"Igwe" for the Igbo is the sky which is the world above the earth. The pre-Christianity Igbo had no notion of the limits of the sky. They was no "elu-igwe" (above the sky) for them. There was also no heaven for them so God (Chineke-God the creator) could not reside in heaven. He resided in the sky, in other words some where in the sky. The Igbo never claimed to know where in the sky.
With Christianity came the notion of heaven. The Igbo, having become converts, had to craft a word for heaven. After heaven was explained to them (Christ is said to have ascended into heaven), it was convenient to say "elu-igwe" for heaven. If God is what He is believed to be, he probably resides in a distant part of the sky, well above and away from the earth. This abode must be farther away from the earth than the sun which is also one of God's creation hence "elu-igwe".
oa
-----Original Message-----
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chidi Anthony Opara
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 7:43 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Before The Din Of Dawn
The Igbos believe that the sky, sun, moon, stars, rivers, etc are governed by chis(gods) who give accounts of their governance to Chi ukwu, shortened to Chukwu(big god). Igwe is sky, but Chukwu lives in elu igwe(above the sky, heaven). Anyanwu(sun) and onwa(moon) are Chukwu's main instruments of light, not his abode. Onu ngara is a stream in my hometown.
CAO.
On 29 Jan, 11:40, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A moving, mouth watering poem from Chidi.
>
> His work in both Nigerian Pidgin English and Standard English has
> clearly grown over the years.
>
> Chidi, could you please explain what onu ngara is?
>
> *Correlating Chukwu, Chi and the Sun *
>
> A clear correlation between Chukwu, Chi, the spirit self, and the sun
> is developed in
>
> Chinua Achebe's " Chi in Igbo Cosmology" in *Morning Yet on*
> *Creation Day *and *African Philosophy : An Anthology *by Emmanuel
> Chukwudi Eze
>
> and Ogonna Agu, *The Book of Dawn and Invocations : The Search for
> Philosophic Truth by an African
> Initiate<http://www.karnakhouse.co.uk/docs/catalog.html>
> . *
>
> Agu's analysis of relationships between Chukwu, the sun and the
> kolanut ritual is fantastic and empowers considerably Achebe's
> comparatively tentative but striking formulations.
>
> Agu presents the analysis in the introduction and develops a poetic
> sequence based on it in the chapter "Abu Chi Na Ubosi : Song of the
> Light of Dawn".
>
> Like the other poems in the book this chapter is written both in Igbo
> and in English.
>
> The concept of Chukwu dwelling in the sun may not necessarily be
> understood as Chukwu being localised to the sun. Various cosmologies
> understand a supreme deity in relation to the sun in an agentive and
> symbolic sense. In such contexts, the sun is a manifestation and
> symbol
> of that ultimate power, a particular concentration of that power.
> This sense of manifestation and focus may be understood in terms of
> "dwelling",
> perhaps, without presenting that ultimate potency purely in terms of
> localisation to the discrete but relatively centrally powerful
> phenomenon represented by the solar force.
>
> Very impressive presentations in correlating abstract ideas with
> natural forms while retaining a sensitivity to their abstract
> character include the superb analysis in Evans Pritchard's *Nuer
> Religion* on relationships between the abstraction and pervasiveness
> of the supreme being in relation to the manifestations of that being
> in nature and Sarah Allan's poetically analytical The Way of Power
> and Sprouts of Virtue
> <http://www.amazon.com/Sprouts-Virtue-Chinese-Philosophy-Culture/dp/07
> ...>on the imagery of water in classical Chinese thought.
>
> *Variety and Scope in Orally Developed and Transmitted Belief Systems
> *
>
> A peculiar sensitivity and range of understanding is facilitated by
> exposure to a culture by living within it. The exposure to a
> civilisation achieved by living within it, however, does not
> necessarily imply that one is thereby adequately informed on the
> various manifestations represented by the scope of the belief systems
> that contribute to defining that culture.
>
> The only circumstance that can enable such breadth of knowledge is
> breadth of exposure to the various contexts that unfold the variety of
> possibilities realised in that belief system. This may emerge through
> the range of places one is present in at various times, the range of
> people and situations one interacts with in the process of living
> within that social system, through comprehensive field research or
> through studying the works of those who have engaged in such breadth
> of field research, or by correlating insights from a variety of
> sources anchored in field research, or studying a comprehensive
> breadth of recorded accounts from those who belong to those belief systems.
>
> It is tempting to think that the exposure one has garnered from
> belonging to belief systems that were largely oral or from the views
> of a few seemingly authoritative figures on those systems implies one
> has a synoptic grasp of that tradition.
>
> The more realistic picture seems to be that these oral traditions also
> demonstrate significant ideational scope and range of practice, along
> with significant interpretive variety. A variety demonstrated and
> enabled by its practitioners in the oral culture and by its
> transmission by both practitioners and other students within a written culture.
>
> These qualities of interpretive scope and variety also expand or
> shrink with time, as Jordan Fenton demonstrates in his PhD thesis on
> the South Eastern Nigerian Ekpe esoteric order and its Nsibidi
> semiotic system, *Take it to the Streets : Performing Ekpe/Mgbe Power
> in Contemporary Calabar, Nigeria*,
> <http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UFE0043998/00001> and as Babatunde Lawal seems to
> do with aspects of Yoruba Orisa cosmology and as Awo Falokun
> Fatumnbi ( George Wilson) suggests about the more esoteric and
> metaphysical aspects of the conception of the feminine in relation to
> ideas about the creative and destructive figures known as Awon Iya
> Wa, Our Mothers,
> within the context of the synoptic Orisa tradition sub-system known
> as Ifa.
>
> *An Emerging Critical Mass in Recent Developments in Classical Igbo
> Spirituality in a Global Context *
>
> A critical mass is developing in the study of classical Igbo religion,
> as evident by such recent initiatives as Karnark House
> <http://www.karnakhouse.co.uk/docs/enter.html> bringing out Ogonna
> Agu's *The Book of Dawn and Invocations* and the two volumes of
> Anenechukwu Umeh's *After God is Dibia : Igbo Cosmology, Divination
> and Sacred Science in Nigeria, *along with Umeh's translation of Igbo
> poetry* From Okponku
> Abu*<http://www.karnakhouse.co.uk/docs/catalog.html>
> *. *
> *
> *
> * *Umeh's Dibia volumes, as an account from within the initiatory
> practice of the Igbo divinatory and spiritual system Afa, provide a
> fine complement to Angulu Onwuejeogowu's more intellectual, more
> analytic but less grounded in personal experience classic *Afa
> Symbolism and Phenomenology in Nri Kingdom and Hegemony : An African
> Philosophy of Social
> Action<http://www.bookfinder.com/dir/i/AFA_Symbolism_and_Phenomenology
> _in_Nr...> . *This book might be difficult to buy since it was
> published in 1997 by Ethiope in Benin and Onwuejeogowu has gone to
> join the ancestors, but enthusiasts would do well to stretch
> themselves to obtain it because it is a classic work in divinatory
> studies as knowledge systems, addressing the imagistic, narrative,
> mythic, structural, performative, social and epistemic aspects of
> the system from the perspective of an outsider to the initiatory
> practice of Afa.
>
> A bridge between the outsider intellectual analysis and structuring of
> an Onwuejeogwu and the insider view of an Umeh is provided by the
> wonderful work of Patrick Iroegbu on Igbo medicine and divinatory
> systems, in his Introduction to Igbo
> Medicin<http://www.kwenu.com/publications/iroegbu/igbomed/frame.htm>e
> and other essays at Kwenu.com and Chat
> Afrik<http://www.chatafrik.com/articles/arts-and-culture/itemlist/user
> /151-...>,
> on the site Igbo Medicine and Culture,
> <http://www.igbomedicine.webs.com/> on his site set up for teaching,
> Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture (Igbo Med
> 101)<http://www.udemy.com/introduction-to-igbo-medicine-and-culture/>a
> nd on various other sites, all reachable by a Google search and his
> books Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria
> <http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Igbo-Medicine-Culture-Nigeria/dp/0
> ...>and Healing Insanity : A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary
> Nigeria<http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Insanity-Medicine-Contemporary-N
> igeria/...>
> .
>
> Other efforts include the remarkable achievement of Emmanuel
> Anizoba<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&fi
> eld-aut...>who has brought out about eight books, the striking
> website Odinani
> : The Sacred Arts and Sciences of the Igbo People : An Igbo Cyber
> Shrine<http://igbocybershrine.com/> and its Facebook
> twin<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odinani-The-Sacred-Arts-Sciences-o
> f-th...>, where the classic tradition is being examined and
> represented in modern terms and through images derived from
> non-African cultures, as represented by Marvel Comics superheroes, for
> example, thereby demonstrating a view of the conceptual elasticity and
> imaginative possibilities of the tradition, other pages on Facebook
> such as
> Odinani<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odinani/148667081811994?ref=ts&
> fref=ts>
> and Odinani Museum,
> Nri<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odinani-Museum-Nri/296857297070446?
> ref...>,
> and the site Introduction to Igbo
> Cosmology<http://www.udemy.com/introduction-to-igbo-cosmology/>which
> brings together essays on classical Igbo cosmology, some of them
> detailed academic papers.
>
> A number of academic papers on Igbo cosmology and practice being
> publicly accessible online, such as Chinyere Okafor's archive at
> Wichicta State
> University<http://soar.wichita.edu/handle/10057/1224/browse?value=Okaf
> or%2C+Chin...>, a volume of Uche : Journal of the Department of
> Philosophy, University of Nigeria,
> Nsukka<http://uchejournal.com/display.php?id=UCHE%20VOLUME%2014,%20DEC
> EMBER%...>,
> and the work of Victor Manfredi
> <http://people.bu.edu/manfredi/index.html>,
> such as "*Afa, the Nri-Igbo Counterpart of
> Ifa*<http://people.bu.edu/manfredi/IfaAfaNri.pdf>"
> it would be wonderful to bring them all together in one place.
>
> *Igbo Spirituality as a Node in a Web of Regional, Diaspora African
> and Global Affiliations *
>
> Manfredi's "*Afa, the Nri-Igbo Counterpart of
> Ifa*<http://people.bu.edu/manfredi/IfaAfaNri.pdf>
> "and Before *Wazobi**̩**a*; *Òminigbo**̩**n* and polyglot culture in
> medieval *9ja* <http://people.bu.edu/manfredi/BeforeWazobia.pdf>
> explore parallels between Yoruba, Edo and Igbo knowledge systems of
> Ifa (Yoruba) Afa (Igbo) and Ominigbon (Edo) in order to demonstrate
> these systems as divergences from a central knowledge system, a point
> evident from a basic study of their organisational structure and ...
>
> read more »
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