By
Obododimma
Oha
Many people think of
the Igbo society as being predominantly patriarchal, but not many people stop
to think of the simple things that women in that society do as a way of talking
back, challenging and even trying to upturn the system to their favour. Indeed,
when a system is polarized and to the disadvantage of one group, it has already
laid the foundation for subversion. Where else would such subversion be easily
staged than in the names we bear, personal names that say things? Women’s
praise names are even more appropriate candidates for this because: (1) they
have been suggested by their bearers as preferred names, (2) they are used
regularly in hailing them, (3) they make the bearers feel good (i.e. they
cognitively serve the bearers as well as what they truly represent by massaging
their egos in public hearing).
Was it not the
Russian radical thinker, Volosinov, who once pointed out that the sign is a
site, a location, an environment, a setting, for struggle? Which will do this
better than names, praise names through which our interactions and/or what we
stand for wrestle with one another? Women’s praise names in Igbo culture carry on this struggle by trying to accomplish any or all of the
following:
(1) Responding
to other praise names that their fellow women or men bear;
(2) Interrogating
the actions or status of men that could be to their disfavor;
(3) Telling
the philosophies or goals they pursue in life;
(4) Narrating
aspects of their heroism in culture, especially marriage; and
(5) Networking
with fellow women, maybe in the same age group, by taking on names (a way of
boasting about presence).
Praise names that
women bear may also be given by other people who are just friends or observers
and with time, they stick to the addressee or get adopted. Such mainly has to
do with what the women are good in, their trade, like Osu ogiri (Producer of the soup sweetner, ogiri), Aka mebere akara uto
(The hands that made the sweet beans snack, akara), etc. Given or chosen by
self, the woman’s praise name elevates her, instead of diminishing her. It helps
her to achieve at least one of the following:
(1) It
gives her the impression that other people appreciate her efforts or her inclination;
(2) It
makes her want to bring out her best, to perform exceptionally well;
(3) It
makes her feel accomplished that she can contribute something indeed; that she
is not worthless; and
(4) She
understands herself, represented by the ideal of the praise name, as being able
to compete with her peers (ideologically).
The notion that only
men massage their egos through the bearing of praise names, especially when
they have taken titles, is wrong. That women bear praise names, even if they
have not taken titles, should make an observer of social life pause and think
about what they might really be doing through those names not given to them by
their parents. Yes, they are the very authors of these names. It is good and
heartening when one is responsible for the name one bears! Further, praising
women through the names (ideals) they endorse could be one important way of
including them as people who have not merely accompanied the male into life on
earth.
Another thing is that,
even though I suggested above that givenness
may constitute a headache, these praise names may be discarded and other ones
taken somewhere along the line. A bearer may discard the name when she discovers
a disadvantage or other dark side in it. It may be what porous side others may
perceive in it and criticize it. It may connect to true parentage. It may even
be a “corruption” through the activities of another bearer! If you also bear a
similar praise name and you have been known to do a bad thing, I could, out of
personal worry, discard my own! Maybe you have been caught in an extra-marital
sex! Who knows, people might think I am the one being referred to since I bear
the same praise (condemnatory!) name! The wisest thing is to steer clear of you
and your labels!
But what is even more
crucial is that women talk back to patriarchal culture and male domination
through these names. Let me start from a nearer note, and perhaps suggest where
one started studying this phenomenon. As a child, I used to hear people hail my
maternal grandmother, who was a well-known griot
in our town, as Agbirigba Tugburu Ebule
(The small stickling to the hair on the body of the ram which eventually
overpowered and destroyed the ram). Oh, it is a big task to get translation
equivalents for non-Igbo people to appreciate the original expression!). The
name is even longish, which suggests the reach of amplification.
My grandmother used
to be greatly excited, ready to do her best in whatever she laid hands on,
whenever she was addressed in such a way. The addresser knew her “real” name,
which was also adulatory, but it was given by her parents! Grandmother (I am
not praising her because I am her fruit) was an exceptionally gifted and a
no-nonsense woman. She was industrious and other women only came to borrow from
her (in which she had to counsel them on how to get or keep their own).
Grandmother would even go to the extent of uprooting a pepper seeding from her
own obubo (homestead garden) and
going to transplant it in the obubo of
another woman who has come the second time to borrow pepper from her! She even
had to be hired by other families to prepare dishes for them, even though she
was not a caterer. There was even this obvious hyperbole that she could boil
only water and it would be sweet! Now, you understand the kind of big shoes
that one stepped into!
What gave grandmother
the name (other people addressed her as such, until it became her praise name) was
that she was very industrious and could outshine any male in a society where it
was thought that having a daughter is a great disadvantage, and a male child an
advantage. Her husband died in an accident (fell from a tree where he went to
tap palm wine), but this tragedy did not weaken the family as such. It was as
if her husband was still alive! Simply this: the widow was tough and still held
the family together and firmly. She did not remarry or ask for any male to help
in the so-called “masculine tasks”.
We have seen an
example of a praise label by other people and its being a strong weapon in the
hands of a woman who would not want to be denigrated as a weakling. The second
example is a clear case of a woman (also a no-nonsense widow) taking a praise
name to register her unwillingness to give in to male control from outside the
home or to lose her late husband’s property to
any man who pretended to help her. She took the name, Onye mara Ihe O Ga-emeli (If one knows
what one can wrestle with, or If one realizes one’s true ability), but her
friends addressed her also in another praise name, A luwu Aku (No one destroys or kills an Aku woman in marriage).
Obviously, the former is a homage to her origin from a tough society). Onye Mara Ihe O Ga-emeli indeed conjures
fear: it seems to warn, “Do not mess with this woman! Or, try this woman at
your own risk!
Indeed, men kept off,
as her praise name warns. People sometimes try to take advantage of
disadvantaged women, like widows. But Onye
Mara Ihe O Ga-emeli clearly warns such people (men) to think twice before
trying their antics. The praise name for me stages this struggle against male
domination and opportunism, through a praise name which advertises feminine
disposition. Indeed, it it not just the name, but what the bearer truly does
and can do.
Onye
Mara Ihe O Ga-emeli is for me a clear staging of feminine
struggle at the site of the sign. The sign is vocalized: it is not a writing culture.
This vocalization makes it prominent and very powerful. When the bearer is
hailed at the stream or market place and the name resounds, go back and think
about it. Take it into consideration as you plan to deal with the bearer.
As someone interested
in the linguistic side of this business, I am attracted too to the structure of
the name, Onye Mara Iha O Ga-emeli.
Unlike Agbirigba Tugburu Ebule that is a nominal, it is
an If-clause, a conditional used as a complex word made up of other words. You are
required by this clause to complete the expression, based on your shared knowledge
as a member of the culture and somebody familiar with the ways of the bearer.
Was it not Fela who taught us how to deal with such incomplete complete
expressions in the classroom of his shrine when he said: “Who killed Dele Giwa?”
Felastic answer: “Baba (if you put “Ngida,
na you putam!”? So, we have inevitably come to share in the structuring and restructuring
of the name, bearer and hearer. The toughness of the bearer also coincides with
the complexity of the praise name. You chew it in expression and have a
foretaste of her toughness. I am aware that traditional Igbo names are that
sentential and longish but there is an interesting coincidence here.
Comments