Syncretism in Nigerian traditions and elsewhere
by Paul Chuks
Syncretism can be mistaken for something legitimate, if defined simply as the assimilation or combining of ideas into a new whole. For what history has proven it to be, it is a process of alienation of people’s culture cum profane misrepresentation of their traditions via new improvised identity that serves the purpose of imperialism and colonialism. It is mostly done with religion. The task for the colonialists, after subduing their subjects physically, is to do it mentally and so all the time, their watering place is religion, given its role in society and humans’ infinite appetite for the spiritual. Before Marx famously remarked that religion was the opium of the people, leaders of societies had known this. During colonialism in Sahelian Africa, the colonial masters strolled into some villages in eastern Nigeria to preach the gospel of Jesus. They were met with violent resistance and escorted out with stern warning of never returning, especially to denigrate their religion. Then came syncretism. The colonial masters reeled back and elected Ajayi Crowther and Simon Jonas as the new evangelists. Ajayi and Simon then came and translated the books of the Bible to Igbo and Yoruba, where Esu and Ekwensu, both older deities, became Satan; Olorun, Eledumare, Chi, and Chukwu became interpretations of the Christian God. The people became calm, although pocket demonstrations ensued; the majority bowed to the powerful oratory (or as a contemporary view calls it, “performance of wit”) of the Nigerian evangelists.
Chi in Igbo cosmology is not the Christian God. Likewise, Chukwu. Every Igbo person, at the instance of their physical materialization, is assigned a chi as a guardian spirit. It departs from them on their demise. The Christian God is a monotheistic God that is everybody’s guardian spirit at the same time. Say there are 10,000,000,000 Christians on Earth, the Christian God guides them at once. Meanwhile, 10 billion Igbos means 10 billion different guardian spirits for each of them. This is because the Igbo philosophy is a honey-pot for dualism — where something stands, something else stands beside it. Hence, the human being is only one half, her chi, the other half. Chukwu, who assigns these deities, resides somewhere right above the sun and is in close communion with it. Neither Chi nor Chukwu are in charge of morality like the Christian God. Instead Ani, the Earth Goddess and source code for proper moral law, is the proprietor of morality in Igbo pantheology. Syncretism rolled all of them into one whole and made people think Chi or Chukwu are just mere interpretations of the Christian God in their language. It did not stop there. Traditional Igbo religion became a taboo in Igbo land. Although it is not customary taboo, but a consensus one such that any adherent is seen as “immoral,” at times “abnormal,” more often “hell-bound” which consequently gets them anathematized or secluded. Eastern Nigeria today is the haven of the Catholic Church with average patronage to Protestantism and few to Islam. This was and still is the case all over African colonies.
In 1274 at the council of Lyon, the Catholic Church acceded to the usage of Lucifer as Satan. Then Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica explained why Lucifer had to be Satan. The first ideation of Satan came about around 550 BC during the height of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus the Great later permitted the Jews in 539 BC to return to Jerusalem. They took with them Persian traditions that they loved. Satan, known to them as Ha-Satan, was adopted. Satan was barely featured in the old Jewish Bible and when he was, he came to oppose humans, not God. Ha-Satan is derived from the Hebrew word “oppose,” “slanderer.” Throughout the old testament, evil was blamed on man’s idolatry. Satan then evolved from Zoroastrianism to Judaism, Christianity and then Islam. Neither Ekwensu nor Esu were evolutions. Neither of them were half man, half goat, as was portrayed of Satan in the Greco-Roman deity, Pan. That was how Satan got his hooves and horns, and was able to use his phallus to seduce Eve into doing his bidding. The only similar characteristics between Esu, Ekwensu and Satan, is their deceptiveness. That is where it stops. The Yoruba pantheon has about 805 deities among whom Esu belongs. They each have their duties and Esu’s foremost one is communications between the gods and the people. Esu is that abutting entity, linking the physical with the spiritual, making sure that the gods get the prayers and sacrifice of the people. He is also in charge of vengeance, a job reserved for the Christian God. Ekwensu on the other hand is termed the right hand of God (Chukwu Okike — the supreme creator), because he is the perpetrator of the people’s seraphic desire, especially in matters of conflict resolution and justice. Like Esu, Ekwensu is the flanking deity between the Igbos on earth and the Spiritland. Is Satan God’s right hand? No.
In Babylon, Ishtar, the earth goddess, was the sovereign ruler among female divinities. Throughout Western Asia, the Great Mother was worshipped under various names. When Greek colonial masters in Asia Minor found temples raised on her behalf, they named her Artemis and took over the existing cult. This is the origin of Diana of the Ephesians. Christianity transformed her into the Virgin Mary, and it was a Council at Ephesus that legitimated the title “Mother of God” as applied to Our Lady. To date, scholars argue whether the concept of the virgin birth was taken from Artemis, Diana of Ephesus or it was an individual authentic story. Well, history says that the first Council of Nicea was inconclusive about it, but it said that Jesus was “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” In 451 CE the Chalcedon council ruled that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Many Christians today move about thinking Mary gave birth a virgin, when it was a century-long debate that happened among fathers of the church and not a real event in time. Christianity, being the most popular religion in the world, is notorious for syncretism, stealing parts of religions they later discard in entirety as pagan, crushing their figures, recasting them in slipshod identities, causing their worshippers to turn against them. A question that seizes one into ungovernable curiosity arises thus: if every notable Christian figure, rituals and traditions are dated back to history and are seen to have been “agreed upon” by ecumenical councils and creeds who were emulating — syncretizing other religions (the Jews and more) — instead of real time events, is Christianity then erected upon a sandcastle? Christianity is erected upon a sandcastle.
