--Shrines and Shrine MastersChief Dr. D. O. Ebengho and the Inscrutable Wonder of his Cosmological Shrine
Part 2Iroko Trees as Cosmological Coordinates
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge
AbstractUsing verbal text and pictures and videos taken by myself in early November 2022, this essay explores the referential range, variety of forms, technical accomplishment, aesthetic and spiritual significance and cosmological implications of the shrine art of Chief Dr. D. O. Ebengho, represented by shrines to diverse deities in his shrine complex at 2nd Cemetery Road, Benin-City, examining it as an achievement of global proportions, its power evident even without understanding the theological context of his art, appreciation amplified by sensitivity to his distinctive development of expressive rhythms within the artistic and religious traditions in which he works.
I frame the art in terms of an interpretation of Chinyere Okafor's concept of inscrutable wonder, in relation to Immanuel Kant on the Sublime, Rudolph Otto on the numinous, Rowland Abiodun on the Youba concept àṣẹ and Bruce Onobrakpeya on magic emerging from the creative integration of material forms, ideas unifying the fascinating and the mysterious, ideationally catalytic and yet cognitively inexhaustible, the compelling and the ultimately impenetrable, my impressions of Ebengho's art.Part 1 of this essay is ''Shrines and Shrine Masters: Chief Dr. D. O. Ebengho and the Inscrutable Wonder of his Cosmological Shrine : Part 1''.
The essay is part of a series describing my exploration of the aesthetic, philosophical and spiritual significance of vegetative spaces in Benin-City and Ile-Ife in visits to those cities running from 5th October 2022 to 9th November 2022, and thus also presents images from findings on sacred trees and groves in Benin, suggesting aspects of the environmental and theological framework of Ebengho's work.
The essay continues from ''Ọkha, Ikhinmwin and Iroko: Intersections Between Beliefs in the Spirituality of Trees and in Witchcraft in Benin Thought: Realities, Questions, Prospects'', parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 where I first present my observations of Ebengho's shrine in part 3. It also builds upon my very brief photo essays on the priest/artist and his shrine on Facebook, ''Seeking the Sacred in Benin-City: Shrines and Shrine Masters: Chief Dr D O Ebengho and the Mammy Water Section of his Richly Complex and Intricately Harmonious Shrine, a Powerful Artistic Assemblage Developed Over a Lifetime'', ''Mystic Trees in Benin-City: Iroko and the Powers of the Night'' and the Facebook photo and video album ''Magnificent Shrine and Fellowship of Chief Ebengho in Benin-City''.
The list of contents of the essay evolves into greater detail as the essay progresses through understanding gained in the process of composition.
Contents
Part 1Cover image: Collage of Chief Dr. D.O. Ebengho and Examples of his Installation and Ephemeral Ritual ArtAbstractGuidanceQuestionsImages: Collage of Some Sacred Trees and Groves in Benin-CityAspirationsDiscoveryImage and Text: Entrance to Chief Ebengho's Shrine Complex, the Three Wise Ones and Ogun ShrinePart 2The Shrine
Ebengho's Shrine as a Cosmological Structure
Exterior
Iroko Trees as Cosmological Coordinates
Visual Presences
Image: Iroko Tree for Relating with Osanodoze in Front of Ebengho's Shrine
Image: Iroko Tree at the Back of the Shrine for Calling Upon the Powers of the Night
Between Totality and Immediacy
Between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm
Journeying Across Being and Becoming
Part 3
Eshu as Cosmological Mediator in the Ifa System of Knowledge and Divination
The Human Being as Spiritual and Cosmological Nexus
Ifa Divination
Ifa as Cosmological Integrator and Multi-Expressive System
Internal Networks in Ifa Divination
Initiations into Companionship with DeitiesOdu Ifa as Spirits, Sentient Agents, Represented by Symbols
Reverberations Through the Unity of Beauty and Meaning
The ShrineEbengho's Shrine as a Cosmological Structure
Ebengho's shrine may be understood in terms of a cosmological structure, even though he did not describe it explicitly to me in that way. This understanding is reinforced by his depiction of the relationship of his spiritual practice to the ultimate reality and transcendental, superordinate moral values embodied by Osanodoze, a Benin name for the creator and sustainer of the universe. Such an account could suggest the integration of the scope of the deities his shrine represents and of his spiritual practices within the embrace of the cosmological unity of the creator and sustainer of the cosmos.The possibility of interpreting Ebengho's shrine in terms of a cosmographic system is also strengthened by the correlation of the shrine with Ifa cosmology by Chief Obaseki, to whom Ebengho introduced me to help respond to my questions, Obaseki being a better English speaker than himself, in contrast to the Benin language in which they are both proficient while I am not, being limited to English in communicating with them.
Obaseki describes Ebengho as a babalawo, an adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa, a system of interpretation of reality centred in divination and grounded in Yoruba cosmology, but also used in Benin. Obaseki sees Ebengho's shrine as expressing the cosmology of Ifa, a perspective interpretable in terms of the unification of Yoruba and Benin cosmologies the shrine demonstrates, an exemplar of Benin cosmology as the convergence of both thought systems, a cosmology that includes deities it shares with Yoruba thought and those it does not share with it, as well as its own larger structure of ideas making up the facets of the cosmologies and philosophies developed in Benin.
ExteriorIroko Trees as Cosmological Coordinates
At the front and at the back of Ebengho's shrine are iroko trees, the iroko being the tree best known for association with spiritual powers and spiritual activity in Benin and Yoruba cultures. The tree in front of the shrine, he states, is for relating with Osanodoze, while that at the back is for supplication to the Powers of the Night, a confederation of people with unusual powers, associated particularly with the night, that being perhaps when they are most active.Visual PresencesIroko Tree for Relating with Osanodoze in Front of Ebengho's Shrine
The appearance of each tree, dramatizing the forms of ritual associated with each, projects sharply contrastive images, suggesting diverse kinds of spiritual power. The foot of the tree in front of the shrine, for calling upon Osanodoze, is rich with unopened bottles of sweet drinks, beceause Osanodoze does not accept alcoholic drinks, as Ebengho says. The shrine installation constituted by the tree and its sacrificial items projects an impression of fulfilling bounty, a sense of delightful amplitude reinforced by the location of the tree in the front of the shrine, in full view of any on the street facing the compound, an exoteric presence evoking those positives explicit to all as people's generally understood sense of consummate value.
Iroko Tree at the Back of the Shrine for Calling Upon the Powers of the Night
The iroko tree at the back of the shrine, on the other hand, is partly covered in the dramatic colours of a cloth divided into two parts of sharp white and stark red, the central symbolic colour binary in Benin culture, evident in such surfaces as clothing and architecture. The dramatic force of this colour juxtaposition is amplified by the brilliant red of blood running on the white of the cloth, the blood of animal sacrifices, contrasting with the more benign ritual context and consequent appearance of the iroko tree in front of the shrine, used in entreating the attention of Osanodoze, the creator of the universe.
The more dramatic presence of the tree employed for supplicating the Powers of the Night, contrasting with the milder character of the iroko in front of the shrine, dedicated to engagement with the creator of the cosmos, thereby demonstrates a stronger visual presence generated by the starkly contrastive primary colours of the cloth with which the tree is covered, colours highlighted by the red of blood vividly colouring the pure white of the cloth in stark contrast.
Between Totality and Immediacy
The richer animation of character of this tree may perhaps suggest a greater immediacy of action in relation to the vicissitudes of human existence represented by the Powers of the Night, in contrast to the cosmic breadth of the identity and activity of Osanodoze, the creator of the universe.
Demonstrating the immediacies of human life, in contrast with, though subsumed by the overarching plenitude of Osanodoze, are the sometimes puzzling realities dramatized by suffering, striving, the gap between aspiration and fulfillment, those issues beyond human control or human predictive capacity, yearnings and perplexities in relation to which the human being has called upon a vast network of unseen powers across time and space to help close the gap between desire and fulfillment, expectation and reality, provide succor in pain, guidance in uncertainty, an orientation pictured by the matrix of spiritual powers dramatized by Ebengho's shrine, from non-human deities to the continuum between the non-human and the human, the human embodiment of spiritual power characterized as the Powers of the Night, the latter being figures possibly identical with the Benin notion of ''azen,'' translated into English as ''witches'', enigmatic forces inspiring wariness and hope, correlative with both creation and destruction.
The raw realities of existence, the tension between pain and fulfillment, the cry of the slaughtered animal and the smile of the human being whose fortunes the sacrifice of the animal is meant to enable, a paradoxical convergence coming together in the enigmatic potencies represented by the Powers of the Night the iroko tree and its animal sacrifices are meant to call upon and satisfy, dramatize symmetries of discordance, evoking the agonizing tensions of existence, in which life and death, in their various forms, exist in a symbiotic unity.
These are possibilities which may be seen as suggested by the visual potency of this tree, hidden from public view at the back of the shrine as befits an agent of converse with powers perceived as existing in the shadows of reality, powers, which, for most, are more speculative than encountered, more rumored than confirmed, inspiring circumspection rather than the bold embrace enjoyed by belief in the creator of the universe evoked by the uncomplicated emblems of fulfillment represented by the sweet drinks of the iroko at the front of the shrine, dramatizing the wellspring of existence to which many aspire as the summation of life's possibilities.
Ebengho's shrine, therefore, is fronted by a projection of ultimate possibility, an iroko tree dedicated to the creator and sustainer of the cosmos, a tree complemented by the one at the back, expressing the dynamism of the Powers of the Night, occult potencies vital for the raveling and unravelling of the details of life's challenges and opportunities.
Between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm
Both trees, in the symbolism of their locations, in relation to the different but complementary uses to which they are put, may therefore suggest Ebengho's shrine as a microcosm of cosmic, terrestrial and human possibilities.
The iroko in front, in its dedication to supplication of the creator of the universe, may symbolize the generation of the multitudinous possibilities constituting the cosmos, possibilities dramatized by the individualities and synergistic unity represented by the various deities served by the meticulously constructed shrines constituting Ebengho's multi-roomed shrine complex, a wonderful assemblage most powerful in its visual force and aesthetic power, its union of selectivity of materials and arcane presence, an artistic installation of global quality, on a nondescript location in Benin-City, Second Cemetery Road, off Ehaekpen Street.
Journeying Across Being and Becoming
Both trees may be imaginatively conjoined in evoking ideas of origination, manifestation and multiplicity, of diversity and consummation, suggesting a journey from the cosmic origins evoked by the tree associated with Osanodoze, in front of the shrine, through the diversity and ultimate unity of the various deities evoked by the shrine complex, to the convergence of human capability and spiritual power dramatized by the conception of the Powers of the Night embodied by the tree at the back of the shrine.
Such a progression suggests the potential of the shrine as a pilgrimage site, a place one may traverse physically or imaginatively. Each location in the complex, from the tree at the front of the shrine, to the empty performance and ritual space leading to the shrines in the shrine house, to the tree at the back of the shrine and the creative cacophony of shrine construction materials and shrine/s there, may thus be seen as an opportunity for reflection on the significance of that spot, evoking a journey of being and becoming at macrocosmic and microcosmic levels, in terms of cosmic emergence and progression and human and personal birth and development within this larger matrix.
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