The Library in Our Heads and Its Many Missing Volumes: Memory and the Performance of Genealogy in the Contemporary Igbo Community
By
Obododimma Oha
Igụ ntaala, the performance of genealogy in Igbo culture, is a demonstration of competence in being a cultural and historical repository of knowledge. It is a display of competence, but also an obligation in the sense that every member of the community, especially males, are entrusted with the ability to narrate that community, beginning with themselves and their family histories. This essay discusses Ntaala as a cultural obligation, the skills in its performance and the declining attention in its practice, drawing attention to its centrality in the politics of identity in the community. The decline in the attention that is paid to Ntaala in recent times, given the confusions and neglect of indigenous knowledge systems in the Igbo nation in the postcolonial period, is considered a symptom of the destruction of cultural memory, as well as a decline in the attention that is paid to history of self and community in contemporary Igbo education.
Ntaala as a Cultural Obligation
Experts in linguistics tell us that we possess an innate ability to learn a language and that we have the ability to handle its production creatively, producing and comprehending utterances we have not heard before, essentially mastering any kind of structuring that is involved in each case. Does this competence end with language? Not at all. It even extends to readings – of texts and other significations by others. As Jonathan Culler, a literary critic, puts it, readers of all categories and of all kinds of texts, need a “reading competence.” They have to read news as news and a folkstory as a folkstory. It is scandalous to see a lettered fellow who sees everything published in a newspaper as the truth, or something in a literary text (say, a novel) as real-world event! It is better for such a fellow to hold the newspaper upside down while saying so! Or, as one often hears among semi-literate or non-literate folks that akwukwo anaghi atu asi (Books do not lie);what if your antagonist who handles the pen on your behalf has written something out of mischief and falsehood against your interest? Indeed, akwukwo anaghi atu asi. That is why some have continued to hold others down with the lies they have written. It is one reason why the pen is really mightier than the sword!
How can we view the performance of Ntaala as a form of competence? Having ogugu isi (good memory) is a talent and we are all invited by culture to have it. It is good to remember, particularly like ebulu ako, that little wise one that is immediately able to tell at first instance that an antagonist is at it. Hence, o muru ako. It becomes alert and plays cautious, in order to outwit the most powerful. Ntaala is a measure that one knows one’s lineage and can tell it. It invites males (on the understanding that females/daughters) will one day marry off, but if they are still able to narrate the Ntaala), it is commendable. To be a man in your community, you should know yourself, at least, historically.
In the past, it was considered a shameful thing that a man was not able to narrate his family tree and is asking to be made a custodian of tradition, to be an ozo-titled man. He has to be able to narrate his origin to the eighth to the tenth generation. How could he transmit culture if he lacked the competence to tell history? You see, one had to show that one had a sense of history for one to aspire to community leadership.
But Ntaala, as a cultural skill, was something acquired. One can acquire it by participating in cultural education, which occurred in various ways. But essentially, the male head of the family is the one who chooses the right time when young ones are ready to listen to stories to introduce it. Story, yes. And Ntaala is an important story, if not the most important. People may be called in turns to recount their Ntaala and he would correct them when they get it wrong. That was how my late uncle, Ofodumokwu, used to handle it. And it was this elderly uncle that I learnt to practice and ask questions about my origin. From him, I learnt to recount mine (from my father’s side) as:
Obododimma nwa Aguneechibeze
Aguneechibeze nwa Ohaezukosi
Ohaezukosi nwa Chukwuemeka
Chukwuemeka nwa Mbalaga
Mbalaga nwa Egwuatuonwu
Egwuatuonwu nwa Anasiudu
Anasiudu nwa Okwe
Okwe nwa Awo…
Don’t ask me to continue. I can. And can also narrate the branch of the tree of the maternal. But, this is not about me. It rather about asking that we do not neglect or fail to possess this cultural competence.
The narration of the Ntaala is not all about recounting genealogy. Also learnt are migration histories, which would become necessary over the years if there is a dispute about which community is elder or is host and which is a settler, which person of what bloodline can have what title. Indeed, one sad thing about such narrative performance is the storage in the head of the individual. But educated and clever people can also store them in other retrievable forms such as tape and digital recordings, etc. Such recordings can be stored as important materials in family libraries and be used for studies in oral literature and oral history. I am sure you are doing a serious thinking already.
The Skills for Ntaala Performance
Every performer of Ntaala has a weight of a heroic past on him or her. By that is meant the metafunction of the performance: the idea of bringing this heroic past forward and animating the spirit of a family. The first skill therefore is the pride about the past being narrated. One does not retell a past one is ashamed of. If one’s father is remembered as burglar in the community and its surrounding ones, why would one not want to forget him? That is a good example of remembering to forget! So, the main skill is the pride for the glorious past which one represents through one’s deeds.
Indeed, it is hard to think of pride as a skill, but when we think of what we are as ambassadors of our communities and families, and that what we can do as individuals mark us out, then it becomes clearer. For instance, my maternal grandmother was a celebrated griot and a no-nonsense woman nicknamed “Agbirigba Tugburu Ebule (literally, little things sticking to the body of the ram that killed the ram) the fact that I have her DNA fires me. It is like a relay race; one’s forebears ran meritoriously and handed over the baton. One has to run one’s turn creditably so that the team can win finally. It is a sad depressing thing for one to be the weak link in the chain!
Following this pride is the development of a good memory. Ntaala is not for people who forget easily, or who think that such things do not matter. Today that bad attitude to Western education intensifies these other forms of indigenous education, there is cause for worry.
OK, good memory.
It is true that there are people who can remember easily and some who can forget easily. One way, one adjunct skill that helps remembering is frequent practice, plus inquiry, in case some portions are forgotten. As oral performance homesteading in oral tradition, Ntaala is preserved and transmitted better through frequent performance. It is not a matter of once in a while. Even people who do not use their native languages or use them once in a while may start losing their eloquence and competence in them. Linguists call this “oblivescence”. Oblivion means lost or forgotten terribly. So, “oblivesence” must have originated from “oblivion.”The fact is that oral performance has performance, frequent performance as its life wire.
Other skills are predictable. As rhetoric, Ntaala performance needs all the finesse of elocution (elocution), using the necessary tropes in the rendition, taking note of the nature of the audience with whom one shares common interest and is being audited. Is the Ntaala performer gifted with a deep, sonorous voice? Oh, that is an advantage. What of proverbs and other ornamentations of speech? And assuming one has to perform an Ntaala now in the context of information technology at a family meeting, what are one’s advantages? Is it not possible for one to use flowcharts, graphs, and powerpoint, for instance, for visual enhancement, Ntaala performance, truly, can only get better.
The Decline of Attention
I hinted above that there is a bad attitude in the embrace of western education as requiring forgetting or ignoring other valuable forms of education. The neglect of Ntaala or its forgetting in the face of other western or modern narratives we are exposed to is really sad. Frequently, issues of social or group identity, even quests for one’s parentage, crop up. In addition, the world needs to know that having access to Ntaala is part of the Igbo articulation of selfhood and manhood, as well as headship of a community where one aspires to lead. Also, it clearly makes a person an important archive and a family library. Oh, I hear that the human family libraries are all dying off!
These are among tendencies that could and have led to the decline in the performance of Ntaala in our time:
1. Laziness in thinking that one is unnecessarily worrying one’s head trying to remember the past;
2. Distraction from or giving priority to other things of modernity;
3. Not realizing the enormous benefits or knowing and being able to recount one’s past;
4. A deliberate attempt at forgetting a shameful past; and
5. Not having knowledgeable people or those who have access to this past still around.
We can see that Ntaala as a genre is a valuable performance of in which one is able to link one’s present to one’s past. It is also a wonderful site that links literature as a performance to history, just as it celebrates one as a continuation of those gone before,, an indigenous understanding of DNA and immortality.
Obododimma Oha
Igụ ntaala, the performance of genealogy in Igbo culture, is a demonstration of competence in being a cultural and historical repository of knowledge. It is a display of competence, but also an obligation in the sense that every member of the community, especially males, are entrusted with the ability to narrate that community, beginning with themselves and their family histories. This essay discusses Ntaala as a cultural obligation, the skills in its performance and the declining attention in its practice, drawing attention to its centrality in the politics of identity in the community. The decline in the attention that is paid to Ntaala in recent times, given the confusions and neglect of indigenous knowledge systems in the Igbo nation in the postcolonial period, is considered a symptom of the destruction of cultural memory, as well as a decline in the attention that is paid to history of self and community in contemporary Igbo education.
Ntaala as a Cultural Obligation
Experts in linguistics tell us that we possess an innate ability to learn a language and that we have the ability to handle its production creatively, producing and comprehending utterances we have not heard before, essentially mastering any kind of structuring that is involved in each case. Does this competence end with language? Not at all. It even extends to readings – of texts and other significations by others. As Jonathan Culler, a literary critic, puts it, readers of all categories and of all kinds of texts, need a “reading competence.” They have to read news as news and a folkstory as a folkstory. It is scandalous to see a lettered fellow who sees everything published in a newspaper as the truth, or something in a literary text (say, a novel) as real-world event! It is better for such a fellow to hold the newspaper upside down while saying so! Or, as one often hears among semi-literate or non-literate folks that akwukwo anaghi atu asi (Books do not lie);what if your antagonist who handles the pen on your behalf has written something out of mischief and falsehood against your interest? Indeed, akwukwo anaghi atu asi. That is why some have continued to hold others down with the lies they have written. It is one reason why the pen is really mightier than the sword!
How can we view the performance of Ntaala as a form of competence? Having ogugu isi (good memory) is a talent and we are all invited by culture to have it. It is good to remember, particularly like ebulu ako, that little wise one that is immediately able to tell at first instance that an antagonist is at it. Hence, o muru ako. It becomes alert and plays cautious, in order to outwit the most powerful. Ntaala is a measure that one knows one’s lineage and can tell it. It invites males (on the understanding that females/daughters) will one day marry off, but if they are still able to narrate the Ntaala), it is commendable. To be a man in your community, you should know yourself, at least, historically.
In the past, it was considered a shameful thing that a man was not able to narrate his family tree and is asking to be made a custodian of tradition, to be an ozo-titled man. He has to be able to narrate his origin to the eighth to the tenth generation. How could he transmit culture if he lacked the competence to tell history? You see, one had to show that one had a sense of history for one to aspire to community leadership.
But Ntaala, as a cultural skill, was something acquired. One can acquire it by participating in cultural education, which occurred in various ways. But essentially, the male head of the family is the one who chooses the right time when young ones are ready to listen to stories to introduce it. Story, yes. And Ntaala is an important story, if not the most important. People may be called in turns to recount their Ntaala and he would correct them when they get it wrong. That was how my late uncle, Ofodumokwu, used to handle it. And it was this elderly uncle that I learnt to practice and ask questions about my origin. From him, I learnt to recount mine (from my father’s side) as:
Obododimma nwa Aguneechibeze
Aguneechibeze nwa Ohaezukosi
Ohaezukosi nwa Chukwuemeka
Chukwuemeka nwa Mbalaga
Mbalaga nwa Egwuatuonwu
Egwuatuonwu nwa Anasiudu
Anasiudu nwa Okwe
Okwe nwa Awo…
Don’t ask me to continue. I can. And can also narrate the branch of the tree of the maternal. But, this is not about me. It rather about asking that we do not neglect or fail to possess this cultural competence.
The narration of the Ntaala is not all about recounting genealogy. Also learnt are migration histories, which would become necessary over the years if there is a dispute about which community is elder or is host and which is a settler, which person of what bloodline can have what title. Indeed, one sad thing about such narrative performance is the storage in the head of the individual. But educated and clever people can also store them in other retrievable forms such as tape and digital recordings, etc. Such recordings can be stored as important materials in family libraries and be used for studies in oral literature and oral history. I am sure you are doing a serious thinking already.
The Skills for Ntaala Performance
Every performer of Ntaala has a weight of a heroic past on him or her. By that is meant the metafunction of the performance: the idea of bringing this heroic past forward and animating the spirit of a family. The first skill therefore is the pride about the past being narrated. One does not retell a past one is ashamed of. If one’s father is remembered as burglar in the community and its surrounding ones, why would one not want to forget him? That is a good example of remembering to forget! So, the main skill is the pride for the glorious past which one represents through one’s deeds.
Indeed, it is hard to think of pride as a skill, but when we think of what we are as ambassadors of our communities and families, and that what we can do as individuals mark us out, then it becomes clearer. For instance, my maternal grandmother was a celebrated griot and a no-nonsense woman nicknamed “Agbirigba Tugburu Ebule (literally, little things sticking to the body of the ram that killed the ram) the fact that I have her DNA fires me. It is like a relay race; one’s forebears ran meritoriously and handed over the baton. One has to run one’s turn creditably so that the team can win finally. It is a sad depressing thing for one to be the weak link in the chain!
Following this pride is the development of a good memory. Ntaala is not for people who forget easily, or who think that such things do not matter. Today that bad attitude to Western education intensifies these other forms of indigenous education, there is cause for worry.
OK, good memory.
It is true that there are people who can remember easily and some who can forget easily. One way, one adjunct skill that helps remembering is frequent practice, plus inquiry, in case some portions are forgotten. As oral performance homesteading in oral tradition, Ntaala is preserved and transmitted better through frequent performance. It is not a matter of once in a while. Even people who do not use their native languages or use them once in a while may start losing their eloquence and competence in them. Linguists call this “oblivescence”. Oblivion means lost or forgotten terribly. So, “oblivesence” must have originated from “oblivion.”The fact is that oral performance has performance, frequent performance as its life wire.
Other skills are predictable. As rhetoric, Ntaala performance needs all the finesse of elocution (elocution), using the necessary tropes in the rendition, taking note of the nature of the audience with whom one shares common interest and is being audited. Is the Ntaala performer gifted with a deep, sonorous voice? Oh, that is an advantage. What of proverbs and other ornamentations of speech? And assuming one has to perform an Ntaala now in the context of information technology at a family meeting, what are one’s advantages? Is it not possible for one to use flowcharts, graphs, and powerpoint, for instance, for visual enhancement, Ntaala performance, truly, can only get better.
The Decline of Attention
I hinted above that there is a bad attitude in the embrace of western education as requiring forgetting or ignoring other valuable forms of education. The neglect of Ntaala or its forgetting in the face of other western or modern narratives we are exposed to is really sad. Frequently, issues of social or group identity, even quests for one’s parentage, crop up. In addition, the world needs to know that having access to Ntaala is part of the Igbo articulation of selfhood and manhood, as well as headship of a community where one aspires to lead. Also, it clearly makes a person an important archive and a family library. Oh, I hear that the human family libraries are all dying off!
These are among tendencies that could and have led to the decline in the performance of Ntaala in our time:
1. Laziness in thinking that one is unnecessarily worrying one’s head trying to remember the past;
2. Distraction from or giving priority to other things of modernity;
3. Not realizing the enormous benefits or knowing and being able to recount one’s past;
4. A deliberate attempt at forgetting a shameful past; and
5. Not having knowledgeable people or those who have access to this past still around.
We can see that Ntaala as a genre is a valuable performance of in which one is able to link one’s present to one’s past. It is also a wonderful site that links literature as a performance to history, just as it celebrates one as a continuation of those gone before,, an indigenous understanding of DNA and immortality.
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