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

Ogbuide: The Lake Goddess of Oguta

"Ogbuide is the awesome water goddess of Oguta Lake located in Southeastern Nigeria. The goddess has multiple names and is also known as Uhammiri. A local divinity, Ogbuide is but one manifestation of the generic Igbo mother water goddess, Nne Mmiri....

The Igbo town of Oguta is located on a beautiful lake near the confluence of the rivers Niger and Urashi [or Urasi]. These waters are associated with divinities of the Igbo pantheon of multiple gods and goddesses. Oguta's lake goddess, Ogbuide, is the major reference point in the lives of the Oru-Igbo people of Oguta, Orsu-Obodo, and a host of other towns. This awesome goddess embodies the forces of nature that dominate life and death. Water is recognized as a divine power of dual faculties, both giving and destroying life. Locals worship the lake goddess Uhammiri together with her husband, the river god, Urashi, as a divine pair. These divinities existed before, until, and beyond the advent of Europeans, Christianity, and Islam. Recognizing the mother water goddess and her powers is altering our perception of and dealing with nature, power, and gender. ...

The water has emerged as the single most influential spiritual and existential force complementing the earth goddess Ani, or Ala, and the ancestral gods. ... Oru-Igbo culture and society, its economic foundations, and its major artistic expressions revolve around water, particularly the flooding and receding of the Rivers Niger and Urashi, and above all, Ogbuide, that is, Oguta Lake. This is evidenced in the local farming cycle, the timing and performance of the town's major Owu festivals, Agugu and Omerife, and other cultural activities, its underlying myths, religious beliefs, and customary rules. All of the indigenous deities and particularly the ever-present lake goddess are reflected in the people's daily conduct, their cosmogony, spirituality, aesthetics, and perception of the universe. The notion of the flexible, fluid female side balances the more static plane of the earth and male ancestral traditions."

Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, 2007: 1-2

The Water Goddess in Igbo Cosmology: Ogbuide of Oguta Lake