Back To The Ancient Root?

Dr. Jarlath Uche Opara
Jarlathuche@gmail.com

For a long time , running into ages this narrative that our ancestors were illiterate has been sold to us. Sadly too, we bought into it , chewed and digested it , making us to see them from the lense of being inferior to the supremacy of the Europeans.

This inferority complex script was sold so well , everything about our ancestors viewed today through the lenses of peganism, antiquity, primitive etc. Their religion was taged peganism because it looked different from the one brought by the European supremacy .

Our culture seen so primitive, our language, our food and everything about us reduced to the barest level of human appreciation. Not that they were not serving a good purpose in the lives of those using them then , but because they appeared different from what our white supremacy brought.

Today such inferiority complex grafted into our blood line by the early European missionaries have held us down like fetters around our legs and hands and caused us to always truckle at anything foreign with trepidation, timidity and awe.

The hypnosis was masterfully crafted and the script well directed, nothing about our ancestral heritage is good enough to be showcased on a global space as pristine.

I have really thought about it, especially as it concerns inteligence, knowledge, literacy etc my querry is , were our Ancestors really illiterate? Apes? With no common sense? How were they communicating? How did they name the animals around them? The fruits and plants that nourished them? How did they discover the various nutritional and medicinal values of the leaves and plants around them?

Before the advent of modern medicine were there health issues they had no help or remedy heaved in sight from their enviroment ?

The River Niger that was puportedly discovered by Mongo Park were there no lives around such enviroment that drank, fished from the water?

The truth is, when Mungo Park discovered the River Niger in the late 18th century, there were indeed human beings living in the area. The river was home to various communities and ethnic groups, including the Hausa, Fulani, and others who had established settlements along its banks. These communities had their own cultures, languages, and systems of governance long before European explorers arrived.

How did the formation of igbo or other native alphbets come about? Was it out of the creativity and ingeniuity of the Europeans who probably didnt understand jack about what igbo language was all about? Who went about their missionary work using interpreters from the natives ? How did this jinx of communication barrier broken between the early missionaries and our ancestors ?

Those natives that first did interpreter for them , how did they get their knowledge of English language however broken and unpolished? They were literate in their native ways of communication for them to relate with whatever English version of what they were taught. Nothing stands on nothing.

Nsibidi is a system of symbols and ideograms that originated in south-eastern Nigeria, primarily among the Efik and Ibibio peoples, but it was also used by the Igbo. It is a form of visual communication that conveys meanings through intricate symbols, often used for writing messages, recording history, and representing cultural concepts.

Other cultures( Hausa, Yoruba etc) equally had their own version of Nsibidi before the colonial era. Would an illiterate set of primitive minds come up with such ideograms?

Nsibidi was traditionally used in various contexts, such as rituals, storytelling, and social gatherings. Although it is not a fully developed writing system like the alphabet, it played a significant role in the preservation of cultural heritage before the introduction of formal writing systems by missionaries. Could it be correct to say that before the coming of the missionaries our forefathers were literate?

Could it equally be right to say that without the colonization processs of the Europeans, our ancestoral heritage would have over time evolved into something better just like it was the case with Ethopia, Japan, etc that were not colonized but evolved into something better without losing their identity?

The problem with us is the complete disintegration of our socio -cultural values and replacing it with something entirely new. Both the good and the bad were marked primitive. We lost our indentity, our uniqueness and our life style subsumed into a culture that was not only hoisted unto us but we were brainwashed into believing how inferior we are to the alternative European lifestyle.

Could we have become better worshipers of our God if christianity was indegenalized? If christianity was introduced without casting aspersion to the ways and means of our traditional ways of worship but instead inculturized it, assimulated it and had it evolved it to something better without its uniqiness being lost in the process?

Listen to those who are proficient in spoken native language and appreciate the sonorous rythmn of sounds, the deep idiom, the rich proverbs that accentuate in a very sophisticating manner life philosophies that cannot be intimidated on any global platform. We may have lost our priceless values in culture, in language, in religion etc through colonization to something that in reality may not be superior to our ancestral heritage.

Can we worship, speak, dresss, eat etc in an African way? Acculturation! May be we wouldn’t be having this cultural identity crisis if the early missionaries had approached their influence from the angle of acculturation and relativism than from assimulation.

Back to the root? Something that would bring our uniqueness, our vibe, our heritage and the “us” in “us” without being assimilated by a more seemingly superior culture.

We are rich culturally. Ours could be a case of dumping a raw unrefined gold for a refined silver and bronze. If only we can be patient with our African/ traditional ways of doing things, hone them, we would be better for it.