Being a paper presented at the Fifth
Annual Conference on "Aspects of Urhobo Poetry" by Chief D. A. Obiomah
at Niger Delta Cultural Centre,
Agbarha-Otor, Nigeria on October 29-31, 2004.
First on the Agenda of the preliminary programme of this year's Conference
was Urhobo Poetry, I pondered what this could mean. Now I have the signal
honour of treating aspects of Urhobo Poetry as the last item of the Conference.
It is my fervent hope that at the end of it all you will rise to go home
in a cheerful, joyful mood. Urhobo Poetry, what is it? With this reaction
I had forgotten that some nine years ago I made a collection of poems
in three parts. Part one was devoted to Urhobo themes. But I had not thought
that I was writing Urhobo Poetry, rather than just responding to my own
whims even when transliteration was involved. What is Urhobo poetry?
By contrast English poetry has forms – the Ballad, Rondeau, the
Ode, the Epic, the Sonnet with 14lines. There are the Couplets, Quatrains.
There are specific patterns of rhyme. aa, bb, abab, blank verse etc. There
are meters, which give particular rhythms. For instance, there is from
Robert Browning the dactylic
"I sprang to the stirrup and Jorris and he
We galloped: Dirk galloped, we galloped all three
which is close to the anapestic beat in Lord Byron's Destruction of
Senacherib.
"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And their cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold."
There are the distinctive iambic pentameters of Shakespeare:
"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him."
"This is the noblest Roman of them all"
So, talking of Urhobo poetry, it is a different world. What do we mean?
We learn from R.B. Sheridan however that:
"Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and
best minds." If Alfred Lord Tennyson could not attest to such happiness
when he wrote In Memoriam or Break, Break, Break or Crossing the Bar, he
could agree with Sheridan's.
"Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden
beauty of the world and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar."
<>It is on this footing that I intend to deal with Urhobo poetry.
The language of poetry is picturesque and captivating.
Western thought developed against the background of the culture of writing.
It is recorded, systematized and developed. So we are left with such names
as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Bacon, Spinoza, Butler,
Hume, Kant, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Erasmus, Loyola Tom Paine, Voltaire
Robespeare, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Marx, Hegel, Rene Descartes, Jean
Paul Satre, Bertrand Russell, the list is endless. By contrast Urhobo thought
exists but at random and orally. It may be gannered from folk tales, songs
composed annually for festivals, personal names indicating beliefs and values
with elements of the transcendent. They have their own tales, beliefs imagery,
resonance and elegance. An Urhobo name is poetic. An Urhobo name encapsulates
an episode in the life of the giver of the name. It is history in a word.
So names such as Atayerhinyo, Asamiderhi, Erhinyoja, Oghenetega Ogheneero,
Onorioborunutakerhi. Festivals have patron deities. Songs and dances to
them have their particular drumbeats and rhythm. They may be veiled attacks
on unseemly situations and personal conduct like the press does as the fourth
estate of the realm.
So for my pick of poems or what constitutes Urhobo poetry I propose to deal
with, those that tell Urhobo thought to be found in songs, sayings, folk
tales etc. Urhobo set store by certain beliefs and issues. We believe in
the supernatural, as well as an Almighty God as creator invoked for wellbeing,
and as final judge. "Only God" ‘God's case, no appeal' the Shades
of our ancestors, who supervise our lives, punish and reward. We believe
in honest labour represented by Obo, a wood carving representing the man's
right hand acknowledged with simple rituals in the morning as a man sets
out to work. We believe in ethereal beings, Okrobogbowo, in goblins, Okuku.
Other issues of daily life are:
Marriage and birth, and succession as celebrated
with circumcision songs the lsiakene series.
Togetherness- captured in the song Kpe Orere, otu
re edia obe oko
Festivals devoted to patron gods.
We also believe in Rulership and modernity.
Only recently the fact of our having 22 traditional rulers instead of just
one was raised as a factor of supposed Urhobo disunity.
Let us now take four samples: from Urhobo poetry and thereafter cover as
much ground as possible within the time available.
On our concept of Time and Creation
Oghwoghwo
ghwoghwo, damu kere
Oghwoghwo ghwoghwo, damu kere
Urhe ovo re ohe ogo na, damukere
Oto je maa, damukere
Enu je maa, damukere
Me gbe cha me gbe muo, damukere
Me gbe ra me gbe muo, damukere
Oghwoghwo Oghwoghwo, damukere
Oghwoghwo, damukere
Rendered thus:
Oghwoghwo Oghwoghwo the lengendary,
Oghwoghwo Oghwoghwo wonder bird:
In the void a lone tree
A magic trapeze,
Earth was not born,
A magic trapeze,
Nor yet the sky,
One swaying trapeze
I'd soar aloft
And back to it
I'd roam afar
And again to it
Oghwoghwo preternatural
Ethereal bird of memory!
The equivalent is the phoenix, "avis saecula saeculorum, the bird of eternal
ages, there before creation of the earth and sky.
This is followed by Kpo – Kpo – Kpo!
Kpo – Kpo – Kpo
Amono
she urhe vwe oboyi
Mevwe Eyayughe – o
Die wo vwe irhe ru?
Urhe me vwo kare odo
Die wo vwe odo ru?
Odo mi vwo duvwu egu
Die wo vwe egu ru?
Egu me vwo ghere emo
Die wo vwe emo ru?
Eme me yere akpo.
Die wo vwe akpo ru?
Akpor me vwo je – ghwu – o
Rendered thus:
Chop chop chop
Who's chopping in the forest
I'm Eyayughe
What will you with wood?
To carve a mortar
What with a mortar?
To pound my yam in
Pounded yam for what?
To feed my kids with
Kids for what?
To promote my life
Life for what?
To have succession,
here and now forever and aye, till the end of time.
This is followed by MAMAKO – a children's game
Mamako mamako oweiya
Mamako mamako oweiya
Oghene ‘Ghene djufiefie manijakpo ere
Ore Mamako
Te ona te ona ko vwa kere koriko didi
Ovwovwa
The actual articulation and meaning are lost in time to baby talk but
interpreted by me from the general tenor and rendered thus to reflect
a going cycle and innocence:
Mamako mamako who are you?
The Maker has said it you're Eternity
So mamako
Be this or this, be that, anything created,
You and me a ceaseless cycle
So, so mamako.
The next portrays wrestling and prowess as a game.
Ore udu gbare
O se oma gbo
Iye.
The gauntlet is thrown. Who dares pick it up? Ekpurekpuke, does
Ekpurekpuke
I'm a stuffed bag of charms
Who cares to challenge me,
I'll down him in a trice!
Or
Omokegbe Okegbe
Ogba igho re abo, Onyenye
Ogba igho re awo, Onye-nye
Ke idie wo rhi ru?
Abo me rhi mu – o
Mi sheri mi vre – o
Rendered as:
Young Okegbe, Okegbe
Cowrie bangles on his wrists
Cowrie voodoo on his ankles
"What is it you would"?
"I'm a wrestler come
I'll rise if I fall".
Kind of defident, eh? Not as confident as Ekpurekpuke. Note that
charms are a part of the power game and Ekpurekpuke is decked up.
We believe also in:
Minor, personal or group gods, Orha;
Witches and wizards; and ghosts,
Ethereal beings like Okrobogbowo, a half man, one leg, one arm
Reincarnation – Akpome re edefa, Eda, Ogbanje in Igbo, Abiku in
Youruba.
Predestination – reflected in URHORO Throne of Providence, as depicted
in Aga vie Urhobo biko, the plaint of the barren woman for a child.
Since our children speak less and less of Urhobo language and live largely
outside the environment of these beliefs, Urhobo Thought as history is
dying or fading. Here is a notion I have tried to express in various ways:
- Obaro obuko one cha.
- Amre obuko asa mre obaro – o.
- Obaro oye avwo vavwa asa re ugbo sheri te i.e. being ahead
presumes a starting point behind.
Today was founded on yesterday, so yesterday is our foundation, which
makes our appreciation and projection of ourselves inaccurate and incomplete
if we do not know what yesterday was. Much of Urhobo life was expressed
in poetry and song as tradition. Poetry is the index of the mind, the
inner man.
That culture without poetry must be oppressively barren and stiff. Poetry
is like woman, the grace and pulp of things. Our thoughts and ideals are
embedded therein with economy. Poetry concerns the subtle and dainty expression
of life. In form and comportment, it is refinement and it is pleasurable.
I first heard the music of Sam Cook in Kingston
Jamaica. His sonorous microphone
voice coming from the distance sounded like a typical Urhobo man in 1950
who had sold his four kerosene tins of palm oil impaled on one only bicycle,
riding home happily with money in his pocket, singing to the road. Sam Cook
must have been originally Urhobo to be such a musical embodiment of poetry,
a lost poet to Urhobo-land.
TOGETHERNESS: Let us obtain
relief from togetherness indicated in the old song mentioned earlier as
well as Festivals when guests arrive from far and near, neighbours who have
confined themselves to farm villages are teased to come to town. Guests
from neighbouring towns and villages are welcomed with the banter, ‘Vwana!
Omo oko ye na re wo ghwarhe na
Ke oye te we re besie we vwo kpo?
and the atmosphere is captured in my poem on Agbarha, Warri' "Mothers"
Day Festival.
For marriage let us take a tease and a serious joke:
Ogomugoro, ogomugoro odia
Omote te ose ane oye je re
Ke ogomugoro odia
We all know the tall ostrich. The quip is that a maiden could be an ostrich
in height and in the antomy dressed at circumcision if she fails to take
the plunge and marry when she is due, hence suitors will cavil at her:
Tall as an ostrich, Ogomugoro
A tall old maiden grow;
If a maiden ripens
Will none of suitors
She will an ostrich grow
Grow an old maiden, grow and old maiden,
A tall old maiden grow,
If a maiden ripens,
Wooden to wooing,
She will an ostrich grow.
It will an ostrich, it will an ostrich,
It will an ostrich grow
If a maiden ripens
Wooden wooing
At circumcision
‘T will be an ostrich long.
Tall as an ostrich, tall as an ostrich
Will such a maiden grow,
Puberty reaches,
Motherhood passes
A cockerel she will grow.
My title for this poem is: Go Get Married.
Still for marriage let us take a serious joke: Imerime!
Gbe roro gbe roro
Imerime sodje
Gbe roro, imerime sodje
Mevwe ovo Ibaba vwie re
Mevwe ovo Inene vwiere
Baba vwe ovwe ke owho re Aka
Owho re Aka nyo Urhobo – o
Mevwe dede mi nyo Aka – a
Ke mavo erue obori te ne
Imerime sodje
Rendered as:
Here's a tale, here's a tale,
An intriguing tale
Here's a tale
An intriguing tale
I'm my father's only child
I'm my mother's only child
Father married me to an Edo
Edo man does not speak Urhobo
Neither do I any Edo
I am in for a dumb show!
Here's a tale, here's is a tale
An intriguing tale!
In our peculiar circumstance today in which fewer and fewer of our children
speak Urhobo as already noted, there is latent argument here for exogamy.
Next, His Royal Highness, what is the position of Traditional Rulers?
Ovie me vwaare
E – e – e me vwaare
Ose re omo ghwu je omo vwo
Oni re omo ghwu je omo vwo
Arhove ughwu ehe obo we
Ovie me vware owe
Rendered as:
O king we venerate
Take our reverence
Father dies and orphans make
Mother dies and orphans make
Life you command we know
Death you command we know
O, King, we venerate
The King was almighty with power of life and death whereby orphans might
be made. This was the Traditional Ruler, although we agree with Acton
power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Like Louis
XIV of France he could say, "cest
moi le etat", I am the State But today he contends with several levels
of parallel authorities, Federal, State and even Local Government, his
home ground. This is modernity. Things have changed, Still, both the Government
and the general public accord him the prestine image of the highest and
mightiest. Officially, he is His Royal Highness, adulated by linguistic
usage as His Royal Majesty, making him higher, as it were, than the Governor
or Parliament as a constitutional monarch.
As style is the man (Buffon) so for the surrealist thought is the society.
It defines in aggregate the intrinsic quality of the society. The Greeks
and the Romans made sports part of their religious and secular lives and
left the world the Latin quote "mens sana in corpore sano " a healthy
mind in a healthy body following which they also left us the Olympic Games.
What much of Urhobo poetry recognises is that there is order and intimacy,
labour and respect for life with transcendence in divinity.
But this order is at present in a flux. As religion it is sneered at and
despised through prejudice of foreign religions. When we are in supposedly
native attire the items are imported or products of foreign technology.
This Conference on Urhobo History and Culture has been and is being conducted
and recorded in English. Our dances and drumbeats were stigmatised as fetish
or pagan with us consenting. These have now been assimilated into the service
of the new Faiths as panegerics to the same God said to have abhorred them.
The supreme irony is that those same Faithfuls dance with abandon to these
rhythms, with the zeal and frenzy of King Solomon whose clothes dropped
from him and he went on notwithstanding. All in all the dilemma of Dilibe
Oyeama's book "Niger from Eton" is with us as elite yet only "developing",
as superior yet inferior.
Since the nationalities including Urhobo of necessity flow into the National
mainstream to be carried along into citizenship and globalisation the
initiative to play the role of the melting pot rests with Abuja. How much
re-orientation is coming from there? It is the duty of the nationalities
to put heat on our active minister Chikelu, no less than is importantly
done, for instance, concerning Resource Control. Urhobo have the opportunity
to take the lead. "Show the light," as great Zik urged many years ago
"and the people will find the way".
Such is the paradox in which we are trapped and is in nowhere more typified
than in the area of identity.
Rudyard Kipling wrote the novel KIM set in colonial India.
Kim, a boy, was of mixed race, Irish father and Indian mother. He was able
to stall with the British (who were the colonial masters) and with Indians/Pakistanis,
but was often caught in the race relations and complexities existing in
the colony. He was neither here nor there. In the result he found himself
asking, "Kim, Kim, Kim, who is Kim?" Was he British among whom he was sort
of accepted? Still, was he, Kimbal Ohara, Irish, under British colonial
rule, white, or was he Indian, therefore of lower class? Such a mixed grill
are we. We need to consciously rise above it. Can we? How long may it take
and who should "show the light" for "the people to find the way?"
In looking backwards, it is useful to realise that we are swimming against
this tide of multiple currents – the conflict of order and authority,
the conflict of religion, the conflict of manners.
State rule is edging out prestine domestic rule under the Traditional Ruler.
The erstwhile devotee of traditional religion now shares his trust between
the power of the voodoo herbalist and all – powerful blood of Jesus
loud on the microphone till the early hours of the morning.
The BBC discomfits by harping not on female circumcision but opprobrious
genital mutilation. Once primitive and idolatrous drumbeats and worship
now make enchanting, all – possessing holy gospel music for us. Folk
tales are out. Television dominates, where the world is seen from our sitting
rooms without flight tickets.
The cultural Osmosis is weighed against us. Urhobo are the weaker element
in the national cultural osmosis. Go to any public function. You will find
Urhobo young men dressed like the Northerner, generally called Hausa, or
the Southwesterner, the Yoruba. What is more, no non-Urhobo man will be
found in Urhobo attire. Do we need to do anything to change the trends to
cultivate our identity or let it slide purely by default? The parts make
the whole. Can we afford to lose ourselves as a functional part of the whole?
Our thanks must go to the Founding Fathers of the Urhobo Historical Society
for their vision. We must show through knowledge and wit that we exist,
that we are worthy, channeled into but not lost in the maze of the Nigerian
mainstream referred to cynically as the mistake of 1914. In every aspect
of our lives subjected to the norms of the western world there is always
an undercurrent of the conflict, of fusion, of leadership, elitism and identity.
An Uvwie song captures this mood in:
This is the Whiteman's era,
If family bonds must break,
So may they, keep away.
Akpo ne ke akpoyibo
Koro koro ateren ome ne
Imirien fane efa o – e – e.
As already noted, in looking backwards, it is imperative to be conscious
that we are swimming against this tide of multiple, mutually parasitical
currents – the conflict of order and authority, the conflict of
religion, the conflict of manners. Let us indicate our dilemma with Royal
Exile.
Se me dje se me yan (twice)
Se me vwa Oba vwe Usenu
Ane oyibo mue Oba re Aka
Echabo roye ivwerhe Oma
Alegbe, se me dje, se me yan
Se vwa vwe Usenu.
Shall I run, shall I walk
I yet may spy him at Uselu
Shall I run shall I walk?
Will I glimpse him at Uselu?
The whiteman's seized the Oba
On exile to Calabar
His forlorn court
Bemoan themselves
Shall I run, shall I walk
A nightmare, noonday dream of a tale.
It is the unthinkable heralding the new day.
His majesty does not lay down the rule, cannot take the praise for its
success nor justifiable rebuke and flack for its failure. Indeed what
power or authority does he have other than respect drawn from primeval
memory? What is his job description carrying requisite authority but a
paradox of being and non-being, the totem of a dying age. We have changed
but seem to have refused to accept the fact. Young men of the age range
of 40 and 50 are state Governors, Local Government Council chairmen and
corporate chief executives. What elbowroom is left for the Traditional
Ruler to wield authority in step with these parallel authorities without
coming into conflict with officialdom with modernity? How much is he paid
to reflect majesty? His lot is oto udo, leftovers. He is the lone yeoman
on the social scene Will the Traditional Ruler be able to perform his
job, whatever that is, without losing his halo? Can he go into commerce
without disdain? For the Traditional Ruler of the day it is as if the
play is over; the dressing rooms are locked up and the cast cannot leave
the stage for want of where to go. Should the Royal Fathers contemplate
mass action who will be the arbitrator in the vexation of the crown of
things? It is as if the Supreme Court should go on strike.
The paradox is that more and more men of competence sign on to these rulership
– with – no – rule positions. Their only link to acientry
is the parody of their distinctive dress form. The plague is our unconsciousness
of the forces contending for our being to be faced as a problem. This
plague is the acretion of incongruous and mutually parasitical cultures
in conflict in our day to day life. It is a problem of African societies,
Urhobo not excepted. We were Urhobo, become part Urhobo, part Nigerian,
part citizens of globalisation, and truly neither of each of these formations
at all. We want to be ourselves as Urhobo. We are Nigerian citizens enmeshed
in constitutional modalities.
Nigeria is globalising, which means
more admixture dictated from outside.
In the first place, who is a Nigerian? He is a queer being who is a citizen
but not an indigene.
We are living in a virtual void like Oghwoghwo. Unity in a void? It is a
contradiction in terms. We are faced by a dilemma of definition of identity
and purpose. For Britain despite
the tragedy of Charles I who was executed the focus and breath of life of
the common weal is Royalty. For America
needing to bind together the disparate nationalities of religious Pilgrim
Fathers and thirteen colonies it was the democratic Every-man in the constitutional
"All men are created equal." For France
despite Louis XIV guillotined it was again the democratic individual in
liberte, egalite and fraternite. How do Urhobo answer to the UPU motto of
Unity is strength? The composite parts, down to the individual must be healthy.
The big question is if we have in this paper diagnosed a material ailment
what is the cure? What scope exists to turn the tables when similar nationalities
constituting Nigeria bear the same
burden? What is the core, the essence of our being to absorb distracting
modernity? The problems of Afenifere, Ohaneze, Arewa, stem from the truncation
of traditional polities. Can we blend old time tradition with modernity?
Let UHS take the lead on how to do this hand in glove with Abuja.
Now for some banter with the teetotaler Palm Wine maker and thence to the
festival.
Obregoro, mo ada udi -o–e-e
2ce
Ota re idono rho no
Obregore mo ada udi –o-e-e
Rendered thus:
Palmwine tapper, come,
Have a drink
O, wine – tapper, come
Let's drink
Penury is a bane,
Wine maker will you come have a drink
Palmwine tapper, come
Let's drink
A teetotaler you?
Come on let's drink
We shall round off this portion with the festival piece captured in my own
words to the mood at festivals, and captioned Mother's Day.
E-yoweyo je efe rhi tevwe
Vwe emo rhe ovworho,
Vwe igho je rhe ovworho
E-yoweyo je efe rhi tevwe
MOTHERS' DAY
Incidentally, social taboos are usually against women. This is one case
in a million where the reverse is the case. It is men who must remain indoors
on pain of sanctions by the Shades. The shades oversee our own world. But
it is the women who invite them to the feast and dismiss them. Mothers'
Day goes like this:
1. It's crack of dawn,
The owl has quit,
The men folk stay within their doors
But women out
The elderly lot,<>Unseen and covered by the dark of dawn.
2. They place the rope – bound wraps,
of smouldered plantain leaf
From door to door in all the Town
You'll discover when you wake
3. From end of Town
From street to street
To the other end
They invite the shades to Town<> For the feast
4.. The feast is ready
Now for care in the past one year
Dutiful thanks and offerings bring
To guardian dead
To all the gods
And to God the Lord
5. By noon they'll sing
They'll sing to the shades
They'll sing to the gods
Hear them sing
"So be it, Fate of fortune upon us all
invoking blessings on the people
6. Fecund women
Harvest rich of men folks labours
Happy children,
Health to all,
Joy to all the land!!
7. Can you hear them sing?
Hear them sing!
Song of abundance
Amen, amen fate of fortune to all the land
8. The air is frisky
Children caper
Guests arriving
Jovial faces
Gay apparel
The breeze is spiced,
Seductive cuisine
Abundant fare
And jars of wine
9. Kigum, kigum
Keekoto keekoto
Call the drums
Grone-grone ganigan-digan
Flourish of ringing bells
From the waists of maidens!
10. Kigum, kigum,
Keekoto keekoto ken
Joyful people
Frenzied dancing
Happy people
Amen, amen fate of fortune upon the land
We of Agbarha, Warri are calling out to the visiting, international members
of U.H.S.
Ovwa na
Ememu yena wo ghwa na
Koye te we re besie wo owo kpo?
Udio mo ada
Amo da udi, mo a da udi
Udio mo ada!
Vwa na omo oko yena wo ghwa re na
Koye te we owo dia besie wo owo kpo
Ho-o-o- udi o mo ada
Udi – o mo ada
Amo rhe da udi (2ce)
Udi – o ovwa da
Udio mo a daudi
Udi o mo a da
Here are the drinks, come drink
Come on and drink, come on and drink
Here is your booze come drink
O help yourself, help yourself
Here the drinks, come drink
Here the drinks, come drink
Udi o mo a da
Udi o mo a da!
Radio cassette of Agbarha Idjui drum. You know that; don't you? The grand
spectacle known as Agbassa Juju. We have the best Idju in the World.
Your Excellency, my Lords Spiritual and temporal, your Royal highnesses,
Chiefs, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I hope that true to sheridan's
dictum I have endeavored to show that Urhobo Poet, like any others, does
lift the veil from the hidden beauty of the (Urhobo) world making familiar
objects be as if they were not familiar. I further hope that I have put
you in a cheerful mood as you rise to go home, and to think that the effort
of Urhobo Historical Society is as well worth the trouble you have taken
to come here.
From me copious thanks. This is the Fifth Annual Conference of UHS. There
will be yet another day. Join us, be our guest, support the cause.
Thank you, and good night.
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pertaining to Urhobo—the land (otor r’
Urhobo) and its people (ihwo r’ Urhobo).
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