Your understanding of the relationship between nature and the supreme being in Igbo tradition may be described as one of separation and authority, in which the supreme being is separate from nature and dominates nature, with natural forces and their associated agencies as emissaries.
The various views I quoted see the supreme being as not separate from nature but as immanent in nature, with nature demonstrating divine will and dynamism.
Both views are possibilities in understanding reality.
I, for one, would see the view that privileges divine immanence as more realistic for the animistic cultures of which classical Igbo spirituality is an example, to the best of my knowledge.
I suspect that the notion of nature as primarily an agent of the supreme being who sits atop the created world in a commanding station is alien to animistic cosmology.
Drawing from my own practical experience of one such cosmology, that of Benin, I would state that the animistic world view is likely to have been significantly shaped by encounters with nature that embodied a sense of the divine as immanent in nature.
With due respect to you, bro, I think this old style of presenting traditions with a strong oral base should be dropped : "The Igbos believe..."
Who are these Igbo?
All Igbo people in their ancestral lands?
All Igbo people across the globe?
All Igbo believers in their classical religion?
Do these Igbo include Chinua Achebe, Ogonna Agu, Anenechukwu Umeh, Omenka Nwa-Ikenga who do not identify with the Chukwu vis a vis Nature division?
These are deep scholars of the issues at stake and are better equated with theologians and philosophers in the religious cultures which have older traditions of literacy.
Not only do their positions demonstrate a different view on universal Igbo belief on the nature-supreme being concept , they elaborate , using related but varying strategies, the logic of this view.
It would seem, therefore, that we need to address the orally based traditions in a more sophisticated manner that recognises the possibility of plurality of opinion.
From such a vantage point, we would be better positioned to examine questions of relative acceptability of particular beliefs and variations of belief and differentiate between general opinions and those of the more sophisticated thinkers in the tradition.
thanks
toyin
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:
The Igbos believe that the sky, sun, moon, stars, rivers, etc are
governed by chis(gods) who give accounts of their governance to Chid.
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.
> *Correlating Chukwu, Chi and the Sun *
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?
>
>> Chinua Achebe's " Chi in Igbo Cosmology" in *Morning Yet on* *Creation Day
> A clear correlation between Chukwu, Chi, the spirit self, and the sun is
> developed in
>
> *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>
> . *
>> superb analysis in Evans Pritchard's *Nuer Religion* on relationships
> 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
> between the abstraction and pervasiveness of the supreme being in relation> <http://www.amazon.com/Sprouts-Virtue-Chinese-Philosophy-Culture/dp/07...>on
> to the manifestations of that being in nature and Sarah Allan's poetically
> analytical The Way of Power and Sprouts of Virtue
> the imagery of water in classical Chinese thought.> *Variety and Scope in Orally Developed and Transmitted Belief Systems *
>
> Eastern Nigerian Ekpe esoteric order and its Nsibidi semiotic system, *Take>
> 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
> 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> *An Emerging Critical Mass in Recent Developments in Classical Igbo
> 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.
>
> Spirituality in a Global Context *
>> <http://www.karnakhouse.co.uk/docs/enter.html> bringing out Ogonna Agu's *The
> A critical mass is developing in the study of classical Igbo religion, as
> evident by such recent initiatives as Karnark House
> 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> less grounded in personal experience classic *Afa Symbolism and Phenomenology
> complement to Angulu Onwuejeogowu's more intellectual, more analytic but
> 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> Medicin<http://www.kwenu.com/publications/iroegbu/igbomed/frame.htm>e
> 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
> 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/>and
> on various other sites, all reachable by a Google search and his books> <http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Igbo-Medicine-Culture-Nigeria/dp/0...>and
> Introduction to
> Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria
> Healing Insanity : A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary> Nigeria<http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Insanity-Medicine-Contemporary-Nigeria/...>
> .
>> Anizoba<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-aut...>who
> Other efforts include the remarkable achievement of Emmanuel
> has brought out about eight books, the striking website Odinani> Shrine<http://igbocybershrine.com/> and its Facebook
> : The Sacred Arts and Sciences of the Igbo People : An Igbo Cyber
> twin<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odinani-The-Sacred-Arts-Sciences-of-th...>,
> where the classic tradition is being examined and represented in modern> Odinani<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odinani/148667081811994?ref=ts&fref=ts>
> 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
> 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> University<http://soar.wichita.edu/handle/10057/1224/browse?value=Okafor%2C+Chin...>,
> 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
> a volume of Uche : Journal of the Department of Philosophy, University of> Nigeria, Nsukka<http://uchejournal.com/display.php?id=UCHE%20VOLUME%2014,%20DECEMBER%...>,
> 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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Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
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