African Myths of Origin

by Stephen Belcher

  Venin at one point decided she should visit her brother Wun, to buy some cattle from him. She took her four older sons, but decided to leave the youngest, Nzeanzo, at home. He thought this was a bad idea, and feared that they might get into trouble. So he secretly followed his mother and his brothers.

  Venin and the four boys reached Wun’s home after a short trip, and Wun greeted them warmly. He had four daughters, close in age to the boys, and he told the children to play together while he and his sister discussed the selection and price of the cattle. Later in the day, as dinner was being prepared and served, he built a large fire at one end of his compound, and over it he hung a large metal pot which he filled with water.

  After dinner, he sent the children to sleep in the children’s hut, while his sister was given her own place, and Wun retired to his own chamber.

  It was in the dark of the night that Nzeanzo arrived at Wun’s settlement, and he looked carefully around the area, noting the large fire and the big pot. He made his way to the children’s hut, and found his brothers lying in a row, and nearby Wun’s daughters slept covered by a loose sheet. ‘Let us take some precautions,’ said Nzeanzo to himself, and he removed the loincloths from his sleeping brothers and draped them over the hips of Wun’s four daughters, and he took the sheet from the daughters and spread it over his brothers. Then he waited. In the middle of the night, Wun came into the dark hut. He felt the first bodies he encountered: they were Venin’s sons, but covered by his daughters’ sheet. ‘I told the girls to sleep at the back of the hut,’ muttered Wun, and he carefully made his way past the sleeping boys to the second group of children. He reached down and touched: there were the loincloths. These, he thought, were the four sons of Venin. One by one, he picked them up and took them to the iron pot where the water was now boiling. He tossed them in. When he finished, he returned to his chamber and went to sleep.

  When all four of Wun’s daughters were boiling away, Nzeanzo woke up his brothers and showed them how they had narrowly escaped becoming a meal for their uncle. Then he woke up his mother and told her what had happened. Secretly, they all slipped away from the settlement and began the journey to their home.

  In the morning, Wun woke up and looked around. He could not find his daughters, and his sister was not in her hut. He looked more carefully into the pot and understood what had happened: he had been tricked. He quickly located the tracks left by Venin and her sons and followed them. When he saw Nzeanzo, he hurled a river to block the path, but with a few words Nzeanzo made the river shrink down to the size of a stream so that he and his brothers could leap over it. Then Wun hurled a charm that became a great swamp before them, but again Nzeanzo spoke a spell and the swamp became a puddle of water. So they escaped Wun, although he now roams free in the world to kill people. From that time on, Nzeanzo’s brothers acknowledged that, though he was the youngest, he was the most powerful of them.

  Nzeanzo is also responsible for the development of canoes, although this came at some cost. He was sent out to herd the cattle, and his grandmother came with him. As the heat of the day increased, she asked him to let her rest, and so he found her a place in a tree where she could rest, and he gave her a gourd with some fresh milk. Then he drove the cattle on. While she was waiting through the noontime, a hippopotamus came by and saw the gourd. The hippopotamus demanded some milk, but the gourd was empty; the old woman had drunk it all. She could not offer any to the great animal, and showed him how the gourd was empty. But this simply made the impatient hippopotamus more angry, and so it pushed against the tree with all its might until the tree toppled over, and then it trampled the old woman to death.

  On his way back to the camp, Nzeanzo returned to find his grandmother. It was clear what had happened. She lay dead among the shattered limbs of the tree, and the tracks of the hippopotamus led towards the river. Nzeanzo followed quickly after the killer, and soon found him. Immediately he hurled his spear and pierced the animal through the heart. As the hippopotamus was dying it uttered a curse, promising that any humans who tried to cross the Benue river by swimming would be attacked by hippos. This is why Nzeanzo devised canoes for the people.

  Venin eventually died, although it is not said how, and she became the object of a ritual cult. Her four older sons also became divinities: they are Hamabulki, Hamagenin, Ngbirrim and Gbeso. But none of their cults is so important as that of Nzeanzo, which is based at Fare. Nzeanzo settled there after living for a time in Kwolle. In Kwolle he was kept awake at night by the harsh and constant croaking of the frogs, so he built a great iron canoe, and travelled to Fare.

  THE SEPARATION OF THE BATA AND BACHAMA

  The Bata and Bachama were originally one people, and they moved south out of the desert areas to the north. They were forced to move after their chief’s daughter refused to give water from a well to the daughter of the king of Gobir, despite their kinship; this act of hostility aroused the Gobir against them.

  *

  The people reached Demsa, and there a dispute between the twin sons of the king caused them to break into two groups. The older son was worried about the succession and jealous of his brother, and decided he would kill him while they were hunting, so it would seem an accident. He made his preparations and instructed his followers, but his plans became known to his father’s sister, and she warned Jaro Dungi, the younger son. He stole the pot that contained the rain magic of the people and fled away. He was pursued by the older brother. But when the older brother caught up, Jaro Dungi was already on the other side of the Benue river. The older brother threw a long roll of cloth across the river, holding one end, and when he saw that his younger brother had caught it, the older brother cut the cloth in two with a knife and pronounced an oath: Jaro Dungi would be the ‘slave of the cults’, responsible for rain-making and healing and other such duties, while the older brother would hunt and make war against the Fulani in the north, and neither of them would be allowed to set eyes on the river which separated them. So the Bachama became responsible for the rites, and the Bata for war.

  THE PEOPLES OF THE COAST

  The lands immediately west of the Niger delta were dominated by the Yoruba peoples, who formed many city-states and kingdoms and now constitute one of the largest language groups in Africa, with numbers now over twenty million. Yoruba influence can be seen in the traditions of the city of Benin (in Nigeria; see Chapter 48). In the late eighteenth century, the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo conquered the kingdom of Dahomey (in the modern Republic of Benin; see Chapter 51), and their influence is particularly visible in the shared practice of Ifa divination. This densely populated part of the Atlantic coast was known to eighteenth-century travellers as the Slave Coast, and so many Yoruba and Fon slaves were sent to the New World that some of their culture survived the crossing. The Fon belief in vodun (deities) became the basis of the Caribbean practice of voodoo, as it is popularly known.

  North of the Yoruba kingdoms, Borgu (see Chapter 50) managed to remain independent of its southern neighbours and of the Muslim states of the Hausas. West of the kingdom of Dahomey, in the modern states of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, Akan-speaking peoples formed the Ashanti kingdom in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a fraction of them moved west to become the Baule. Vegetation probably affected the expansion of the kingdoms. The dense tropical forests that used to mark the coast of West Africa become more open in western Nigeria, around the Niger, and so allow easier traffic of people, goods and on occasion armies.

  48

  THE CITY OF BENIN

  The city of Benin, situated in the Niger delta and inhabited by the Bini, was long involved in trade up the river, as well as with the Europeans coming from the coast. The city deserves special mention for the importance of its artworks: the many brass and bronze castings which were dispersed after the British captured and destroyed the city in 1897, but which have become icons of African art. Like the city of Djenne (along the middle Niger; see Chapter 62), it remained relatively independent, although c
learly influenced by the Yoruba states to the west; the city also deserves special note in recognition of the Oba (the king) who banned the slave-trade, at least for a time, because of the harm it did to his people. These narratives tell of the foundation of the city and of a major king; they are retold from the works of a Benin historian published in the 1950s.

  THE FOUNDATION OF BENIN

  It is said that the people who founded the city of Benin first came from Egypt. After passing Ife, the holy city of the Yoruba, they sent a hunter to scout ahead, and the hunter told them they were coming to a proper site. There they built their city. The first king, or Ogiso, was named Igodo; he ruled long and made the people prosperous. He was succeeded by his son Ere, who devoted much effort to stopping the quarrels of the people, so that his name has become something of a byword. He also promoted agriculture and established the groups of craftsmen of Benin.

  It was during the rule of this first series of kings that a monster used to come from the sky to attack people as they went to market in a certain quarter. But a hero named Evian defeated the monster. He went to the marketplace ahead of time, and took with him an iron hammer which he heated in coals so that it glowed. Then he waited until the people began to assemble, and as they came, so too did the monster, flying down from the sky. But as it opened its maw to swallow the people, Evian hurled his iron hammer into the beast’s mouth, so that it roared in pain and flew off, never to return. To honour his deed, the Bini perform an acrobatic masked dance.

  The last Ogiso, Owodo, was not a good king, and in his reign barrenness struck the women of the kingdom. The king sent Esagho, his first wife, to an oracle to learn what the remedy might be; the oracle replied that if the king sacrificed his first wife, the people would be cured. But on her return, Esagho told the king that the oracle had demanded that he sacrifice his son Ekaladerhan. The king banished the son, but did not kill him. However, after three years, when the barrenness of women had continued, the king sent other messengers to the oracle. Again, the oracle told the messengers that the king should sacrifice Esagho, his first wife. When he received this message, the king immediately had Esagho executed, and sent messengers to his son (who had founded a village some distance away) asking him to return. But the son refused, and succeeded by stratagems in defeating the troops sent to bring him back by force. The Ogiso was eventually deposed for killing a pregnant woman.

  Following the deposition of the last Ogiso the people of Benin sent messengers to Odudua, the Yoruba king in Ife, to ask that one of his sons come to rule over them. Odudua sent his son Oranyan. Oranyan came to Benin, married, and fathered a son. But after a few years, Oranyan said he would leave Benin; the people were too quarrelsome, and only someone born among them would be able to govern them properly. It is from these words of Oranyan – ‘Ile Bini’ or people of vexation – that the city of Benin takes its present name. But Oranyan did not depart abruptly; he moved instead to a nearby community for some years, while his son grew older, and then still further away. His residences are still known.

  His son, at first, did not speak. But his father sent him some charmed seeds, which the son used for the game of wari. And when he won the game, he exclaimed in delight ‘Owomika!’ (I have succeeded!) which later, shortened, became his name: Eweka.

  EWUARE

  King Ohen became crippled, and had to be carried about. He disguised this fact, but his iyase (minister) discovered it, and so the king, to preserve his secret, had the iyase killed. But the man was very popular, and learning of his death the people rose up against the king and stoned him to death. He left four sons. On his death, the eldest became king, but was not popular, and his rule was marked by civil unrest. He exiled Ogun, the third son of Ohen, and died. The second son then came to the throne and ruled well, but he died young. The fourth son, who had accompanied Ogun into exile, came back to learn the intentions of the city elders; he then took the throne in place of his brother. But Ogun came and killed him in the market, and took the throne. He became a great king, known by the name Ewuare.

  Some stories are told about his adventures during his exile. He returned to the city at one point, but was spotted and had to run. He took refuge in the compound of the Ogiefa, the chief loremaster of the city, and hid in a well. A slave named Edo put a ladder down the well so that he was able to escape before dawn, when people would come looking for him. In gratitude for Edo’s help, when Ewuare came to the throne he gave the name Edo to the city, and that remains a second name of the city of Benin. A market woman also sheltered him in the city, and in gratitude to her a tree was planted where her stall had been, and after that tree another and another, until in the modern era a statue was erected.

  Having escaped from the well, Ogun (who would be Ewuare) spent the night in the bush under a tree. In the morning, he woke to find drops falling on him; when he opened his eyes he saw the drops were blood, coming from the kill of a leopard in the tree above him. And he saw further that he lay next to a poisonous snake. He quickly drew his weapon and killed both beasts, and later established a shrine at this place.

  He lost his son, however. He had sent the son to be fostered with the remaining son of a famous general, who had died in a rearguard action, and at first the two boys got on very well. But then the general’s son insulted the prince, calling him a peasant and giving him a hoe in exchange for a gift of yams the prince had made. After that, they began to hate each other, and finally each poisoned the other on the same day.

  After the death of his son, Ewuare became inconsolable. He decreed three years of mourning, during which no one in the land could wash or take pleasure or have intercourse. The people responded by leaving Benin in great numbers and taking refuge with neighbouring kings. It was to prevent this that Ewuare instituted tribal markings on the faces. He was eventually induced to relax his decree by the advice of an old man known as ‘Old Man Chameleon’. The reign of Ewuare is remembered for the walls he built and for the number of heroes and magicians who lived at that time.

  49

  THE YORUBA OF SOUTH-WESTERN NIGERIA

  The Yoruba compose one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups of Africa in terms of the number of speakers, and Yoruba has also spread outside Africa, as a liturgical language, through the slave-trade and the practice of Ifa divination which involves memorization of a corpus of verses. Yoruba history is rich and complex. At different times, different cities have risen to power and controlled their neighbours. All, however, acknowledge the city of Ile-Ife (old Ife) as their point of origin, and rulers claim some dynastic connection to Ife for legitimacy. Oral tradition and written sources (from European traders and travellers) document the history back to approximately 1500; archaeology indicates cities in the region at least 2,000 years ago. Some people now claim an Egyptian (or other Middle Eastern) origin for the Yoruba (see below, ‘The Migration from the East’) but the claims are improbable.

  Yoruba culture was never unitary; while united to some extent by language and customs, people were divided by geography, political systems and religious practice. One of the principal factors of unity, however, is the Ifa divination system in which the babalaawo (the Ifa diviner) reads the future (or the state of the world) by throwing cowrie-shells or palm nuts; the arrangement of the items yields patterns which are associated with verses and interpretations, not unlike the Chinese I Ching. In other respects, the region was fragmented into specific territories, each with its own history and set of religious practices. In the past century, however, the Yoruba view of their past has largely been homogenized through the influence of the Revd Samuel Johnson’s History of the Yorubas; this book, written by a converted Yoruba and published in 1921, has become the accepted version of history. Johnson views the gods as deified kings. This selection of stories tries to offer a sense of the variety among traditions: in one (older) story, Odudua is a goddess, the consort of Olorun, and much the same name (Oduduwa) is later applied to a male deity who creates the earth. The sources for the stories include
European works published in the late nineteenth century, colonial era and modern accounts.

  THE ORISHA

  The Yoruba have numerous deities, or orisha, of whom Olorun is now considered the principal. Olorun is the sky-god, and he is known by a number of names and attributes: Eleda the creator, Alaye the owner of life, Olodumare the almighty.

  In the past, it was believed that Olorun had a consort named Odudua, also called Iya Agbe or ‘Mother of the Calabash’. This name referred to the way in which the pair enclosed the world as the two parts of a calabash, the bowl and the lid, fit together tightly. But Odudua objected to this state of affairs; she was shut in the dark, being the bottom half of the calabash. She complained and upbraided her spouse. Her complaints made him so angry that he blinded her by ripping out her eyes. She responded by cursing him, saying he would only eat snails from then on, and snails are now the proper offering to Olorun.

  They had a pair of children, male and female, who married and produced a son named Orungan. Orungan forced himself upon his mother, and so she fled from him. He chased after her and was about to catch her when she tripped and fell. She then transformed herself. From her breasts came rivers, from the parts of her body came many of the other orisha who are worshipped by the Yoruba: Shango, the orisha of lightning, and his wives Oya, Oshun and Oba who are rivers, Olokun, the orisha of the ocean, Ogun, the orisha of blacksmiths, hunters and warriors, and many others. This is said to have happened in Ife.

  Another story of the origin of the orisha says that they are the fragments of the great Orisha, who was killed and whose body was broken into tiny bits by a slave whom he kept to do his cooking. Many of the fragments were gathered by Orunmila, the orisha of Ifa, and kept in the city of Ife. But he could not assemble them all, and so there are small orisha throughout the world where the fragments fell.