“The Gods of Our Land”: A Nollywood Common Expression

By

Obododimma Oha

A common expression one hears in many Nollywood films focusing on indigenous Nigerian life is “The gods of our land.” One does not need to be an expert in African Traditional Religions to understand that this sounds like a local self-enslavement to the supernatural, or a kind of fatalism in which the divinities have the final say. In this case, human beings just leave their affairs in the hands of the supernatural, but we know as viewers that it is humans who eventually take the decisions on behalf of the unseen entities. If it is banishment pronounced by the “king” against a widow accused of witchcraft, or an abomination pronounced by the chief priest, it is all in the service of “the gods of our land,” or it is “the gods of our land” who have “spoken.” The innocent widow has to be banished, chased out of the community, by a rabble that cannot think on their own. So, in this essay, I briefly look at how humans mortgage their interests with their expression or acts attributed to unseen divinities. What does this imply for human society in its relationship with the supernatural? I consider the interpretation of human actions as the action of the supernatural and how this makes the society susceptible to tyranny.

The expression, “the gods of our land,” first of all points to a triadic relationship: humans relate with humans, but they are not alone. As in many African situations, the world of humanity is seen as being intertwined with that of the supernatural which is populated by gods, goddesses, as well as other divinities. As I pointed out in another blog essay, the supernatural that are privatized or attached to the community are means of constructing identity and may even be weaponized. The primary role they play is to protect the community (since they belong to it) against another. But we know that when they fail in this role, they could be replaced. Chief priests as spiritual merchants may recommend and install other deities as being more responsive and powerful. Do you blame the local people? The deities are not just there to consume sacrifices but cannot make one community win a war against another. They have to transform into shells, fighters and bombers and even light weapons. They have to fight the enemy at the spiritual battlefield.

This then means that a deity could be transplanted, and as such, there is really no indigenous deity, no “gods of our land.” The postmodifier, “of our land” is just because their conscription or new identity for the moment. “Gods of our land” could become “gods of their land” and it is always “them versus us.” That is to say that the divinities have a social identity that is tentative. Communities that insist on permanent social identities for deities are disadvantaged.

The expression also makes community logic very prominent. In that relationship I talked about earlier, they are privileged, in the sense that they are the final arbiters. The members of the community must defer to them in everything. But there is a contradiction! Whether through the Afa divination (Ifa in Yoruba) or through the mouth of the king, the pronouncement deploys the human to be actualized. That is, it is the human that decides, deploys their logic, in deciding a case!

This has serious consequences!

First, consequences for the deities: errors or right actions could be attributed to them.

Second, humans could very easily smuggle in their own sentiments and claim that  such are the wills of the deities. Don’t tell me that they cannot do this! They can and sometimes do. They can smuggle those in so to feature human wickedness as divine action, since they know that naïve members of the community would swallow every spittle that is labelled as the gods’.  

The second above creates room for tyranny. People already enslaved to the supernatural can easily be mentally manipulated and deceived. They can easily do anything that they are told, since the directive is supposedly from “gods of our land.” In that line of thinking, they can submit to the worst form of leadership in the world, in the name of doing the wills of “the gods of our land.”

Now, the expression also represents the fatalistic logic of the community as one source of the community’s problem.  The community cannot possibly develop beyond its fatalistic logic. The logic is its norm. The logic is its future. Really, it has no future. If it has a future, it means it has to change its system of thinking – and, inevitably, “the gods of our land.”

Anytime I hear “the gods of our land” while watching a Nollywood film, one of the things that come to my mind is that the film is in a genre of traditionalism in which the bad could be the good. Although not all films in the genre surrender human logic to culture, it is often the case that the arbiters are above our heads and we are invited not to bring our logic with us. The “gods of our land” will have the final say, even if they are pursuing injustice. That may be part of the war they are conscripted to fight!

Many may be enjoying the film (as superstition can be so commodified), but I am worried that populations are exposed to a dangerous ideology: they are made to believe that they can suspend their own logic as community members in discourse, and depend rather on a ready-made thinking that may be against their interest really. That imposition, too, may come from “the gods of their land.”

Village-square Wisdoms and Facebook Pugilisms.

By

Obododimma Oha

I like sharing Igbo proverbs on Facebook  and one of the challenges I face in doing so is to negotiate audience beyond those who can read and understand the language. Of Course, I mostly use standard Igbo, but even if my primary intention is celebrate Igboness or Igbo thought in language. I am aware of the fact that not many of the present speakers of the language can read it. Readership of a language like Igbo is still very low, some quarreling with the variety of Igbo used or the orthography. Well, the most important thing is that I have to get many people (Igbo or non-Igbo) to celebrate the proverb. And in getting many to appreciate the sharing, I find the need to translate it into English, which remains dominant on the Internet. Perhaps in widening the audience (hopefully) through English, I also get many non-Igbo to appreciate Igbo thought in proverbs! Other things I am able to achieve are:

(a)   Commenters provide variants of the proverb in their own languages or cultures, further assisting my learning of other languages, dialects, and cultures.

(b)   Commenters make observations on the translation of the proverb and may offer better translations.

(c)    I inadvertently mount a Focus Group Discussion, actually coming close to the idea of the use of Facebook as a context of research.

I know that Facebook is many things to many of its users.

(a)   It may be understood as a playground. As a playground, it may have bullies. Some may like to bully others through useless argument or argument for argument-sake, even when they have realised the sound points that others are making. They may just wrestle with the other, for the sake of displaying their intelligence (which amounts to their idiocy!).

The bullying could be in various forms. They may bully the other through tortuous reasoning. In this case, they are merely taking the other in a Tom-and-Jerry race round the house, breaking things and breaking relationship networks.

They may choose to bully the other through language, especially professional variety that isolates the other, or makes the other a stranger to the new world of knowing. It may be a profession that likes sprinkling latinisms on the English text. OK, you are using English but you can’t understand me. You won’t understand me. Learnedness requires an initiation through language. You are an outsider, therefore a non-knower. A non initiate. It may even be post-structuralist language. You are simply alienated again, even in the periphery of peripheries. There is a difference between those who have mastered this language and those who are tied to porous peripheral expression. It is English but not the same English, my friend!

Well, the bully can bruise your nose because it is hide-and-speak, even if the person armed with an android and is online is a mere beggar, literally. But the bully can bruise your image in many other ways: it may be just to undermine your fellowship of friends – make some begin to dislike you. You have been bruised. You have bought it cheaply! Yes, at the playground where a fight can be a play because the very teeth the dog uses in fighting are the ones it uses in playing. No other. It doesn’t go borrowing other harmless teeth!

So, be careful when you are on this playground. Maybe you shouldn’t be here and do not know how to be here. Maybe you still have your physical reality, your importance, all around you. Look, ilo Facebook, as Pa Ikhide calls it, does not recognise your “sir.” One reptile somewhere (or even a virus) can throw sand at you or into your eyes. This ilo Facebook could be a leveller. You get into problems when you want to bring your real-world conditions into this virtual ilo!

(b)   Of course, I have not forgotten that ilo Facebook could be and has been used by some as a marketplace. Sellers and buyers. Sellers of buyers. Buyers of sellers. But like any marketplace, you need to de-babelize; the buyers and the sellers have to understand the transaction fairly well.

(c)    It is in this comprehension of transaction that my proverb lore is smuggled in. Oh, smuggled in? It must be a contraband that Customs Service is sniffing around for along Lagos-Benin highway in Nigeria! And sometimes, it is seen as one. You have to see us and the road before your lorryload of proverbs can  pass!

 Generally, the sharing of proverbs to friends who could be from different cultures and languages could be seen as an infringement on their right or desire not to be imposed upon, what more when the proverb is understood as a symbol of identity or pride. You see, Facebook as part of social media helps advocacy. Political advocacy. Human rights advocacy. Language advocacy. Cultural advocacy. Religious advocacy. Et cetera. In this case, proverbs from a given language or culture may be shared to a group or friends as a way of advancing a common interest or a targeted interest. It is placed in our faces or gaze where we can see it! So, it easily becomes an imposition to those not interested!

(d)   Of course, as noted earlier, the ilo is also a context of research. I could turn my writing on proverb lore on Facebook into a survey, either asking a question directly and using the comments or supply a link to my survey instrument. To make it brief, while some are bullying and giving the other a red nose, I am carefully collecting my data.

But, let me return to the issue of sharing proverbs (created by the sharer or taken from a  culture). Is the sharing of a proverb or of any material not an argument? If it is specifically a proverb, I must have constructed or presented myself as a kind of revered knower. Indeed, every person is gifted with the ability to think, to produce thought that is considered profound. No proverb has come from Heaven; it is part of the software installed into the human head at creation. It is an evidence that we can think, and tied to our signifying system. Indeed, we share something with our Maker and should give it full attention. When I share proverbs, therefore, as part of the polyglossic nature of my medium, I am doing something with knowledge with people. I am presenting myself as a knower and inviting others to that deeper part of our signification.

When there is the credit and testimonial (maybe of cultural origin of the proverb), this presentation of the source as thinker is advertised. It is a group that is the author or it is used in building up the image of the group. This is not that bad, anyway. Did anyone prevent you from presenting that of your group, so that the local will forever have a presence in the global? Did anyone debar you from being able to read your own very language? Look at you asking for a translation! Into English! So that forever the imperialist can argue its relevance: “You see, I am the imperialist but the unifying factor!” United through deprivation. A Justification of colonisation! And by the way, your ancestors waited for the colonialist to look for an orthography and to start writing your local language for you!

So, I may be helping the linguistic other to understand the proverb that I have shared on Facebook, but I am not really helping the other. Maybe I am helping so that the grave would be deeper and more challenging. Maybe I am helping mental laziness through translation. Maybe I am fighting on the side of the colonizer without knowing it!

When next I share and translate Igbo proverbs on Facebook into English, think about that help that I must be giving you at the playground, whether it is not a red nose!