Orita

By

Obododimma Oha

The word, “orita,” is loaned from Yoruba. I don’t know why I am taking this loan now, even when my own first language, Igbo, has an equivalent, “aba”. Is it because the Yoruba are my landlords and landladies? Is it because I am directly the subject of Olubadan and need to pay him a linguistic homage first or is it because right as I am writing this piece, my country is considering taking another huge loan from China? Or is it because I live and work in Ibadan and if I do not suggest my liking for Yoruba, I may lose my tenancy! Or is  it a kind of compensation, for my Yoruba is still poor and is not spoken around me at home? I just like the word “orita” and like seeing those orisha fighting as they are gulping down sacrifices at orita. There are also many orita in Ibadan: Orita UI, Oritameji, Oritamarun, Oritamerin,  Oritamefa....ad infinitum. There are as many orita as are many roads that meet to deposite sacrifices and pass on.

As a poor student of the language, I could say that morphologically, I could see”ori” in “orita,” the “ta” is just like any other incidental attachment and is not a bother. The word “ori” is like it, referring to “head” and “fortune,” too. Is “orita” not a meeting of heads and of fortunes? When mortality meets another mortality or, more seriously, when mortality meets immortality, won’t there be a serious drama? A painful, serious drama?

In orita, lives meet and branch off. Lives touch lives and move on. Each life has its distant destination and we should not bother to find out. Lives meeting lives create connectedness, a network. All rivers empty into one reservoir.

Orita is only a meeting point, a node. Orita shows  that there are multiple beginnings of beginnings that appear to be endpoints. Ask an orita to point to directions sought but make sure you understand orita. It is waiting for you to seek and you will find. It has spread out multiple fingers because it is multiple.

So, orita is a fascination. It is the beginning of the a beginning with others. So, do not stand at an orita and just stare. Some roads are approaching! At most, think, and follow a road.

One thing that I like particularly about orita is that it continues and requires us to do so after meeting. A meeting that is the final stopping point stagnates. Orita says “continue” for the end is only the beginning.

Some orita narrate our critical moments. Some ask us to move beyond critical moments and see the other road coming. There is always another road coming. So, settling down and being relaxed with existing roads could be fatal. I like it when we see orita and critical moments in personal and collective lives.

Some orita challenge us to rethink our ideas of completeness. They finger towards incompleteness.

Above all, that orita near you is pointing out that roads that meet do not have to be forced to do so. It is also not right not to allow them to continue, to stop them. It could be disastrous to stop an orita from narrating continuity. It could be dangerous, for that person doing the stopping is provoking Esu to terrible anger.

Let orita tell every meeting road to continue to an unseen destination. Telling orita how to narrate a meeting of roads is not even a superhuman function; it is a stupid and arrogant disposition. Let orita remain orita and narrate its meetings.

You can see why I have left my first language to loan this concept. We still have that concept alive in Yoruba discourse and I believe my loan sits well. Perhaps the loan will enter my Igbo dictionary with time, just as some Nigerian words have got resident visas to Oxford English and some Nigerians are celebrating.

 It is not a monetary loan from China. It is philosophy near my homestead. It is not a noisy politics. So, welcome, loan word. I hereby domesticate you and make you a legitimate neighbour of “aba” in Igbo.