IGBO - THE KINGLESS GENERATION,
THE WORLD’S OLDEST AND ONLY INDIGENOUS DEMOCRACY:
PART 1
THE WORLD’S OLDEST AND ONLY INDIGENOUS DEMOCRACY:
PART 1
An anonymous book in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures titled On the Origin of the World addressing issues regarding the creation of the world, the formation of humankind and the end of the Age, says -
there are four generations, three generations belong to the kings of the eighth heaven, and the fourth generation, which is the most exalted, is kingless and perfect. These people will enter the holy place of their Father and they will reside in rest … They are kings. They are the immortal within the mortal, and they will condemn the gods of chaos and their powers [by revealing the pattern of incorruptibility] (p. 219, emphases mine).
The above passage touches on vital phenomena that are central to the definition of Igbo cosmos and identity: the cosmic numbers: four (the small week) and eight (the great week), the concept of kinglessness ‘Igbo enwe eze’, the lust for knowledge and the incorruptibility of the god-man, as with the ozo titled men. We have a pet theory that the reason why an Igbo can never grovel and roll on the ground before a fellow human being, no matter how highly placed (as some other Nigerian tribes do) is that every Igbo man feels in his marrow that he is a king. The Nag Hammadi Scripture actually proves us right. The Igbo happen to be the only tribe in the world whose kinglessness is part of their identity, their genealogy, their cosmology and their philosophy. The Igbo have a curious religious practice of self-worship or self-deification, whereby an individual’s first god is himself and his very first shrine is a shrine constructed and dedicated to his personal spirit, his chi. He venerates this god (whose physical manifestation is himself) along with his ancestors. This personal shrine is the only one at which he performs rights of worship. He may visit some other shrines at some point or the other, but only to consult, never to worship, for the only god deserving of an Igbo man/woman’s veneration is the god that he himself is. This shrine is tended through such acts as libation, incantations, prayers and petitions and feeding with food, without which the individual would be expected to fail in his/her life’s endeavors. This is the highest expression of individuality and is viewed by us as a fundamental aspect of Igbo ontological belief in the god-man.
Man’s attainment of divinity, we believe, is the fundamental teaching of Christianity and Jesus Christ, namely: that God has become man; that man must see God in himself/herself; that man must regain perfection, Wisdom, immortality through the transformation of the self – what the Igbo call initiation. In fact the Chi Theology is ample proof that the Igbo see themselves as a nation of gods and goddesses, equivalent to what the Hindu refer to as the Bodhisattva. Both the Hindu and the Igbo believe in the god-man, an idea that found expression through the Egyptian Pharaohs and other so-called divine kings of the world. The Egyptians actually believed that the dead Pharaoh must get to the Panchean Duat to be united with the gods of West Africa. (See Catherine Acholonu: “Tilmun, the Duat and the Underground Abode of the Gods in West Africa”, published online at HYPERLINK "http://www.catherineacholonu.com/" \t "_blank" www.catherineacholonu.com.)
ri religious Theology which is shared by all Igbo people says that -
Chukwu (Chi-ukwu) is the Great Creator of all beings, forces and things both visible and invisible. The Great Creator has four major aspects which are manifestations of his existence. First, Chukwu is Anyanwu, which symbolically means the sun. As the sun’s light is everywhere so Chukwu is everywhere; as the sun is powerful so Chukwu is all-powerful; as the sun is the light that reveals things so Chukwu is the source of all knowledge. Secondly Chukwu is Agbala (Ani/Ala) which is manifested in the fertility of the earth and beings that inhabit it. Thirdly Chukwu is chi which is manifested in the power and ability of living beings to procreate themselves from generation to generation. Fourthly, Chukwu is Okike, that is creation, and is manifested in the creation of everything visible and invisible, which is a never-ending process. Chukwu as Okike created the laws that govern the visible and invisible. (Onwuejeogwu, 1981, p. 31)
Eze Eri like all ozo titled men within the realm was a spiritual exemplar, the ‘sun-king’, prototype of the Greek ‘philosopher king’, not a ruler in a monarchical or political sense. He is a god among gods, because the Igbo cannot be ruled, they can only be guided along the path of god-becoming (the Bodhisattva). Defining “the Kingless Generation”, The Nag Hammadi says, “glorious and without number, they are designated the generation over whom no kingdoms exist. And all the beings of the realm with no kingdom over it … are designated the children of the un-conceived Father.” (p. 277)
The basic meaning of the kingless generation is Democracy. As demonstrated in the works of Chinua Achebe and Olaudah Equiano, the Igbo operate a home-grown and indigenous democracy. They have done so from times beyond memory. They did so before the coming of Eri. And even in Eri times, the various Igbo communities continued to observe the system of leadership by judges and senators called Ndi Ichie. (Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, 1789)
We recall the man with two forehead concentric circles among the Igbo Ukwu sacred artifacts which we discussed earlier, and the definition of two concentric circles given in Nag Hammadi, whereby “the first (sphere)” is “the self-begotten Soul (un-conceived Father)”. It goes around “the second sphere, the Son – … the only-begotten soul”. (p. 642) The kingless generations are also called “the unshakable generation of the perfect human” in The Nag Hammadi. We call them the ‘no shaking’ people, borrowing the words of Enugu State politicians. Their origin is “immeasurable light, pure, holy, immaculate.” (Nag Hammadi, p. 109) They are from a realm about which it is said: “time was not allotted to it”, an “eternal day… with unlimited number of days” (Nag Hammadi p. 108, 336). There, in the immeasurable light of the Father, they lacked nothing, for the Father was “absolutely complete” in Himself. Thus the Father’s offspring are called “the Children of the Light”. The Nag Hammadi separates them from the ordinary humans created by the forces of darkness such as described in the Jewish Bible by a god who appeared from a realm where “Darkness covered the face of the Deep”, and who had to decree physical light, before “there was light”.
Startling parallels exist between this and Igbo folklore detailing a period which Adiele Afigbo calls the “Eternal Day”, the Age of Innocence and none-time, spent in a realm of Light and Eternal Glory, where the Igbo were sustained by God-substance and maintained unbroken communication with God their Father and never slept (perpetual consciousness). The Nag Hammadi says that this situation remained unbroken until Sophia a female angel gave birth to a being without the permission of God. This being, was godless and became jealous of the Son of God, the Immortal Human Being, Adam, and plotted to bring him down. He separated Adam from the eternal light and presence of God and gave him physical food to eat. Like the Igbo when Adam ate this food, he fell to the ground and slid into a deep sleep (he slept for the first time), the sleep of “ignorance”. Afigbo wrote that
Igbo world started on a pedestal of high spirituality in which there was perpetual day, regular converse with their High God who fed them on ethereal food… All went well until one day a woman whose menstrual flows were on attempted to harvest the sky substance for food… The result was that Chineke (God) and the sky receded, plunging them into famine ... With the eating of material food came … the fall. Man slept for the first time and night (darkness) descended for the first time too… i.e. his consciousness fell. (Afigbo, Igbo History and Society, p. 465)
there are four generations, three generations belong to the kings of the eighth heaven, and the fourth generation, which is the most exalted, is kingless and perfect. These people will enter the holy place of their Father and they will reside in rest … They are kings. They are the immortal within the mortal, and they will condemn the gods of chaos and their powers [by revealing the pattern of incorruptibility] (p. 219, emphases mine).
The above passage touches on vital phenomena that are central to the definition of Igbo cosmos and identity: the cosmic numbers: four (the small week) and eight (the great week), the concept of kinglessness ‘Igbo enwe eze’, the lust for knowledge and the incorruptibility of the god-man, as with the ozo titled men. We have a pet theory that the reason why an Igbo can never grovel and roll on the ground before a fellow human being, no matter how highly placed (as some other Nigerian tribes do) is that every Igbo man feels in his marrow that he is a king. The Nag Hammadi Scripture actually proves us right. The Igbo happen to be the only tribe in the world whose kinglessness is part of their identity, their genealogy, their cosmology and their philosophy. The Igbo have a curious religious practice of self-worship or self-deification, whereby an individual’s first god is himself and his very first shrine is a shrine constructed and dedicated to his personal spirit, his chi. He venerates this god (whose physical manifestation is himself) along with his ancestors. This personal shrine is the only one at which he performs rights of worship. He may visit some other shrines at some point or the other, but only to consult, never to worship, for the only god deserving of an Igbo man/woman’s veneration is the god that he himself is. This shrine is tended through such acts as libation, incantations, prayers and petitions and feeding with food, without which the individual would be expected to fail in his/her life’s endeavors. This is the highest expression of individuality and is viewed by us as a fundamental aspect of Igbo ontological belief in the god-man.
Man’s attainment of divinity, we believe, is the fundamental teaching of Christianity and Jesus Christ, namely: that God has become man; that man must see God in himself/herself; that man must regain perfection, Wisdom, immortality through the transformation of the self – what the Igbo call initiation. In fact the Chi Theology is ample proof that the Igbo see themselves as a nation of gods and goddesses, equivalent to what the Hindu refer to as the Bodhisattva. Both the Hindu and the Igbo believe in the god-man, an idea that found expression through the Egyptian Pharaohs and other so-called divine kings of the world. The Egyptians actually believed that the dead Pharaoh must get to the Panchean Duat to be united with the gods of West Africa. (See Catherine Acholonu: “Tilmun, the Duat and the Underground Abode of the Gods in West Africa”, published online at HYPERLINK "http://www.catherineacholonu.com/" \t "_blank" www.catherineacholonu.com.)
ri religious Theology which is shared by all Igbo people says that -
Chukwu (Chi-ukwu) is the Great Creator of all beings, forces and things both visible and invisible. The Great Creator has four major aspects which are manifestations of his existence. First, Chukwu is Anyanwu, which symbolically means the sun. As the sun’s light is everywhere so Chukwu is everywhere; as the sun is powerful so Chukwu is all-powerful; as the sun is the light that reveals things so Chukwu is the source of all knowledge. Secondly Chukwu is Agbala (Ani/Ala) which is manifested in the fertility of the earth and beings that inhabit it. Thirdly Chukwu is chi which is manifested in the power and ability of living beings to procreate themselves from generation to generation. Fourthly, Chukwu is Okike, that is creation, and is manifested in the creation of everything visible and invisible, which is a never-ending process. Chukwu as Okike created the laws that govern the visible and invisible. (Onwuejeogwu, 1981, p. 31)
Eze Eri like all ozo titled men within the realm was a spiritual exemplar, the ‘sun-king’, prototype of the Greek ‘philosopher king’, not a ruler in a monarchical or political sense. He is a god among gods, because the Igbo cannot be ruled, they can only be guided along the path of god-becoming (the Bodhisattva). Defining “the Kingless Generation”, The Nag Hammadi says, “glorious and without number, they are designated the generation over whom no kingdoms exist. And all the beings of the realm with no kingdom over it … are designated the children of the un-conceived Father.” (p. 277)
The basic meaning of the kingless generation is Democracy. As demonstrated in the works of Chinua Achebe and Olaudah Equiano, the Igbo operate a home-grown and indigenous democracy. They have done so from times beyond memory. They did so before the coming of Eri. And even in Eri times, the various Igbo communities continued to observe the system of leadership by judges and senators called Ndi Ichie. (Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, 1789)
We recall the man with two forehead concentric circles among the Igbo Ukwu sacred artifacts which we discussed earlier, and the definition of two concentric circles given in Nag Hammadi, whereby “the first (sphere)” is “the self-begotten Soul (un-conceived Father)”. It goes around “the second sphere, the Son – … the only-begotten soul”. (p. 642) The kingless generations are also called “the unshakable generation of the perfect human” in The Nag Hammadi. We call them the ‘no shaking’ people, borrowing the words of Enugu State politicians. Their origin is “immeasurable light, pure, holy, immaculate.” (Nag Hammadi, p. 109) They are from a realm about which it is said: “time was not allotted to it”, an “eternal day… with unlimited number of days” (Nag Hammadi p. 108, 336). There, in the immeasurable light of the Father, they lacked nothing, for the Father was “absolutely complete” in Himself. Thus the Father’s offspring are called “the Children of the Light”. The Nag Hammadi separates them from the ordinary humans created by the forces of darkness such as described in the Jewish Bible by a god who appeared from a realm where “Darkness covered the face of the Deep”, and who had to decree physical light, before “there was light”.
Startling parallels exist between this and Igbo folklore detailing a period which Adiele Afigbo calls the “Eternal Day”, the Age of Innocence and none-time, spent in a realm of Light and Eternal Glory, where the Igbo were sustained by God-substance and maintained unbroken communication with God their Father and never slept (perpetual consciousness). The Nag Hammadi says that this situation remained unbroken until Sophia a female angel gave birth to a being without the permission of God. This being, was godless and became jealous of the Son of God, the Immortal Human Being, Adam, and plotted to bring him down. He separated Adam from the eternal light and presence of God and gave him physical food to eat. Like the Igbo when Adam ate this food, he fell to the ground and slid into a deep sleep (he slept for the first time), the sleep of “ignorance”. Afigbo wrote that
Igbo world started on a pedestal of high spirituality in which there was perpetual day, regular converse with their High God who fed them on ethereal food… All went well until one day a woman whose menstrual flows were on attempted to harvest the sky substance for food… The result was that Chineke (God) and the sky receded, plunging them into famine ... With the eating of material food came … the fall. Man slept for the first time and night (darkness) descended for the first time too… i.e. his consciousness fell. (Afigbo, Igbo History and Society, p. 465)
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