Slowness in Igbo Thought

by

Obododimma Oha

Naturally, being slow in doing things or going slowly is deplored in human affiars. It is associated with such negative behaviours as habitual indolence, indecision, poor judgment, and incompetence. But slowness lauded is the one that is as a result of being thorough, calculating, and cautious. So, we can say right away that there is ambivalent treatment of slowness in the Igbo world.

What is particularly interesting is the way that slowness and fastness are configured in Igbo thought. These may suggest an analogy, for it is mainly the behaviours of animals known in reality for slowness and fastness that are used in framing ideas of these behaviours in human affairs. We find these figurative constructions in public discourses, in similes, metaphors, synecdoches, etc. Animals that are associated with slowness and which are used in talk about it are: ejula (the snail), mbe (the tortoise), esu (the milipede), and eke (the royal python).

Ejula the snail is biologically burdened to carry its shell around. Its shell is its primary abode, although we can say that it is part of "snailness." A snail without a shell is not known. it is only fiction and a monster in our world! So, a snail's shell is its identity card. It has been naturally created to have a shell and carry it around. Maybe Plato would have something to say about this in his theory of forms. But some of us associate the snail with ancient hybridity. It is a kind of strange creature, even a monster! Its strangeness is obvious: it has what many creatures do not have, even being between maleness and femaleness, being a hermaphrodite. The shell, too, may have other strange qualities. For instance, it has no claws but can dig the soil. It has no teeth but can bite and eat through hard things. It can even travel on risky surfaces. Is that not why the Igbo say in a proverb: Ire oma ka ejula ji aga n'ogwu (The snail travels through thorns with the sweet/polite/good tongue). The three options suggest other possibilities in translation of the proverb. It could be literalized (with some playfulness) as the "good" tongue, and connotatively as "politeness." The snail is a slow animal and its slowness, though natural, is also an advantage. Is it not one of the creatures that have taught humanity the science of sensors? In another Igbo proverb which says, "Ndidi ka ejula ji awa ala" (It is with patience that the snail digs the ground), we are directed to its ability to dig, even though it has no claws! So, you now know that the snail is an important character in Igbo folklore.

The sayings that refer us to the slowness of the snail are mainly those that deploy analogy, comparing someone's slowness to that of the snail. I think this is universal. Even in English, don't we have something like "snail-speed"? The speed is very slow in our reality, but in another, it may be great speed. We hardly think of the earth and the sun as moving, but, scientifically, their movements are noted. So, the slowness of the snail may be incredible speed in another world!

The slowness of the snail is often grouped with the slowness of mbe the tortoise. Biologically, these creatures are carrying excess luggage that could make them slow-moving, but the reality of their slowness provide some material for thought in Igbo culture, as elsewhere. The slowness of mbe the tortoise is linked to its being calculating and cunning. As a crafty animal, it has to weigh things, even if its is finally and ironically the victim. In many Igbo tales, it sometimes uses its slowness as convincing evidence to work out a trick. Some very fast animals also can take its slowness for granted and lose out, as when mbe enters a race with nkita the dog, or with ururu the hare. Sometimes the bad loser is the monkey or the stupid goat that can be fooled on the way with some juicy and tempting thing to eat. It would eat this and forget the race and would be overtaken by the slow that calculating me! No wonder slow and steady wins the race.

If they snail and the tortoise have to battle with excess luggage biologically, esu the millipede is also impeded by numerous "legs" it has to count as it puts them down. This unusual statistics makes it a slow animals. Anything that wrestles with a plural entity or identity is in great trouble. Esu wrestles with plurality and is understood as being clumsy and slow in the culture. That slowness is its encumbrance and victimhood. The Igbo would not want to be like the esu, vulnerable and slow kinetically.

Perhaps the champion of slowness in the culture is eke the royal python. Many Igbo people view it as the presence of one goddess  or the other and so cannot kill or eat it as a totem. To kill it meant to incur the wrath of the goddess. A typical case is the imprisonment of the snake in a box by Ezeulu's son who has become a Christian convert. That is seen as an alu or abomination in the culture. It is as if the python knows this reverent attitude to it and it adds to its royal slowness. But the truth is that it has come to see the environment as a non-hostile and threat-less one! It can, therefore, afford to be slow, lie about carelessly, and live casually without being molested.

Thus, it enters into Igbo thought as an icon of slowness informed by spoilt living. It is the one that takes its slowness for granted, not another animal. In fact, that slowness is also deployed in its feeding. It targets -- house mice -- that want to enter its lazy mouth can try it. It would show that animal that it can still bite and kill.

My late father used to counsel me: E mee ngwangwa, e melahu odachi (If we hasten up, we can escape tragic circumstances). That is true. But I have to add: E nwekwara ike ime ngwangwa, jekwuo ihe mberede (One can hasten up only to plunge into or meet tragedy). The idea of slowness in Igbo thought is clearly an understanding of kinetics of things. The culture understands movement comparatively, but limited to its reality. Slowness, as measured in and through the lives of these animals shows that we have depended much on observation, but need to observe more.

Now that the world is moving to faster life and faster ways of doing things (thanks to Information Technology for giving us the computer that can accomplish the task of many in a shorter time!), fastness seems to be more admirable. But speeds are relative to things and to worlds. One type of speed is not necessarily better than the other, except with reference to realities and the particular activities in question. In that case, judgment is again relative to realities involved. Interestingly, humans think that their idea of speed or movement is the norm. Maybe exposure to other realities would shatter that myth. It  is worse when animals are selected to gauge this idea of speed and we encode them in our discourses in measuring speeds. Currently the shift to abstractions like seconds and minutes and hours and days or weeks are just attempts to replace imagination with imagination. Even light years as very great distances, measuring distance as time!

Slowness  initiates thinking about things and their motion, from our perspective and from an analogical angle. Ancient Igbo were into this dark and confusing aspect of philosophy of  science. They were inviting us really to reason about motion beyond analogy encoded in our signification as humans.