RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series -equiano the african?

My own view on Equianos's narrative is situated within the general appraisal of autobiographies; the diet always has to been taken with a pinch of salt.  There usually is a temporal gulf between the events and the moment of writing and in most cases the writer was not meticulously taking critical notes.  Much of what is narrated is reflected upon after a long duration and may even be justification of the present.

Regarding the above of the supreme being in the heavens, undoubtedly there was forced rationalisation and syncretism in the unequal balance of power in the colonial encounter;  many African religions had to substitute animism for heirarchized divinities to survive charges of paganism which legitimized the colonial encounter.  An atmosphere of collaborative divinities had to be scrapped by the substitution of omnipotence in one being for omnipotence of the collective.   And to boot rather than the ubiquitous transcendental omnipresence, 'God' had to be 'rationalized' into the sky while at the same time being omnipresent.  In the animistic model, because there is a God of the sky, he does not necessarily have to reside in the sky to control it, but with colonialism his office had to be rationalized in the sky.

Olayinka Agbetuyi

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From: dehasnem@uic.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series -equiano the african?
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:29:28 -0600

Wait a minute guys: Ken and Kwabena,

 

The  Akans   start the Lord's Prayer in the Christian church with the words ' Yen Agya a owo osoro' , translated ' Our Father who art in Heaven'.  Since Christianity is a modern day religion compared to our African religions,  the Christians must have borrows the phrase 'Our Father who art in Heaven' from  ' Onyankopong who resides in the skies' or  the Igbo 'god who dwells in the sun'.  On the other hand, either the Akans and Equiano  interpreted the  phrase  'our Father who art in heaven'  directly into their languages after the Christian-inspired colonization.  I am not sure who borrowed from whom.   It is not clear to me that we had the same interpretation of God's dwelling place as the Christians do when we are separated by millennia of generations.

 

Kwaku Mensah

Chicago

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akurang-Parry, Kwabena
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 1:43 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series -equiano the african?

 

Ken:
 
The religious cosmology or mythological cosmology of the Akans of Ghana teaches that Onyankopong (God, the Creator) inhabits "soro" or space and sky where the sun, moon, stars, etc. reside. I have not studied Igbo religious and mythological cosmologies, ontology, and worldview, but from a comparative standpoint, Equiano's statement that the Igbos have a "god who dwells in the sun" is true and speaks to the religious beliefs of many precolonial African states and societies. See the classic African Religions and Philosophy by John S. Mbiti.
 
Kwabena

 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 1:04 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -equiano the african?

i should add that in reading equiano's account, intuitively speaking, and not as a specialist in 18th c igbo, i found his account not credible when describing africa. i know there is a big polemic about this; but i wonder if anyone on this list could also chime in on their intuitive reaction to his account.
ken

On 1/28/13 4:24 AM, ChidiAnthonyOparaPoetry/Quotes wrote:

(Poem By: Chidi Anthony Opara)

 

I come before you

This hour before dawn

Chukwu.

You, who dwell above,

Below

Is your foot stool.

You, whom the gods

Genuflect in his presence,

Before you I come

Clean,

Devoid of dirt.

 

Your covenant with my forebears

Bound me to come before you

On this market day,

At this hour

To purge my soul of impurities

Of the period past.

I have washed my body

And rinsed my mouth

With the waters of onu ngara.

 

No human is worthy

To present sacrifices

And libations in your presence.

My sacrifices

I have presented to the good gods,

My libations

To my ancestors.

 

I stand before you in awe,

Yet

I must make my confessions

Before the din of dawn.

 

 

 

Reproductions in part or in whole, in whatever forms, of ChidiAnthonyOparaPoetry/Quotes except for non-profit information and education purposes, without a written permission from PublicInformationProjects is not allowed.

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michigan state university

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