Ife arts: Enriching world heritage

Oba Okunade Sijuwade, the Ooni of Ife.

Culture enthusiast and Public Relations Officer of the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, Jumoke Adeniji-Soji, highlights the contributions of Ife arts to world culture and heritage in this article.

THE Yoruba-speaking people of Nigeria and indeed those in the Diaspora regard Ile-Ife as their cradle and the Ooni (King of Ife), as their spiritual head. This is why Ile-Ife is referred to as the place of origin of life itself and of human civilisation. Geographically, the Yorubas occupy between latitude 6.0o and 9.0o North of the equator and longitude 2.40o and 6.0o East of the Greenwich Meridian. They are found in Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Kwara, Kogi and Edo states, including parts of Benin Republic and Togo.

The Yorubas are known as one of the largest and most profilic art producing groups in Africa, and Yoruba art and culture are among the oldest continuous traditions in sub-saharan Africa, which have been studied, published and admired than any other of the world over. Ile-Ife remains the origin of the Yorubas because the Ooni belongs to a dynasty that is probably one of the oldest in the world. This dynasty has ruled continuously since the 19th century. As early as A.D.1100, when no craftman in the West knew how to cast a life-size bronze, Susan Vogel wrote that Ife shows a remarkable mastery of bronze and iron-casting techniques. Ife also developed an exquisitely refined and highly naturalistic sculptural works in terracotta and stone. The stonework at Ife is often associated or combined with ironworks, and is linked with Ife’s early iron-working culture.

One of the most superb pieces of early stonework in Ife is the Opa Oranmiyan, the staff of Oranmiyan, the mystic son of Ogun and Oduduwa and founder of the dynasties of Benin and Oyo. Oranmiyan staff, carved out of granite, stands over 18 feet and is studded with iron nails in a fork-like fashion. The conical shape of the staff at the tip is in line with the conical forms associated with heads in terracotta works which Ife is noted for. Ife created terracotta ritual objects of extra-ordinary artistic qaulity.

Ife terracotta ( burnt clay) which dated from 1000 to 1200 marked an era in elaborately decorated pavements in shards and refined idealised naturalism in clay works. A terracotta found at Ife and adjudged one of the most remarkable was a statue depicting the head and shoulders of a dead person wearing a small simian skull around the neck. It is a marvelous work of art dating between 13th and 14th century. This striking work and others found in Ife tell us more about Ife arts and culture in the 11th to 14th centuries. In the terracotta head, the skull pendant, grimacing face, gaping mouth and tongue goes with the theme of sacrifice, disease, death and life which are central to most works of arts in Ife.

Dr. Omotoso Eluyemi, in 1978, uncovered an elaborately decorated 14th Century terracotta vessel from Aroye Compound near Ife palace. On it was an image of a head with a horn and tongue protruding from a gaping mouth. Encircling the vessel were 16 rosettes with mica mirrors in their centres. The ingenuity of the makers of Ife works of arts brings to fore the Yoruba tradition that women, not men, work clay to make pots and vessels for ritual and general purposes. This, in essence, suggests that women created Ife terracottas. It then seemed likely that men did the stone works based on the same conviction of traditional belief that men are good sculptors of stones and metals.

In metal casting, the women worked in conjunction with the men to make clay cores over which wax would have been modeled to create the cast. It is remarkable that in Ife arts, both men and women combined to produce works of excellent quality. The sense of cooperation between the two sexes is highly responsible for the creation of works in terracotta and stone that are Ile-Ife masterpiece today.

A theatre pie for children

Members of the Local Organizing Committee of
the forthcoming 26th international convention of
the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA),
holding in Owerri, Imo State, between November
1 through 4, 2007, during their inauguration recently.

A review of Pamela Udoka’s The Rejected Blessing by Olayiwola Adeniji

IF there is any aspect of Nigerian literature that has not had a fair deal, it is Children’s literature. It is the most ignored and this is in spite of efforts by groups like the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), the Pan Africa Writers Association (PAWA) and recently, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) through the institution of literary prizes to promote excellence in this area.

But why is this so? The contention of many is that writers take Children’s writing for granted. They assume it is the simplest form of writing. What is it about anyway? Is it not just telling tales to children that would end with a moral lesson? Aren’t we all products of the African storytelling tradition? They ask. And this is where the error comes from.

Children’s literature is as serious an enterprise as any other form of art. It has its own peculiar demands; the chief of which is the ability to penetrate into the world of the child- that is the primary target/audience. Many writers pretend to write for children but from an adult perspective. Any wonder therefore, that the children find it difficult relating to these works?

What this implies is that there is still so much to be done in this area. Therefore, any new effort in that direction ought to be properly acknowledged. This is for me, is the import of Pamela Udoka’s The Rejected Blessing, a play directed at children published by the Lagos-based Ara Studios. What Udoka has done in this book is a conscious attempt at building the knowledge base of the children especially as regards certain aspects of our culture. From the surface of it, it is about the obnoxious killing of twins in some Nigerian cultures but a more critical reading reveals not just an interrogation of an obnoxious cultural practice but that in spite of our differences we are all guided by a common morality that is anchored on respect for human dignity.

It is a taboo for a woman to be delivered of twins in Arochukwu. Both mother and children are simply condemned to the evil forest if not sentenced to death. The only exception is if the midwives are ‘kind’ enough to kill one of the twins before it comes to the knowledge of the community. Unfortunately, what appears the greatest taboo happens in the palace of the highly revered Eze. After many years of childlessness, his youngest wife is delivered of a set of twins. But being the defender of the people’s cultural heritage, the Eze does not delay in condemning both mother and her twins to the evil forest where they are expected to die a shameful death.

Though they soon lose their mother, the twins survive the abandonment and hardship of the evil forest and soon develop a bond with the animals in the forest. They live what is for them a normal life. But the gods are not yet done with the Eze and the people of Arochukwu. Soon, the Eze falls ill and it is such a strange ailment that defies all forms of medications. For the King to get well, the gods decree that they would need a set of twins. This looks a mission impossible for the people of Arochukwu because the village does not allow the twins to live. The only way out is to go to neighbouring or friendly communities to find out if they have twins that would help save the life of their king.

The search for a cure for the Eze provides a turning point. Mazi Okore and Mazi Azuma, the two emissaries traverse many towns and villages in different parts of the country and are in the process, exposed to different cultures and worldviews. While there are those who like the people of Arochukwu kill twins, others like the people of the South West revere and even worship them. Everywhere they go, they get very little or no help. But what appears a solution comes from a proclamation by an Edo priestess who tells them that the solution to their plight can only be found ‘from within’.

She tells them: “Go back to your land. There are twins there who will help you.” But how can this be when no twins are expected to survive in Arochukwu? Isn’t this reading like another story of a virgin birth? Drama thrives on suspense and the unexpected and this is what the audience/reader is treated to in The Rejected Blessing. Help comes for both the King and the people of Arochukwu from an unexpected quarter. While they worry and are almost at the point of giving up, Dinta, the hunter, comes out to say that he can link them to a set of twins and not just any set but the King’s own daughters. No one believes him until he produces Nneoma and Nneka whom he had convinced on the need for them to forgive their father and community that attempted to kill them.

Father and daughters are re-united in the most unexpected circumstance. And this of course is the climax of the play. The King is cured and predictably, he bans the obnoxious practice of killing twins and goes a step further to begin a campaign for nature conservation and the protection of animals. What used to be the evil forest turns out a tourist haven where people are taught the importance of nature conservation. And so, this is where the play derives its title. Twins that were seen as a taboo were the ones that saved the King and the evil forest that was there abode assumed a new significance. The course of history is changed and the community is never the same again.

Though a play is best realized when put on stage, there is no denying the fact that The Rejected Blessing even in cold text shows great theatrical potential. It is well illustrated and the language is simply enough for children to identify with. What more, the playwright handles well all the ingredients of a good play at both aesthetic and cognitive levels. It is a play which not only interrogates obnoxious cultural practices but also ensures that the art does not suffer.

She deploys carefully the quest or journey motif which Paolo Friera in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed says is a veritable instrument in the transition from acritical to critical consciousness. By moving across the nation in search of a cure for their King, Mazi Okore and Mazi Azuma bring back knowledge that rescues not only the King but the community. If they had stayed back no one would have known that it is evil to kill fellow human beings or that the environment ought to be protected. Like the hunters in Wale Ogunyemi’s Langbodo, the boon here is the new knowledge that hopefully would restore the humanity of the community.

Also worthy of mention is Udoka’s use of the storytelling technique with its advantage of immediacy and spontaneity. Children of different ages will sure enjoy being a part of the literary adventure that The Rejected Blessing is. The book is readable, enlightening and engaging. It may be a bit premature to announce the arrival of Udoka the playwright but then, this maiden outing shows great promise. She has boldly come out to say, ‘let the dialogue begin’. It is now left for the critical establishment to respond.