Project Year
2009
Region(s)
West Africa
Country(ies)
Nigeria
Project Description
This study derives from a concern with traditional credit institutions in Africa, an area of research that has come under increasing focus in the study of local economies in transitional societies. The study focuses on the role of oracular deities as traditional sources of credit among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. Borrowing from the gods, as the study conceptualizes the phenomenon, is a seemingly dynamic autochthonous tradition among a limited number of local communities of the ethnic Igbo noted for their powerful ancestral deities. The central objective of the study is to use the experiences of three ethnic Igbo local communities to enhance the understanding of the history, operation, opportunities and externalities of the relatively unknown fetish divinity credit institution.
Researcher(s)
Kenneth Omeje
About the Researcher(s)
Kenneth Omeje is a Professor of International Relations at the United States International University
(USIU) in Nairobi, Kenya and has 20 years of professional academic experience. His
educational qualifications include: PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford,
MA degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the European Peace University in Burg/Schlaining,
Austria; as well as M.Sc. degree in International Relations and B. Sc. (Second Class
Upper Division) in Political Science and Sociology – both from the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka.Synopsis of Research Results
Based on research conducted with Josephine Magawi
This study derives from a concern with traditional credit institutions in Africa,
an area of research that has come under increasing focus in the study of local economies
in transitional societies. The study focuses on the role of oracular deities as traditional
sources of credit among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. “Borrowing from the gods,”
as the study conceptualizes the phenomenon, is a seemingly dynamic autochthonous tradition
among a limited number of local communities of the ethnic Igbo noted for their powerful
ancestral deities. Some of these communities include Okija, Oba, Ogrugu, Umulumgbe,
and Ugbaike. The central objective of the study is to use the experiences of three
ethnic Igbo local communities to enhance the understanding of the history, operation,
opportunities and externalities of the relatively unknown fetish divinity credit institution.
Despite having a number of life-threatening externalities – death to defaulters –
borrowing from the gods has a strong appeal to a considerable number of local people
in the region because the oracular shrines chiefly disburse credits for a wide range
of unorthodox and [non-]business-oriented areas that are central to the residents’
social existence. These areas include ceremonial activities, such as organizing befitting
funerals for deceased relatives, hosting/settling one’s mother-in-law on a traditional
post-natal birth attendant visit, footing marriage expenses, human capital investments,
such as payment of children’s school fees, and employability skills acquisition training.
Oracular deities pervade the cosmology and physical landscape of the Igbo people but
not many of them are credit divinities in the sense of disbursing various kinds of
credit facilities to needy community members, worshippers and clients. Similarly,
credit disbursement is only a minute part of their activities, and an activity that
is partly shrouded in secrecy. Three of the communities known to have credit disbursing
deities, all in the Nsukka cultural area of Enugu state, are the focus of this ethnographic
study. Based on the in-depth interviews, the three credit disbursing deities are female
divinities whose origin date back to pre-colonial antiquity. The credit system appears
to be an offshoot of the well established social control, criminal justice and livelihood
support functions of the deities. Primarily, the gods are consulted or petitioned
to help solve various social problems ranging from theft and land dispute to allegations
of extra-marital sex, witchcraft, fraud, food charming, incest and so forth.
As a matter of rule, when a death is attributed to the retribution or vengeance of
a local deity in Igboland, all the properties of the deceased victim are voluntarily
surrendered by his family and kinsmen as appeasement to the provoked deity. Over the
years, the deities have amassed tremendous wealth, especially moveable and immoveable
properties, through their alleged retributive killing of offenders. Operating within
a loose framework of what Goran Hyden (1980) described as the “economy of affection”
in which the deities are largely seen as beneficent gods and champions of justice,
the cult priests expediently volunteered to put the material wealth of the deities
to credit utility and under terms that are more client-friendly when compared to the
modern capital market. Reporting on the emergence of the credit system, an assistance
Chief priest of one deity observed as follows:
When consulted to solve crime or to intervene in a dispute between two parties, [the
deity] does not hesitate or waste time to deliver justice. How it delivers justice
is that anybody who swears falsely by the deity must die. For instance, if someone
petitions to [the deity] that another person wrongfully claiming his land, the two
disputants are summoned by the deity with the chief priest officiating. If the matter
is not resolved amicably, the two parties are made to swear by the god that they own
the land. The person who swears falsely would suddenly die within a specified period
(usually a matter of weeks or couple of months) and the land reverts to the rightful
owner. Because of the speed with which it deliver judgment, people gave the god the
nickname “Ochegi Oluwa”, meaning that “it does not wait for the next generation before it delivers judgment.”
All the properties of the slain victim are taken to the deity. Because such properties
accumulated heavily over time, and the god would always demand expensive sacrifices
from time to time, successive chief priests decided to be hiring out such items on
a fee basis. The money realized is what is used to procure the numerous items (mostly
cows and other livestock, assorted food stuffs and drinks) required for performing
sacrifices to the deity whenever the occasion arises.
The Chief Priest added that the deity mostly leases out confiscated assets like wheel
barrows, bicycles, motor cycles, and tracks of land to clients and tenants who make
agreed returns in both cash and kind. People who hire the deity’s properties or take
them on lease, continued the Chief Priest, do so to enable them feed their families
and some have been able to set up micro-businesses in the process. This and the other
deities, it was reported, also have houses and cars used for commercial transportation
to raise money for the deities. These are among the items occasionally surrendered
to the deity by families of persons it has purportedly killed in retribution. Whilst
the hiring and leasing of assets are an integral part of the deities’ credit system,
the monies realized from all the “business-oriented” activities, are, among other
things, used for money-lending and for procuring sacrificial items for the deities.
From the standpoint of the deity operators and most local people, the deities are
not business motivated; they essentially champion these seemingly business-oriented
activities to help people.
Furthermore, in the eyes of the deity stakeholders, there is no confusion between
the assets of the deity and those of its operators, especially the chief priest. The
properties of the deity belong to the deity. The chief priest and any other stakeholders
can only enjoy sensible usufructary privileges as occasionally allowed the deity.
It is generally believed that the deity speaks frequently through its various diviners
and that it can and does inflict severe punishment on anybody that misuses or violates
its property rights. The chief priest of a deity is therefore not by any means its
sole oracle. There are various well known diviners and medicine-men both within and
outside the local community that occasionally speakon behalf of various deities when consulted. The chief priest occasionally consults
some of these independent diviners when he needs to confirm or double-check the mind
of the deity on a particular issue and also on certain occasions when, for whatever
reasons, the deity does not want to speak through its chief priest.
The full version of the research report from which this synopsis has been drawn, including
tables listing forms of credit, reasons for borrowing, credit beneficiaries and debt
scheduling, is currently embargoed while the paper is peer-reviewed by an academic
journal.
View the article, "Oracular Deities as Traditional Sources of Credit among the Igbo of Nigeria", published in Folk Life: Journal of Ethnological Studies.
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