Finally, I am able to make this post. Several days ago, I sent an e-mail to the webmaster asking for help in posting this image. When I did not get a quick reply, I became worried that BNW was becoming like Ohaneze, reluctant to act. Yesterda, I sent another copy of the image and a request for explanations for the delay. I got back the link to the image below, which was the image I sent to the webmaster.
So, what is my point?
Just take a look at the two numbers (459.1 and 512) on the bottom right corner of the image. I have been informed that every month, the number on the left (459.1) goes down instead of up, and the percentage in brackets (89%) goes down instead of up. But, the number in the middle (512) stays the same.
Where are the physicists in this forum? Is that not a clear violation of the laws of conservation of mass and charge? Or are there some more earthly explanations for that phenomenon? Where is Dr. B or the other theoretical physicists at BNW? May be Dr. B can get some of those Igbo "Internetuals" to explain the curious phenomenon.
[ February 05, 2003, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: Nwokeoma ]
Posts: 199 | Registered: Mar 2001
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512MB is the allotted free space by yahoogroups to the yahooligans forums, and that stay static. 459.1 represent the total megabytes that have been used and, 89% is just the percentage of 459.1 from 512.
The 459.1 goes down when some messages are deleted or archived away from the yahoogroups allotted free space, (The moderator of each forum on yahoogroups is responsible for this) and this automatically brings down the %. If this is not done, all messages will bounce back to the senders when the 512MB has been fully used.
I think you may be under the impression that the owners and people who write in the Igbo forum are interested in protecting the archive. If you are not mistaken, then physics is in serious trouble. But, if you are correct that the goal is to preserve the archive, then Opon Ifa and bababoyz are off-point, as usual.
Posts: 94 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jun 2001
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Warning! Your group has exceeded its message storage limits of 512 MB by 0.0 MB. If you don't remove messages, older messages will be deleted to make room for new ones.
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Using 512.0 of 512 MB (100%)Posts: 479 | From: The Universe | Registered: Jul 2001
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When you get to IgboNet, don't forget to check out the Ahiajoku Lecture Series site. I saw that full text versions of the Ahiajoku lectures are being made available there. If your Igbo is getting rusty, check out Igbo Language Center as well.
___________________ No Biafran will be permitted to play Mother Theresa to the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani, but play Osama Bin Laden to the Igbo or Biafrans! Posts: 1182 | Registered: Mar 2001
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It's good to hear from you. I'm still combing the Ahiajoku Lecture series and not yet through digesting it. I will make my comments as soon as time permits. So far, it's the stuff of life, the real life and a work of great literature. A masterpiece!
I passed the Igbo lamguage lectures to my daughter so she could learn just like me. You are right, my Igbo is getting rusty by the day. But how do you teach an old dog new tricks, though?
Posts: 479 | From: The Universe | Registered: Jul 2001
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___________________ No Biafran will be permitted to play Mother Theresa to the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani, but play Osama Bin Laden to the Igbo or Biafrans! Posts: 1182 | Registered: Mar 2001
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You know I'm goofy when it comes to performing the iwa oji rituals which always gets me into trouble. Recently I popped up in a gathering and was picked on, which they always do, to perform the acts of our cultural heritage in breaking and sharing of the kola nuts before the ocassion could proceed. I goofed and could only say oji eze no eze na aka, and that was it, which got people cracking up. When it comes to that, count me out because I'm a cultural riot.
Are you familiar with those rituals? I also learned oji means ogbako jikotara Igbo. Is that true?
I also do know that oji awusa is tasteless and has no value.
That was funny. You may have been right though to say "Oji eze no/di eze n'aka" depending on what the context was.
Different Igbo groups perform the rites with different twists as I have heard, but the basic approach remains the same.
In Aro-Ndizuogu, The host hands the tray of Oji and Oso/Ose-oji to his prominent guest. This is when the oji begins its walk, and its walk must be completed properly no matter how complex or simple the guest composition is.
The main thrust is that all guests must individually acknowledge the arrival of the oji by momentarily placing their palm above the tray and passing it down in order of priority from the Eldest village to the least and while in each village, in order of priority from the eldest to the youngest from wich point it goes gack to the hands of the prominent guest to whom it was first handed.
That prominent guest then offers it back in deferrence to the host saying "Oji eze no/di eze n'aka" The host then assures that the Oji belongs to the guests and welcomes them to please accept it. At this point, the prominent guest then scopes the scene to determine the Oldest member of the visiting party to whom he deffers to pray over and bless the Oji (I go Oji)
After the blessing is rendered, the kola is then handed to the youngest man from the youngest village to break it along longitudinal lines only and share it in a clockwise direction starting usually from the head table or where host and prominent guest are congregated (this last sharing part is usually not as strict especially after the host and prominent guests have taken)
The part that can sometimes get tricky or even engender some wicked chiding is if an older village is bypassed by mistake or design, but the process usually makes for cheerful interaction and getting to know ones bearing within the greater community.
So I think I fully understand your predicament when the oji is handed to you as a test.
Like you said the Lecture series is indeed a masterpiece. I have not seen a more coherently combined thesis of historical, religious philosophical, social, moral and visionary analysis so comprehensively put together regarding our place as Igbo in the world picture.
___________________ YA CAIN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN :) Posts: 1182 | From: TEXAS | Registered: Oct 2001
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I have often suspected that those old folks make up those rules as they go along, and the Ọjị akpa incident I will narrate below did not help matters. Moreover, what with trying to reconcile "Ọjị Eze nụ n'aka eze," when our ultimate maxim is Igbo enwe eze? It seems that we always had ezes, but they often only emerge at the most convenient time.
Notwithstanding the sentiments in those fine essays, Nd’Igbo are very creative when it comes to overcoming the Igbo enwe eze impediment to one’s preferred order of precedence. I was at a function a few weeks ago, and the host brought out some Ọjị. One of the Igbo dudes there looked around and took one of the freshest looking ones in the lot. He put it in his pocket and said it was Ọjị akpa. I suspected that there was something wrong, but I was going to leave it to others to demur.
They did so quite stridently. One of the fellows in the house refused to even look at the plate until the missing Ọjị was returned. If the Ọjị akpa? man was really following a settled tradition, how come he was the only one in the house who agreed that he was entitled to the Ọjị akpa? He eventually returned the Ọjị to the plate. Poor guy! Maybe he is an Igbo eze, but no one knew it.
Before you fail another Ọjị test, you may want to consider taking part in conversational Igbo at http://ilc.igbonet.com/forums .
___________________ No Biafran will be permitted to play Mother Theresa to the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani, but play Osama Bin Laden to the Igbo or Biafrans! Posts: 1182 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Does anyone know Mobolaji Aluko's e-mail address? He needs to join that Igbo language Forum and take those Igbo Language classes at the Igbo language Center so he would stop butchering the Language on the web. Posts: 397 | Registered: May 2001
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Thus, unless there was some kind of error, "all persons who wish to learn the Igbo Language or who wish to participate in the dissemination of useful information about the Igbo Language" should be able to join the Igbo Language Forum.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Your breaking of kola nut problem just got worse. It seems that they can't make up their mind about who, the oldest or the youngest person, should break the kola thingy. Read this,
Did you notice that the author is an ordained minister? Wait till I write my own treatise on the Kola-nut. LOL!
___________________ No Biafran will be permitted to play Mother Theresa to the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani, but play Osama Bin Laden to the Igbo or Biafrans! Posts: 1182 | Registered: Mar 2001
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How are you? It's good to read from you after a while.
Methink the iwa oji stuff (breaking of cola nuts) is now a confused tradition when they get ordained ministers into interferring with a very unique cultural heritage. It is really absurd when you think about the origin of people and cultures. It's just like a Rabbi presenting his rabbinic homily or giving out Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church.
Somehow I still wonder if we are really original to keep up with a tradition begun and left behind by our ancestors. If an ordained minister should be allowed to offer blessings and breaking of the Kolanut, it should be equally okay for the ordained minister to worship agwuisi and make sacrifices as well to Udumotali or Chukwu Obiamuma, the gods of our ancestors.
But check this out though: you have to be a chief in your enclave wherever it may be, ordained by a magomago and wuruwuru nze in order to be eligible to break the kolanuts; and you must be recognized in those ridiculous Islamic-Jihad looking flowing gowns.
Now you know why I am goofy when it comes to the iwa oji rituals, so-called, as bastardized by modernity.
My question here is, why can't we be consistent with what we do?
posted
Save for the occasional mention during an iwa oji event, of the name of a lesser god (perhaps, to some, more appropriately known as idols), methinks the actual practice could really be considered a form of prayer of some sort. Funny as this might appear, I do not feel any personal conflicts or clash of interests, as a Christian, when I listen to kola nut-breaking ceremonies.
But then again, I might not have been opportune to witness a ‘proper’ event-- for upon my word, I’d declare that I do not find anything egregiously distasteful with a few words said to remember dead ancestral fathers, nor with invoking the Supreme God (Chi ukwu=Chukwu) to bless abundantly the party that is participating in this rich cultural prayer.
Maybe passing the kola nut back and forth, or making some markings on the floor or wall, or perhaps, the practice in some parts of tossing a portion of the kola nut outside the gathered area for the consumption of the deities might appear burdensome, time-consuming and perhaps a bit too obsolescent, BUT I would dare to posit that if in this modern age, some of these questionable/unsavory elements of a kola nut-breaking ceremony were subtly pushed to the backburner, one might indeed begin to see that a very beautiful prayer was being made—replete, in its execution, in some instances, with rich genealogical/historical reminders, that forcibly reminds one of the ancient Jewish practices of chronicling in no light a manner, their long-departed forbears!
Times are changing and we must change with the changing times. Rather than lose this practice altogether, who says they (sundry customs and beliefs) can’t be brought to a level that it tags along in this slow but sure march towards a growing scientific/science-backed global reality?
I am no proponent of “Statism”, because if we choose to be rigid as pertains some of these practices, we will invariably be faced at some time with the glaring truth that the only constant thing on this realm is CHANGE! You cannot gather hot coals into your bosom and expect not be burnt...
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