By
Obododimma Oha
I have always been excited with the speeches of the mmanwu the masked spirit, especially the Nne Mmuo (Mother Spirit), whose performance and entertainment is in the power of words. Is it the drizzle of proverbs or the thunderstorm of riddles? Nne mmuo moves around the ilo majestically, waving the staff of authority, the movement also being the movement of powerful language. The okoro mmuo (youthful masked spirit) may be known for iti aba (saluting Mother Earth loudly) with a thud of the flung head, the akakpo (midget spirit) enviously chasing of spectators here and there, causing injuries and flying temper. Ikpo Nsi Agba Akwara (the heap of shit that does not sprout roots), one akakpo in our community was annoyingly nicknamed. Call him Ikpo Nsi Agba Akwara and be ready to run; in fact, to fly, for he will chase you even to the land of the spirits! Honestly, it is the sign that is the real site of the performance of a masked spirit. Initiates who are initiates should know this, but I am going to address that in another essay. In the present one, I just address another disturbing involvement of mmanwu in postcolonial hybrid signification.
In an essay, I had dwelt on interference Igbo as a worrisome character of new Igboness – the speaking of Igbo with interference from other languages, especially English. Consider the following annoying usages:
(i) O na-ede article maka blog ya.
(ii) Mmanwu ahu na-asu eloquent English ma o kwuru n’ogbo.
(iii) Kedu onodu Ndiigbo in a country a na-emegbu ha emegbu?
If you look closely, you could see that the speaker in each case indirectly presents the speaking self as usu the bat that is neither a bird of the air nor a four-footed beast on the ground. Usu will always be neither here nor there! The late Igbo highlife musician, Oliver de Coque, referred to the emerging interference Igbo as “Ingligbo.” Another highlife musician, Bright Chimezie, also satirized the practice. In each, interference Igbo is portrayed not only as a diminishing competence (what contrastive linguists call “oblivescence”) but also as a descent from balanced bilingualism to incipient bilingualism. Those who mix English and some other local language may be doing so out of poor competence in translation of ideas from one language (which may be English or a local one) to another. In other words, they run into a hitch in the translation process and so try to make up with the other. In all, the speaking of an indigenous language is seen as being in trouble. English is in competition with the indigenous language over the soul of the speaker!
It is in this context of postcolonial competition and domination that one is surprised to find the masked spirit also speaking interference Igbo! So we also have linguistic imperialism in the land of the spirits from where the masked spirit has come? So the Anglicisation of the world, a linguistic globalization is also taking place? So the ancestral spirits also contaminate their Igbo speech?
I am aware that there have been abuses, like criminals entering the mmanwu regalia and maltreating targets or extorting money from them. We see these in some Nollywood films and take them as mere fiction. As they say in a modern Igbo proverb, Ndi mekaniiki ekweghizi mara ndi bu ndi ara (“Auto engineers would not, with their stained, sometimes ragged clothes, let us know who the true mad people are”). Fake masked dancers would not let us know the actual masked ancestral spirits. But times have changed and masking populations are getting wiser. They now know that a masked spirit was a police officer in a changing society, but could now be the criminal that carries a pistol. They know that, in the past, masked ancestral spirits could impartially adjudicate a case, as that between the erratic Uzowulu and his wife portrayed in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. But when things have fallen apart, why would a fake masked spirit not extort money and be harassed by a citizen who feels cheated? There is a lot of upside-down in postcolonial life, and so frisking and arresting a masked spirit, as in the following clip, should not surprise us:
1. Masquerade being held hostage by a citizen. Credit: Anonymous.
It is in this shocking context of a clearly an ongoing abuse of culture, even by practitioners, that one is reflecting about the bad water that has flowed into the open mouth of the ancestral spirit and he now speaks interference Igbo, as in the following clip:
2. Masquerade speaking Ingligbo.Credit: Anonymous.
Listen to the masquerade. Did you hear him use such English words in his speech as “hundred,” “occult,” etc? I know that the sign, the linguistic sign, as Volosinov once said, is a site of struggle, and that the linguistic expression of the masked spirit has always been this site. Now, if the struggle begins early, very early, at the level of selection of language, one should not be surprised. Such a selection is always already political and is also is a signifying act.
What this means now is that we have the “new” masquerade, not Chief Zebrudaya’s, but a “new” postcolonial masquerade semiotically distinguished by his double-toned nature. That masked dancer has emerged, not from an ant-hole but from the in-betweenness of cultures, could wear jeans pants, and if care is not taken, may soon relax in one corner of the ilo with a bottle of beer (and even making a call with a cellphone)!
Obododimma Oha
I have always been excited with the speeches of the mmanwu the masked spirit, especially the Nne Mmuo (Mother Spirit), whose performance and entertainment is in the power of words. Is it the drizzle of proverbs or the thunderstorm of riddles? Nne mmuo moves around the ilo majestically, waving the staff of authority, the movement also being the movement of powerful language. The okoro mmuo (youthful masked spirit) may be known for iti aba (saluting Mother Earth loudly) with a thud of the flung head, the akakpo (midget spirit) enviously chasing of spectators here and there, causing injuries and flying temper. Ikpo Nsi Agba Akwara (the heap of shit that does not sprout roots), one akakpo in our community was annoyingly nicknamed. Call him Ikpo Nsi Agba Akwara and be ready to run; in fact, to fly, for he will chase you even to the land of the spirits! Honestly, it is the sign that is the real site of the performance of a masked spirit. Initiates who are initiates should know this, but I am going to address that in another essay. In the present one, I just address another disturbing involvement of mmanwu in postcolonial hybrid signification.
In an essay, I had dwelt on interference Igbo as a worrisome character of new Igboness – the speaking of Igbo with interference from other languages, especially English. Consider the following annoying usages:
(i) O na-ede article maka blog ya.
(ii) Mmanwu ahu na-asu eloquent English ma o kwuru n’ogbo.
(iii) Kedu onodu Ndiigbo in a country a na-emegbu ha emegbu?
If you look closely, you could see that the speaker in each case indirectly presents the speaking self as usu the bat that is neither a bird of the air nor a four-footed beast on the ground. Usu will always be neither here nor there! The late Igbo highlife musician, Oliver de Coque, referred to the emerging interference Igbo as “Ingligbo.” Another highlife musician, Bright Chimezie, also satirized the practice. In each, interference Igbo is portrayed not only as a diminishing competence (what contrastive linguists call “oblivescence”) but also as a descent from balanced bilingualism to incipient bilingualism. Those who mix English and some other local language may be doing so out of poor competence in translation of ideas from one language (which may be English or a local one) to another. In other words, they run into a hitch in the translation process and so try to make up with the other. In all, the speaking of an indigenous language is seen as being in trouble. English is in competition with the indigenous language over the soul of the speaker!
It is in this context of postcolonial competition and domination that one is surprised to find the masked spirit also speaking interference Igbo! So we also have linguistic imperialism in the land of the spirits from where the masked spirit has come? So the Anglicisation of the world, a linguistic globalization is also taking place? So the ancestral spirits also contaminate their Igbo speech?
I am aware that there have been abuses, like criminals entering the mmanwu regalia and maltreating targets or extorting money from them. We see these in some Nollywood films and take them as mere fiction. As they say in a modern Igbo proverb, Ndi mekaniiki ekweghizi mara ndi bu ndi ara (“Auto engineers would not, with their stained, sometimes ragged clothes, let us know who the true mad people are”). Fake masked dancers would not let us know the actual masked ancestral spirits. But times have changed and masking populations are getting wiser. They now know that a masked spirit was a police officer in a changing society, but could now be the criminal that carries a pistol. They know that, in the past, masked ancestral spirits could impartially adjudicate a case, as that between the erratic Uzowulu and his wife portrayed in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. But when things have fallen apart, why would a fake masked spirit not extort money and be harassed by a citizen who feels cheated? There is a lot of upside-down in postcolonial life, and so frisking and arresting a masked spirit, as in the following clip, should not surprise us:
1. Masquerade being held hostage by a citizen. Credit: Anonymous.
It is in this shocking context of a clearly an ongoing abuse of culture, even by practitioners, that one is reflecting about the bad water that has flowed into the open mouth of the ancestral spirit and he now speaks interference Igbo, as in the following clip:
2. Masquerade speaking Ingligbo.Credit: Anonymous.
Listen to the masquerade. Did you hear him use such English words in his speech as “hundred,” “occult,” etc? I know that the sign, the linguistic sign, as Volosinov once said, is a site of struggle, and that the linguistic expression of the masked spirit has always been this site. Now, if the struggle begins early, very early, at the level of selection of language, one should not be surprised. Such a selection is always already political and is also is a signifying act.
What this means now is that we have the “new” masquerade, not Chief Zebrudaya’s, but a “new” postcolonial masquerade semiotically distinguished by his double-toned nature. That masked dancer has emerged, not from an ant-hole but from the in-betweenness of cultures, could wear jeans pants, and if care is not taken, may soon relax in one corner of the ilo with a bottle of beer (and even making a call with a cellphone)!
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