By
Obododimma
Oha
I thought spirits were more clever and intelligent and
no smartness of mortal beings could reveal their vulnerability. But
Igbo folklore, especially indigenous management of illness, says that that is
not correct. That indigenous knowledge understands spirits that are supposed to
inhabit another reality as being subject to carelessness, stupidity,
shallow-mindedness, greed, and lust.In Greek mythology, don’t we see Zeus
descend from his Olympic heights to befriend and have babies with the daughters
of men? Lecherous Zeus! Even his wife at Olympus would learn of his loose
sexuality and infidelity and start raving. But Zeus would be undeterred and go
ahead even to protect and claim the illegitimate children. Was it not how some
illegitimate children that resulted from that infidelity got divine protection and favour? Even the wife of Zeus
had to equalize in this infamous return match of befriending mortals. Virgin
birth. Yes; that was one way it all started!
In that light, indigenous Igbo people may not be
entirely wrong in representing the divine as also being fickle-minded, not just righteous and upright. In thinking that human thinking may be superior to that of
spirits, humans in their representations try to humanize the latter; that is, give
them human attributes, re-create them in human image and likeness, so that they
could be as foolish and as stupid as we could be sometimes. One aspect of
indigenous Igbo folklore where this could be seen is the management of illness.
It should be noted that indigenous Igbo idea of illness is that every ailment
has psychological, physical, and spiritual causes. In that case, a headache is
not only a physical thing or the aching of somebody’s head. It could also be
from one spirit that he or she has annoyed and it could affect his or her reasoning.
That means that the person's harmony has been disrupted, and restoring the person
to full health means restoring the harmony or balance. It is for Ifa or Afa to
confirm with its final diagnosis and which must be urgently attended to.
In trying to restore spiritual harmony and pacify an
angry spirit, the spirit may be deceived with sacrifice, told that the target
is dead, or the target may be removed and kept private at a faraway place!
Being deceived with sacrificial meal (what that spirit
likes much and cannot resist) is laughable but shows how greedy that spirit
could be. Imagine falling to deception because of food. That spirit must have
taken its stomach as the most important thing. Such a spirit is not a good
weapon of war. Does it not remind us about Gideon taking his men to drink from
a pool and some drank like cows without looking up, being finally discarded?
It is not admirable to fall because of the stomach!
And look at feigning the death of a target, telling a
whole spirit that the target is dead, that he or she should now give up. The
spirit must be brainless and hardly thinks! In indigenous Igbo nomenclature,
that spirit would be called “agụ otu obi”(single track-minded tiger). Agụ otu
obi in the spirit would agree naively that the target is dead and that there is
no need to continue! I thought that spirits should be able to scan our world
and see more than we do.
Taking the target away from the “battle-field” is also
another technique of deception that could “unspiritualize” a spirit, totally
downgrading such a spirit and welcoming him or her to our wretched world. So, a
spirit could be so unspiritual and not scan contexts in our realm to see the
frightened target where he or she may be hiding? It is, indeed, in this kind of
loss of spiritual power that the spirit can begin to attend nightclubs and
drink several bottles of beer.
If humans can deceive spirits, why are spirits still
spirits? Such spirits that fall to human art of deception are inferior to
humans. They should just contest elections in Nigeria and move into Aso Rock.
They may not register their candidacy with INEC. Their entry into the State
House is assured.
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