exhausting, this sharp-tongued, headstrong daughter who had once wrestled her brother to the ground.

F.C. Ogbalu: Father of Igbo Orthography and Literature

“F. Chidozie Ogbalu (1927-1990), sometimes called the "father" of Igbo language and culture, was born in Adagbe, Abagana, and was a lifelong teacher and champion of his Igbo heritage. He taught Latin, Geography and Igbo at a number of schools, and took a great interest in the Igbo-related controversies of his time. These controversies revolved around efforts to standardize the writing and spelling of the Igbo language, and to improve its numeral system.

Thus in 1948, while teaching at Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha, Ogbalu wrote a newspaper article in The Nigerian Spokesman attacking the colonial administration for its failure to encourage standardization, and forcefully arguing against a new "Adams-Ward" orthography being advocated by some linguists. This orthography, which he called "obnoxious," involved phonetic symbols that would inevitably have complicated the process of learning to read the language. Ogbalu's principal at Dennis Memorial then advised him that instead of writing to the newspapers, he would do better to write and publish his own material in the Igbo language. Ogbalu took up the challenge, and by the following year he had founded the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC). He was then only 22 years old. (Eight years later, carrying the advice a step further, he established the Varsity Press in Onitsha.)

Omugwo: Traditional Igbo After-Birth Care

(From okwuid.com) – OMUGWO: Traditional Igbo After-birth Care

There is always delight and anticipation in the air when and Igbo family are expecting a new child.

The family unit is at center to Igbo culture. And whilst pregnancy can be an exciting, scary and nerve-wracking experience all rolled into one. It is a process that Igbos hold in very high regard.

Despite this, pregnancy can be a challenging time where your body and lifestyle will go through many unexpected changes.

These changes can leave new mothers feeling overwhelmed without a robust support network made up of family and friends.

Igbo culture’s answer to these post-natal challenges is a practice called “Omugwo”.

As part of the Omugwo process the mother, mother in law or close female relative stay with the new mother in the first few weeks/months to assist and care for the new mother and baby.

During Omugwo the new mother is fed a special diet and given traditional massages to help her body return to the pre-pregnancy state.

The aim of Omugwo is to offer new mother a robust form of after-birth care, it is necessary so that the new mother can rest well to regain her strength. Family support also means conditions like post-natal depressions become less prevalent. 

Reinventing Enterprise in Igbo Land

NKATA UMU IBE | MARCH 2019

Centre for Memories: Ncheta Ndigbo
Topic: 'Mkpuru Onye Kuru'
Reinventing Enterprise n' Ala Igbo. Speaker: Ike Chioke (Group Managing Director, AFRINVEST)

Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo: Igbo Market Days

"EKE: (taking stage vigorously and waving the ogirishi branch) I am Eke! First part of the whole. My day is sacred. I hold the Eastern pillar of the earth. Agwu, the unpredictable, multi-faceted, creative and destructive force, patron of diviners and medicine men, is my consort. The ogirishi is my sacred staff. (waves it).
          ORIE: (taking stage and waving the ikenga) I am Orie! I hold the pillar of the earth on the West. Ogwugwu, that fearsome spirit, benefactor of the just and industrious, protective yet ruthless in anger, patronises my markets. I wield the ikenga.
          AFOR: (taking stage and waving the ofo branch) I am Afor! I hold up the earth at the Northen corner. The fearsome Amadioha is my impatient instrument for justice. The ofo is my staff.
          NKWO: (taking stage and waving the aboshi) I am Nkwo! Ala, the pacific nature spirit of fertility, guardian of morality and prosperity patronises my markets. I hold up the Southern edge of the world. I wield the sacred aboshi branch.
          ALL: We are the four pillars of the earth!
          AFOR: We gave our names to your market days.
          EKE: We are the four market days.
          ORIE: We are Izu! Complete.
          NKWO: We represent your forebears!
          ALL: We are your forebears!"

Toni Duruaku, 2003, 44-45

A Matter of Identity

Ajofia Nnewi: Ana Were Were

Face of Okija: Africa and Celebration of Culture

Prof. Lumumba: Celebrating Ndigbo & Nigeria, At The Face of Okija in Anambra, 2019

After Empire: Achebe and African Novel

(By Ruth Franklin) – After Empire: Chinua Achebe and the Great African Novel

          In a myth told by the Igbo people of Nigeria, men once decided to send a messenger to ask Chukwu, the supreme god, if the dead could be permitted to come back to life. As their messenger, they chose a dog. But the dog delayed, and a toad, which had been eavesdropping, reached Chukwu first. Wanting to punish man, the toad reversed the request, and told Chukwu that after death men did not want to return to the world. The god said that he would do as they wished, and when the dog arrived with the true message he refused to change his mind. Thus, men may be born again, but only in a different form.

          The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe recounts this myth, which exists in hundreds of versions throughout Africa, in one of his essays. Sometimes, Achebe writes, the messenger is a chameleon, a lizard, or another animal; sometimes the message is altered accidentally rather than maliciously. But the structure remains the same: men ask for immortality and the god is willing to grant it, but something goes wrong and the gift is lost forever. “It is as though the ancestors who made language and knew from what bestiality its use rescued them are saying to us: Beware of interfering with its purpose!” Achebe writes. “For when language is seriously interfered with, when it is disjoined from truth . . . horrors can descend again on mankind.”

Lionheart: A Movie for Business and Film Schools

(By Toni Kan) - Three years after her first award winning feature film, Road to Yesterday, Nollywood screen goddess, Genevieve Nnaji has returned with her sophomore feature, Lionheart starring a slew of Nollywood greats – Pete Edochie, Onyeka Onwenu, Nkem owoh, Chika Okpala aka Zebrudaya, Kanayo O Kanayo as well as music star Phyno and award winning young actress, Jemima Osunde.

The film which was rejected by a section of film distributors in Nigeria made its worldwide debut on Netflix on Friday January 4, 2019.
My friend and brother, Wilfred Okiche has described Lionheart as “the feel good movie of the year” and he is correct but there is a lot he did not say.
            Genevieve Nnaji teaming up with Ishaya Bako (who directed Road to Yesterday) and Chinny Onwugbuenu has given us a very important movie. Lionheart, as its title suggests, is that rare and brave thing, a stereotype defying movie, a business primer and a very, very wise movie.
            Kudos must be given to the writers – Genevieve Nnaji, Chinny Onwugbuenu, CJ Obasi, Ishaya Bako and Emil Garba – for providing a unifying vision around the original idea.
            I have described Lionheart as an important movie because it speaks to the future in an eloquent voice.

Chinua Achebe: Nneka - "Mother is Supreme"

Igbo bu Igbo: Culture, Language, and Gender Relations

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: "Igbo bu Igbo" - Keynote at 7th Annual International Igbo Conference

The Achievement of Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe at his house in Enugu, Nigeria, 1959

(By Kwame Anthony Appiah) - 

The genius of Chinua Achebe, like all genius, escapes precise analysis. If we could explain it fully, we could reproduce it, and it is of the nature of genius to be irreproducible. Still, there has been no shortage of attempts to explain his literary achievement, an achievement that starts with the fact that Things Fall Apart (1958), the first of the novels in his “African trilogy” defined a starting point for the modern African novel. There are, as critics are quick to point out, earlier examples of extended narrative written in and about Africa by African writers. Some of them—Amos Tutuola’s Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City (1954), to name but two also written by Nigerians—remain eminently worth reading. But place them beside the work of Achebe and you will see that in his writing something magnificent and new was going on.

One reason for this, which often passes without notice, is that Achebe solved a problem that these earlier novels did not. He found a way to represent for a global Anglophone audience the diction of his Igbo homeland, allowing readers of English elsewhere to experience a particular relationship to language and the world in a way that made it seem quite natural—transparent, one might almost say. Achebe enables us to hear the voices of Igboland in a new use of our own language. A measure of his achievement is that Achebe found an African voice in English that is so natural its artifice eludes us.

"Does Nollywood Actually Portray Igbo Culture?"

(By Eddie Iroh) - I know that aficionados of Nollywood will have my guts for garters for saying this. I will say it all the same. But there again this is directed mainly to Ndigbo who, with some justification, traditionally claim “ownership” of the genesis of the Nigerian film industry because of their pioneer role in the home video enterprise.

To be sure Nollywood is said to have bumped up the re-jigged Nigerian GDP a few years ago and helped propel the economy to the biggest in Africa. The industry provides substantial outlet for the employment of scores of Nigerians from actors to crews and staff. No one can sniff at that.

While this is not a critique of the quality of Nollywood’s output one cannot but observe similarities between Nollywood and the excessively exaggerated plots and storyline of the Indian films of the 60’s – even though art and technology have moved on in the five decades of the then nascent Bollywood.

But my concern here is whether the Igbo people take any notice of how Nollywood portrays their culture in the so-called Epic movies? Is art imitating life here or is it an instrument of correction and change? Do Ndigbo notice how they are portrayed as a people who can do just about anything for money, thus reinforcing the stereotype even though those who have looted Nigeria since independence are predominantly non Igbo?

Nollywood’s Igbo characters will allow any moneybag however unscrupulous and questionable the source of his wealth to marry their daughters, however miss-matched. The parents will swallow even her most serious reservations the minute a wad of Naira enters their hands.

Ugwumba TV: Emume Ndi Igbo

Odimma Onodu Umu Nwaanyi n'Ala Igbo

Teach Your Children Igbo

(Emeka Oparah)--Please Teach Your Children the Names of Animals in Igbo Language (NA ASỤSỤ IGBO)

1) Goat = Ewu (Male = Mkpi, Female = Nne Ewu)

2) Fowl = Okuko (Male = Oke Ọkpa, Female = Nnekwu)

3) Guinea Fowl = Ọgazị

4) Chicken = Nwa Ọkụkọ

5) Turkey = Tolotolo/Torotoro

6) Duck = Obogwuma/Obuguma Obogwu/Obogu

7) Pigeon = Nduru/Nduli

8.) Ostrich = Enyi Nnunu

9) Antelope = Mgbada

10) Deer = Ele/Ene

The Madman by Chinua Achebe

(Chinua Achebe)—He was drawn to markets and straight roads. Not any tiny neighborhood market where a handful of garrulous women might gather at sunset to gossip and buy ogili for the evening’s soup, but a huge, engulfing bazaar beckoning people familiar and strange from far and near. And not any dusty, old footpath beginning in this village, and ending in that stream, but broad, black, mysterious highways without beginning or end.

After much wondering he had discovered two such markets linked together by such a highway; and so ended his wandering. One market was Afo, the other Eke. The two days between them suited him very well: before setting out for Eke he had ample time to wind up his business properly at Afo. He passed the night there putting right again his hut after a day of defilement by two fat-bottomed market women who said it was their market stall. At first he had put up a fight but the women had gone and brought their men-folk—four hefty beasts of the bush—to whip him out of the hut. After that he always avoided them, moving out on the morning of the market and back in at dusk to pass the night. Then in the morning he rounded off his affairs swiftly and set out on that long, beautiful boa-constrictor of a road to Eke in the distant town of Ogbu. He held his staff and cudgel at the ready in his right hand, and with the left he steadied the basket of all his belongings on his head. He had got himself this cudgel lately to deal with little beasts on the way who threw stones at him and made fun of their mothers’ nakedness, not his own.

Oraukwu: Igu Aro, Iro Mmuo, Iwa Ji, et al

(Oraukwu.comOraukwu.com)--Ofala (Igu Aro)

The word "Ofala", as one of those non-indigenous Igbo words, probably Igala derivatives, but more precisely origin unknown, would best be defined as a Royal outing involving communal celebrations, in a carefully planned program wrapped in a grandeur and outpouring of respect, revelry and as established by custom and sponsored by the with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy and safe to say that Ofala festival represents the apotheosis of Eze, Igwe or Obi in Igbo land. The event is used to celebrate in royal fashion the reign of the Igwe unprecedented for its length, its glory, its prosperity and let it be added, its goodness and peaceful tenure.