Until the whiteman came to Nnewi and entire Igbo land, our people believed that there was a Supreme God known as Chukwu Okike Abiama who was the numero uno, primus interpares or simply “the first amongst all gods”. This was the god that could hold other gods to account. Besides this Supreme Deity are other gods with powers to create human beings. The above belief is derived from the Igbo saying that: “Ofu nne na-amụ mana ọ bụghị ofu chi na-eke”, meaning that “Even though children are born of the same mother, they are created by different Makers or Gods.” This belief is rooted in what Igbos say, and the name they bear/bore. It is common to hear an Igbo person at the height of grief shout: “Chi m egbuna m ooo”, meaning: “My God has killed me oo.”

Some Igbos name their children at the turn of fortune “Chi m nụọlụ m ọgụ”, meaning “May my God fight this battle for me.” Igbos believe that “Ebe onyedalụada ka chi yakwatuluya”, meaning that “downfall of anyone is as permitted by his god.” A person’s God is responsible for the timing and the exact location of birth.

Igbos believe that the creator of Buhari is different the creator of Ekwueme or Awolowo; that everyone has their own creators; implying that there are many creator gods in the space and time. Like Jesus, Igbos also believe in reincarnation. Just like the Catholics too, Igbos believe in the interactions between our dead relatives and the living, with each intervening in the affairs of the other.

Through colonialism and effective packaging, many Ndigbo and other peoples of the world had accepted the story told by Moses in the Bible about how their God created his race in Garden of Eden which description fits a location in today’s Iraq considering the rivers Tigris and Euphrates mentioned in his creation story.

Clearly Moses’ race has remained pure till date and are quite distinguishable in colour, marked features from Africans, Chinese, Indians, Philippinos, Mongolians etc. Each of these races have their stories that have now become heresy or taboo though Indians and Japanese have refused to be bleached or bamboozled as much as Africans.

The vestiges of Igbo cosmology could be seen in Igbo mothers of yore allotting Gods to their daughters. It used to be the practice until when Igbos became James, Jude and Martha. During my grandmother’s era, it was customary that a woman must allot a personal god to her daughter before leaving for her husband’s house. It was called “ịhanye chi”. The nearest of this kind of god is what the Catholics regard as Guidance Angel.

This was done by the mother cutting out a branch of an Ọha tree in her backyard and giving the same to her daughter after invoking her mothers’ gods to protect her daughter. She would now detail a good god to be her daughter’s God. The daughter would plant and nourish the ọha cutting at her new home. She would pluck ọha leaves from the new ọha chi tree to make ọha soup for her household. It is sort of a passive communion. This special new tree in a bride’s home that grows from a stem of anọha tree from a mother’s ọha tree is called “Ọhachi”.

This concept that people have different gods responsible for their creation has helped the Igbo explain the disparity in wealth, affliction, and life vicissitudes. For instance, it explains why some people fail while others succeed, why some people are beautiful while others are ugly, why some people survive in a plane crash, and others die, etc.

A lucky person claims that “Mụ na chi m dị na mma”, meaning “I am on good terms with my personal god.”

Ikenga Ezenwegbu
5 March 2022

Father’s name is Idemmili. That’s his first name before he became christened Simon. If my brothers decide to branch off from the larger family and change their surname they would choose Idemmili.

That name incidentally is also where we are from. But this story is about the totem of Idemmili, and my sister.

I grew up knowing that a frightful thing as a snake specie could come into the house, and no one would panic. The python is the totem of Idemmili people, no one kills it intentionally. It enjoys privileges, and boy, those privileges, it sure enjoys!

You could open your drum of water in the morning and find one curled at the bottom. You could reach your hand to pick a pot of soup in your kitchen and find one right behind it. You could reach into your stack of palm fruits and one emerges from underneath. Everywhere! I’ve even heard stories of it curling up and placing itself right under someone’s head as she slept, just like a pillow.

In all these instances, there’s no panic, because the people know that it’s not harmful. The bite is not venomous. In the few instances that it is surprised into biting a person, it usually hisses after the bite and the belief is that the hiss shows remorse and takes away the pain.

I never became used to seeing them around, not that they come that often anyway.

My sister became charismatic and after our parents left, has largely been in charge of things. She knows that for our people, the python is to be protected. She does. But she says that they are children of ndi mmil and they are of no good. So she kills them in a way that I disapprove.

If we find these things in the house, long bamboo poles are used to remove them. But you talk and ask that it curls up on the pole you offer. More often than not, it does. You carry it on the pole and take it to a bush away from the house. That’s the practice I met.

Then some people started using kerosene. A cup of the liquid thrown at it gets it to forget its usual gait and run out of the premises. It is said that they shed skin when kerosene or any other from the hydrocarbon family touches them.

My sister burns it, alive. She would not listen to anything else.

The creature tried to get away. There were tongues of flame on its skin for she kept throwing fuel, kept for that purpose. It’s a miracle that the house didn’t burn down with the creature.

It opened it’s mouth wide as if in a scream as it kept writhing and thrashing about. And every time it opened that mouth wide, my aunt who witnessed it alongside me, gave out a cry calling on nne. It did struggle to overcome the flames and it’s imminent death. It did. I was surprised at the length of time it held out.

And then it stretched and froze.

Ada Obi