-Personhood-Legal Persona, Crimes Against the Earth Force (Ala) and Burials Among Igbos
By Prof. Ikechi Mgbeoji
Igbo jurisprudence sometimes conferred legal personality on entities other than human beings. Igbo customary law and jurisprudence thus extended legal rights, duties and responsibilities to such other non-human entities including trees, rivers, forests, et cetera. Some of these normative strictures and codes predated contemporary environmental law and jurisprudence by several millennia.
For example, elaborate rituals analogous to the burial of humans or the establishment of a shrine often preceded the felling of certain big trees or even special trees. As Professor Donatus Nwoga observed,
[W]hen villagers want to cut down a big and aged tree, they take four sticks of ogilisi (a flower tree used to demarcate borders in Igbo land) and plant them in a small square, put the neck of a pot in between, put some stones around the pot-neck and call upon the tree to move to that place and not be angry with them for removing it from its earlier habitation. (Ejidike, 1999, pp. x–x)
The normative significance here is the intrinsic respect for non-human life forms.
Pre-colonial Igbos largely considered the earth force—ala/ani, the fundamental source of norms. Beyond Chukwu Okike, the supreme being, of whom the Igbos so reverred that no shrine made by hand was fit to contain or house, the earth force was the pre-eminent and superior source of laws and norms. In Kelsenite terms, the earth force was the grundnorm.
Hence, cleansing ceremonies had to be performed in respect of conducts or offences against the earth force. There were two types of offences against the earth force. The first is nso ala—conduct forbidden by the earth and alu—conduct forbidden by the community. The former refers to abominations against the earth force that must be cleansed (Agukoronye, 2001) via sacrifices and other punishments. Examples include murder, adultery, incest, torture, cruelty to animals, et cetera (Onwuejeogwu, 198x, p. 52).
Regardless of where the offences were committed, these were punishable with banishment, death and/or very expensive earth cleansing ceremonies known as ikpu alu—to drag abomination away. This ceremony was intended to revalidate the society’s desecrated source of norms and to sanitize the earth force.
Given their belief in the continuity of life, much anxiety was expressed by pre-colonial Igbos in their lifetimes as to how they are to be buried. Those who are wealthy bury theirs with pomp and pageantry and those who are poor bury theirs with as much festivity as they can eke out. In addition, long before the death tax imposed by the colonial masters, Igbos also deployed funeral expenses as a form of taxation on the rich and a means of maintaining an egalitarian society in which inherited wealth was not used to perpetuate the influence of unworthy sons.
The demise of a great personage was often announced by the intermittent beating of the ikoro, a gigantic wooden drum whose sound can travel about ten miles. The variations of the cadence of the music will tell people whether the deceased died poor or rich and whether s/he successfully trained his/her children or not. The Ikoro was a precursor of the modern days radio and television announcements. Most Igbos could "read" the message of the Ikoro.
The Ese (a type of music played by professional musicians on the death of an elderly and important person) may also be played to announce the death of an elderly or important person. Family members or relations of the deceased are not permitted to weep or cry in public unless and until the Ikoro or Ese has formally announced the demise of their elder relation. There were strict codes on who could announce the demise of a family member.
The contemporary practice of strangers taking pictures of fatalities and posting same on facebook or other social media would have outraged ancient Igbos! It was the duty of the eldest son to announce the death of his father. It was also his duty, along with his siblings to announce the death of his mother, first to the family of the deceased mother.
The corpse is washed, powdered, scented and dressed in the deceased’s best clothes. S/he is then put in a coffin and buried. Burial is done in front of the house or a place designated by the deceased in his lifetime or by his eldest son. It is extremely unsusual to bury an Igbo person in a strange land or even in a public cemetery. Even in modern times, cemeteries in Igbo towns and cemeteries are hardly patronized. A tree or shrub is planted on the burial spot for remembrance sake.
There is a second burial, which actually constitutes the real burial for titled men and women. This second burial—ikwa ozu—has deep significance for the Igbo. As Njoku clarifies, “a chief on earth would be happy only as a chief after death. He would not be happy if his dignity was lowered” (Njoku, 1990, p. x). Native cows are often slaughtered and shared to guests. It is taboo for any son who has not yet slaughtered a cow for his father or mother to partake of the meat of cow slaughtered for the burial of another person's father, mother or uncle.
An Igbo family will lose face and earn social ridicule if members of the family, particularly the Umuada—the daughters of the clan—fail to turn up at the funeral. The Umuada usually threatens refractory family members in their lifetimes with absence at their funerals. In most cases, no “funerals took place if lineage daughters were not present” (Amadiume, 1987, p. 59). This practice had a way of empowering female members of Igbo society (Nzekwu, 1994).
TO BE CONTINUED....
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