A Conversation on Indigenous Knowledge

By

Obododimma Oha

Indigenous knowledge, simply understood as a type of insight which insiders possess and which has been working for them for a long time, reminds me about one thing: there are diverse forms of knowledge; in fact, can talk of “knowledges”. There are other cogent things, namely:

(1) these extant forms of knowledge, shaped by the different dimensions from which groups look at life, are players in the global village square, which I could follow someone like Ikhide to call, from Igbo lexicology, the “ilo;”

(2) the forms of knowledge present at the ilo enter into some relationship, and this leads them to compete for space or to collaborate;

(3) the forms of knowledge present at the ilo, as they compete or collaborate, suggest to me that I have to be careful in selecting which form would influence my life;

(4) In being careful in selecting forms of knowledge, I realize, too, that the ilo is a kind of classroom of life, and thus, it is foolish to model one’s life by anything one hears in that classroom;

(5) one thing is clear: as these forms of knowledge compete for dominance or collaborate, my  life skills developing is partly dependent on how I relate with them;

(6) quite inevitable are the agents of these forms of knowledge, and , along this line of thinking, it would be lopsided if I can only quote  Asian and European  thinkers and forget that my ancestors are also also thinkers worth citing once in a while; and

(7) along the line mentioned in (6) above is the indubitable fact that my parents are my first and memorable professors who have played a great role in helping me to understand life and what is happening at the ilo.

Let us look at these, very briefly. First, its naming here and there. It is popularly called “indigenous knowledge” or IK, for short. Indigenous because it is seen as being tied to that local context or does work there! But, of course, it may have been borrowed. When culture meets culture, they should be humble enough to hold a conversation. In that conversation, each should be willing to learn and gain from the other. Each of us brings something to the table. Now that I have lived in the heart of Yorubaland for many years and one of the subjects of Olubadan, am I to to tell my kinsfolk that I will retire and come back to them without some Yoruba culture with me? If I have somebody that I have interacted with, is there nothing that I have learned or used in consolidating my learning with from the person at all? If there is nothing, then the interaction is a waste of precious time! So, “indigenous knowledge” may be informed or energized  by knowledge from the outside. Chinua Achebe tells, in his Arrow of God, that each time the reverend father and Ezeulu met in the former’s obi and conversed, there was mutual respect, and although none succeeded in converting the other, each left a better person!

Further, we often think of conflict in this relationship of the inside and the outside. But it could also be complementary and cooperative. The conflicting, an attempt at being the only  one reigning, is just primitive. Indigenous knowledge should actually be multivoiced, indeed multidimensional. This does not mean that it does not speak to context and about context. It liberates context in that one basket of singularity!

Because I am face-to-face with diversity at the ilo, the village square of discourses, I have to be wary in not only seeking primitive homogeneity, but also in not thinking that the one from the outside is my only hope, my only future. It is important that I recognize the various “classrooms” available to me from the culture of my starting point, and pay due homage to my professors in the culture. Those “professors” do not have to wear the gown and the hood to be my teachers! In that case, it is regrettable if I miss any class or appear late while learning at their feet. They may not wield the cane, but I mus have lost something through my poor attitude to learning! That poor attitude, of course, first registers, in my preference, in thinking that, because, the professors have not donned the gown, the knowledge they dispense is worthless and the type dispensed at formal school preferable. No wonder my paternal grandfather in saying “Nkịta nyara akpa, nsị agwụ n’ọhịa” (When the dog hangs its bag, there would be no excrement left in the bush”) and thereby disallowing my father from attending formal school, was rightly worried. It is even getting worse: the hungry mad and wild dog now hangs its hunting bag and has cleared the bush of faeces! Don’t we like that? At least, there is less likelihood that we would step on exposed faeces if we are roaming the bush in our new pastoralism, following our cattle or goats about.

Let us get this very clear: as we quote thinkers from Asia to Europe and America or elsewhere in our writings, are we not displaying acceptable level of learnedness? Are we not lucky to contact these thinkers? But we should do well to cite our ancestors also, at least our parents who have encountered this life before we do. We should be fairly familiar with our local cultures and be able to cite them. Or are they not quotable?

Indeed, indigenous knowledge accuses me. And rightly, too. My knowledge, without it, is grossly incomplete.

Intersecting Roads

INTERSECTING ROADS

By

Obododimma


We meet
We meet to part
To continue
But we part
To meet again
Because we are part
Of the mysterious whole

We meet
To part
Only to meet
At the end of the tunnel.

Gate-keepers

By

Obododimma Oha

It should not be surprising that one takes interest in gate-keepers that we often find in films and plays. Gate-keepers could be very funny but nevertheless serious-minded. They could be awkward but clever, anyway. They could take all the blows, abused and battered, even by invaders. Gate-keepers are exposed in their small out-house and are subject to human and environmental relegation. They are ordinary folks and are required to mind their businesses, but could be useful to bigtime, big-house troubles.

I remember the gate-keeper in Shakespeare’’s Macbeth ironically suggesting to us that being at the gate after the king has been murdered in the big house inside is like being like the porter at hell’s gate. From him, we could see how sadness and joy are interwoven, and we try to laugh in-between our tears. That shows us that a gate-keeper is neither with joy or with sadness, and that these, flowing from happenings in the big house, affect gatelife significantly.

From porter of hellgate to film-show bashing of the gate-keeper, at least in Nollywood, we can understand the victimhood of the gate-keeper. The gate-keeper is uniformed, to mark his identity as anonymous (and is usually male, uniformed male!). The gate-keeper has to be costumed as anonymous, not just as male. Even that uniform needs to be funny. It should be pseudo-military; military but not quite! After all, the gate-keeper frisks visitors, but could be tied up easily by invading robbers and gun folks. So, that pseudo-military uniform is a fit; its wearer can only bark but not bite. Even if he holds a baton.

Let somebody from the big house desire to drive out; that “someone” would shout orders and the gate-keeper would tremble. Gate! And he acts accordingly. The gate has to fly open, or he buys the trouble. He won’t like it if the trouble is transferred to him. He won’t like it at all. So he opens wide the gate for trouble to pass!

Gate-keepers  get into trouble, sometimes due to what they have said that they should not have said. They get into trouble when they go beyond gatelife and enter the kitchen or living room. Their place and territory is at the gate, no more. But gate-keepers looking for trouble mess with the cook, the madam, the car, and sometimes the oga. In that case, they tend to forget their place and territory.

Oh foolishly wise people of the gate, when you morph to checkpoint hands, carrying guns and harassing travelers in the shithole, I shudder. Now that you will have your tollgates restored, is your lefthand collection not legitimized? It does not matter which thief wants to have a share of the loot or which thief wants to disadvantage which thief! Restore stealing points. That is the game. And the game is the foolish wisdom of gatelife.

When I see gate-keepers at checkpoints, I remember the Yoruba prankster god, Esu Elegba. He is settled and asked not to enter the main house. He stays at the gate, and when he is armed, I am sorry for those trying to pass his road-block! When Esu cocks his gun, somebody is finished.

It is risky to surrender the gate to Esu. Anybody that wants to pass and has to pass must submit to him. And to submit to him is unpredictable. Esu is the gate-keeper and anyone that wants to pass must see this security agent!

Intersecting Roads

INTERSECTING ROADS

By

Obododimma Oha

We meet
We meet to part
To continue
But we part
To meet again
Because we are part
Of the mysterious whole

We meet
To part
Only to meet
At the end of the tunnel.

Amansiology

By

Obododimma Oha

Some Christian gospel singers in Nigeria could get on your nerves by behaving like that wasp referred to as “ọmụ nwa onye ọzọ” (that which makes the other's child its own), taking over the songs previously composed by other singers, cutting them into bits, and creating their boring lyrics out of the lot. If you raise an objection, you are told that the song originally belonged to the same holy spirit which is now re-using it. Does that mean that the holy spirit is self-plagiarizing, cloning an earlier song because it has run out of ideas? Is this tendency to justify the unjustifiable not a typical character of those who can no longer tell their right from their left in a shithole?

But some Christian gospel singers in Nigeria can still make you sit up with experiments they perform in language. Some of them interestingly signify the importance that Christian evangelization attaches to language and Nigeria's linguistic hybridity by playing with words, inventing new ones, and rhetorically re-using English and indigenous Nigerian languages in a unique way.

Bro. Paul Chigbo is a notable Igbo Christian gospel singer. One thing unique about his gospel music is his use of Igbo proverbs! Another is that he is very critical of corrupt and false church leaders and pastors. But generally, he uses Igbo in his songs, often exhibiting tendencies of biliniguality, especially interference phenomena and coinage. It was from him that I learnt the word, “amansiology” and I am now blogging it out "amansiologically"!

“Amansiology,” a reflection of the linguistic hybridity hinted earlier, is morphological invention from the Igbo word, “amansi” (charm, mesmerism, magic) and the ancient Greek “logos” (word, sign), just the same way that words like “genealogy,” “biology,” audiology,” etc have been formed. “Amansi” is a sign or indication of superior presence some people may be looking for to solve their existential problems, instead of “miracles” or proper healing offered by the divine entity. Thus “amansiology” as a false performance of magic as miracle represents the in-betweenness and neither-here-nor-there of the spectacle and sheer superstition that Chigbo is criticizing. He is clearly marking the boundary between genuine Christianity occasioning miracles and the false Christianity masquerading a “show business” as a religion.

The word, itself amusing as it stands in between English and Igbo, is a form of the playfulness with English in the Outer Circle where Nigeria is classified. “Amansiology” is the linguistic form of humour found in Engligbo (Ingligbo) in which English and Igbo meet and mate, just like such funny inventions like “njakiriography,” “njakiriology,” “nwokeness,” etc. Although some would view Engligbo, the blending of English and Igbo as Igbo linguistic production, as being pernicious to the survival and growth of Igbo, its unique playfulness shows us that, in spite of the discomfort, there could be something worth exploring in cultural productions where English is in big trouble on the lips of people like Chigbo. Further, the playfulness is art engaging language and is interesting. Is English itself not being de-robed, its “amansiology” removed gently from the descendants of Oduche who have learnt to imprison the language in a box and not the royal python?

Health for Health

by

Obododimma Oha

That orange has been sold to Mama Precious who hawks fruits at the "go slow." The mango was sold last season, making it tough for school-children to invade to fill or to calm down their empty tummies after school. Please do not touch that pineapple! I will sell it in the market to be able to pay my contribution next month in the women's meeting. Also, that bunch of  banana will be cut down and forced to get ripe quickly. Eyes have been looking at it dangerously for too long! I will soon cut it down and hide it away. Mind you: it is not for your starter on your breakfast table or for your godforsaken dessert. Here we have learnt to desert your dessert for the soup-of-many-things and foo-foo is enough summary of the menu.

She would not eat the orange or mango or pineapple in her garden and would not go for a sound medical treatment in a good hospital. Her "doctor" is that illiterate vendor of drugs in the heart of the market. That fruit seller would rise when the sun is too hot, not minding that she has not taken any breakfast. She would walk across to the "doctor" and request: "Miksiere m ogwu" (Mix or combine some tablets for me).And the good "doctor" would, and advise: "Take this, twice daily. That one: three times daily after food. Avoid fried things and oil or fruits. Thank you." And she unwraps the money from the sale of the of the fruits and pay. After all, payment is payment: it is just about money leaving her hands, an exchange of health for health actually!

Last time that I was in our village, I did not try to touch the ripe and tempting avocado pear and pineapple. I knew what I would be told: "It has been sold." Who are you to ask why it has been sold?Are you the only new person in Jerusalem? Have you not heard about the miraculous resurrection? SOLD! They have been SOLD and the owner does not tolerate nonsense or allow any crazy kid to come playing near her shopping! To avoid trouble, avoid trouble.

Many of the homesteads are learning to sell things from the roots. It is called "ire n'osi" (roughly translated as "selling  a whole while it is still standing"). Very soon, somebody will come up with the innovative idea of selling it in the flowering stage or even selling the leaves. It is not poverty; it is the thinking; new practice, the new culture in cash cropping! Cash crops have to live up to the name and bring in cash, hard cash!

I have said it not just poverty; not even attributable to poverty, unless it is the poverty of the the mind. One has to be poor mentally to be able to exchange health for unreliable health. Health for health, I said. What more being able to hand over one's life to "doctors" in the heart of the market. Miksiere m ogwu! Somebody must gain from somebody's loss. And loss is loss, including the expensive loss of human life!

Don't remind me of the fact that it was our adventurous ancestors that discovered that the mango and the pineapple and the pear could be eaten and that in spite of our modernity and education, we are yet to discover new fruits and vegetable that could be eaten. We are even forgetting and abandoning some of the real medicinal ones they found and are dying in the hospitals in large numbers!

Our tables need to be tabled for a discussion, too. Has it always been one course meal? One swallows the ball dipped in what is called "soup" and soon it is over! No starter, no dessert. You can even swallow your tongue. Why are this crude? Why are you unwilling to change for the better? Why is your table half empty? Why are you in this practice of ire n'osi and have ignored the fact that you deserve a life?

Exposing the Naming Practices of the Other as Ridiculous and Laughable

by

Obododimma Oha

Anyone who has ever critically watched some Western movies featuring Native Americans would notice an attempt at delivering the personal names of the latter in English translations. That is a clever (or not-too-clever) means of doing something to the other, using the other's personal name as the avenue. The so-called translation of the personal names is actually a literal rendering of what the names could be in English, the language of self. Further, this literalisation in the narrative is in the context of Western perspective that there is "nothing in a name"(that uninformed Shakespeare!) and that it is just a label. Western names now hardly mean anything or their bearers and givers hardly focus on their meanings. They just identify people or groups and pursuits; that's all!

The names that Native Americans give people may be reflections of their perceptions of reality and that perception is not static; it changes. It is thus sad and wrong to render the names as stable representations of a naive Native American naming. (Imagine that assumption that the ridiculous non-sophistication is observable in its naming practice!)  There is a sound reason for the giving of the descriptive or other type of name in a particular context. So, uprooting the names and presenting them through the lens of English is even a laughable practice of laughing at the other. Furthermore, is it really stylistically necessary to translate the Native American name? Why can't it be left untranslated in the narrative? And being let  "untranslated" is that an identity is not relocated and seen through the eyes of the other!

I am sure some have come across the literal translations of names of Native Americans such as "Standing Bear" and "Dances with the Wolves." These are just some common examples. Indeed, Native Americans, like many non-Western people attach meanings, values, philosophies, experiences, etc to personal names that they give or bear. That is NOT laughable. It does not mean that they are retarded in thinking that the sign and its meaning are natural and so  are terribly behind time! It is just one way they define roles of people through what they are called or try to direct them on some paths in the great narrative of culture. Personal names may even be changed, re-invented, re-structured, etc as a way of signifying preferences in their meanings and chosen directions. That is NOT laughable.

But motion pictures sometimes also try to get us to laugh in the process of entertaining us. It seems "appropriate" to select the Native Americans and their names for this act of laughing at the other. It is better we laugh at the other and may find the cause to do this by looking at the ways of the other which differ from our own. Native American naming or reality does not have to comply with Western naming and so is not a justifiable context for laughing at the other.

Perhaps comparable to this laughing at the other through names is the false narrative in the social media which says that the Chinese name their young by just taking them to the kitchen, pulling down utensils, and any sound they hear from the falling items is what they give the young one! In other words, the name is the sound of the falling object! Is that not an indication that the evocation of humour through our human creative imagination could be pernicious after all? It could be seen as a missile (launched through laughter, what the Igbo prefer to call "njakiri") against the other. And the other could hit back in another way!

What we prefer to call ourselves may be different from what others prefer to call us. The difference is politics. Crouching beneath the laughter are  sentiments bothering on denigration, anger, bitterness, funny perception of difference, etc.