African literature is any literary
work composed by an African having African experiences, elements, characters,
attitudes, and settings. Before the existence of literary works in tangible
form, there has been an existing form which is performed by word of mouth. In
other words, literature as well as African Literature now exists both in oral
and written forms.
However, Western critics tend to
deny the autonomy of the African literature. For them, African literature is an
appendage to the European literature since it exists in foreign languages like
the English Language, the French and the Portuguese. According to Chinweizu et al,
These critics usually ignore several
important facts (i) The African Novel (literature) is a hybrid out of the
African oral tradition and the imported literary forms of Europe……(2). The
African novel’s primary constituency is different from that of the European and
other regional novel…..(3) The colonial situation imposes a different set of
concerns and constraints upon the African novel…..
It
is therefore misleading to say that a literary work written by an African in a
foreign language does not qualify to be an African literature. Chinua Achebe
justifies this fact when he says that the English language (and other foreign
languages) is part of our colonial heritage but the writer should be able to
bend the language to conform to his African experiences (62).
Furthermore,
the African experiences are peculiar to the African continent and African
literary writers explore them to make up what is known as the African
literature. Such experiences can best be understood from what Onyemaechi
Udumukwu refers to as “shared African identity” (7). This shared identity
includes the political experiences, social experiences, cultural experiences
and the religious and moral belief system. For the sake of this research, only
the religious and moral belief system shall be considered here.
- The trigger point for African belief system is embedded in some reflective external questions such as: What is the meaning of life? What are the correct ways of relating to humans? Is there any relationship between humans and the supernatural elements? What is the nature of the world? and so on. They also seek explanations to the persistent evil and suffering and so they begin to put in place some beliefs to enable them live their lives pleasing their fellows and the supernatural elements.
Some
of these beliefs are:
·
The
belief on the one Supreme God: Most African societies believe that there is one
supreme God who has created the earth and also has complete control over the
universe. They see God as all-powerful, all-knowing and supporter of justice.
·
The
belief on the worship of gods and goddesses:
With the conception that the supreme God is too
powerful and distant from the earth, most African societies come to believe
that the supreme God has assigned different tasks to some smaller gods and
goddesses to take care of. For instance, some believe that the earth is a goddess
that is directly in connected with fertility and fecundity. The rivers,
streams, and lakes are believed to have some gods and goddesses in charge of
them. There is also the belief that every individual has a personal god ( or
chi as the Igbos call it) that is in charge of the person’s welfare from birth
to death. Most people build houses or shrines for their chi and also have
images carved of woods to represent them. Sometimes, they have bigger shrines
where the most powerful god of their land is served and worshiped.
·
The
belief on human mediators: While the gods and goddesses are supernatural
mediators, there are also human representatives, who are of uncommon birth.
These mediators can function as seers, priests, healers, rain makers, wise ones
and so on. The seers foresee the future, priests make sacrifices for atonement,
healers heal the sick ones, rain makers call the rain unusually and the wise
ones are like the community historians and custodians of the tradition from
generation to generation.
· The
belief on morality: All African societies believe that certain activities are
morally wrong while some others are morally right. The belief on morality is
dependent on social environment. That is to say, what is seen in a particular
society as wrong might be right in another. For the sake of inculcating
morality in the young generation, these societies have devised some oral means
of transmission through folktales, riddles, songs, proverbs, because they
believe that maintaining their moral standards attract more blessings from the
gods.
·
The
belief on the spirits of the ancestors: African belief embraces the worship of
the spirit of the dead relatives because they believe that these spirits are
able to provide protection against harm and misfortunes, provide children, and
provide rain for the crops. The good spirits of the ancestors are further
divided into the recent dead ancestors who remain active and are interested in
the lives of their living relatives for many years. They are believed to search
for blessings of the gods on their family members. The others are the spirits
of the long dead ancestors. The recently dead gradually withdraw from their
activities in their in the human world and become the long dead ancestors,
leaving the responsibilities for the recently dead ancestors at a particular
time. Because of the importance of the spirit of the ancestors, these African
societies teach great respect for the ancestors, make sacrifices and pour
libation to them. Also they create myths and oral histories to serve as
reminders to the whole community, of their ancestors’ heroic deeds.
·
The
belief on spiritual marriages between the supernatural beings and the humans:
to some African societies, some supernatural beings get married to humans in
the spirit world. Some of these supernatural
beings are so jealous that they hardly allow their human to become emotionally
attached to other humans in the physical world. Women who are married to the
supernatural male beings are believed to be created with such exceptional
beauty that is near perfection and thereby becoming appealing to male humans
who are tempted to marry them. While the men who are married to the female
spiritual beings are given much wealth and affluence in the physical world.
·
The
belief on abominable diseases like leprosy, impotence, tuberculosis, and
imbecility, which are believed to be the repercussions or punishments for
disobeying the ordinances of the supernatural beings.
·
Some
also believe in magic, witchcraft and sorcery, as a means of bringing
interactions between the natural world and that of the supernatural world.
Magicians, witches and sorcerers have skills top bring about this manipulation.
They also see visions and can manipulate dreams. Although today these skills
have been misused and abused.
·
There
is also the belief on fate, predestination and fore ordination. Every human is
believed to be created to achieve a certain purpose on earth either or bad and
nothing can avert it.
In a bid to preserve these
traditional beliefs, the African literary writer takes delight in producing
tangible literary works where they are explored and explained. In other words,
these supernatural elements, their activities and their worship by humans,
provide source materials for the literary writer. It is worthy to note that the
literary writer whose experiences are outside the African climate cannot produce
a literary text that can pass for an African literature. That is to say, to
produce an African literature, the literary writer must have the African
experiences and must have enjoyed those experiences even when they become
uncomfortable for him.
Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman dramatises the Yoruba perception of
the world around them and its relationship with the supernatural. To them, the
world is divided into two; the tangible world (Aye) and the spiritual
world(Orun). They believe that the tangible world is made up of humans and
other living things and their activities, while the spiritual world is where
their gods and their goddesses are. To them, any powerful king who dies transit
to the spiritual world to dwell as a deity and as their ancestor. For instance,
Sango, former king of Oyo is believed to be the lord thunder. These two worlds
(Aye and Orun) have two important deities who keep the gate. They are the Ifa
and the Esu. The belief is directly connected to their understanding of life
and death. According to this play, Soyinka tries to recreate the Yoruba belief
that when a king dies, his horseman will perform a suicidal ritual which is
essential to helping the chief’s spirit ascend to the spiritual world. If it is
not done, the chief’s spirit will wander the earth and bring harm to the
people. But when this ritual is interrupted in the play by a colonial officer,
Elesin’s (the horseman) son, Olunde commits the suicide in fulfillment of his
father’s intended objective in the uncompleted ritual. He has done this to
elevate the shame which his family will face afterwards. But Elesin sees his
son’s death as punishment from the gods for his failure to carry out his duties,
this drives him to also commit suicide.
Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine shows the Ikwerre belief on spiritual marriage and
divinations. The supernatural scenes in this novel are presented vividly and
thereby making strong impression about the truth of their existence. Amadioha their god is presumably
physically present at their shrine in form of a huge gray serpent. Also Ihuoma,
the central character is divined to be married to the sea god. This sea god has
the jealousy trait therefore; any man who comes close to Ihuoma either dies or
is maimed for life. This is the case of her husband Emenike, who dies of “lock
chest” and Madume, who is blinded by a spitting cobra after he harasses Ihuoma
at her plantain farm. Towards the end of the novel, Agwotulumbe the diviner
discovers this spiritual union and declares that Ihuoma can only be free to
marry again if a sacrifice is carried out to the sea god at midnight. But
before midnight, Ihuoma’s eldest son mistakenly shoots an arrow at Madume,
Ihuoma’s lover, and just after midnight, Emenike dies (216). This novel
presents Ihuoma as a dangerous woman who lures men to their death and who is
jealously guarded by her supernatural husband. Ironically, Ihuoma does not feel
like a daughter of the sea. She says: “these things are strange and almost
funny. I certainly don’t feel like the daughter of the sea. It is frightening,
in a way” (201). This simply points to a contradiction that she is not even
aware of the said marriage.
Flora Nwapa’s Efuru presents to us another female character whose life revolves
round the desires of the water goddess, Uhamiri. Efuru is a woman who loves her
tradition and succumbs to it to the fullest.she has been chosen to be a
worshipper of Uhamiri. She sees the goddess in her dreams and finds it
pleasurable to look at her beauty. Efuru in her dreams notices that the Woman
of the Lake (as Uhamiri is called) is rich but does not have children. This can
explain why Efuru is given wealth in place of many children. Towards the end of
the novel, Efuru is happy being a free woman and she feels fulfilled as a
devotee to the Woman of the Lake.
Also Asare Konadu’s A Woman in her Prime reveals the
Ghanaian belief on predestination. Pokuwaa, the heroine of the novel is made to
undergo all sorts of rituals and sacrifices to Tano, their god out of her
desire to have a child. Yet, the child never comes until a certain period of
her life, when she has decided to end the rituals. This is to say that Tano has
already decided that Pokuwaa will not conceive until the predestined time
reaches.
J. P. Clark’s Abiku provides also a vivid picture of the African belief on
reincarnation. This means that when an abiku
child is born, the baby dies and repeats this cycle for as much as it wants. But
when some sacrifices are made, it either ceases dying or it remains dead without
coming back to its mother again. While the Yorubas call this kind of baby an abiku while the Igbos call it Ogbanje. The mission of such children is
to bring sorrow and sufferings to their mothers.
African
writers who are completely rooted in their traditional belief system find it
interesting to utilize their belief system creatively in their literary works.
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