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Obotunde Ijimere, The Phantom of Nigerian Theater

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Oyekan Owomoyela
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Extract

Wọle Ṣoyinka in his recent Myth, Literature and the African World (1976) attempts to divest himself of the reputation that some of his earlier pronouncements have earned him as a denier of the existence of a distinctive Africanity, and to shake off the foreign sympathizers who have unfairly, he claims, exploited those early positions to bolster their racist denial of an “African world.” His intention in this book is to demonstrate his belief in the “African world,” to show how it is “self-apprehended” by the true African, and to “call attention to it in living works of the imagination, placing them in the context of primal systems of apprehension of the race” (ibid.: xi-xii). The first illustration he uses for this “apprehension of the race” is “The Imprisonment of Obatala,” a play by Obotunde Ijimere (1966). This choice is startling and baffling because Obotunde Ijimere is actually Ulli Beier, a German who was actively involved with Nigerian and especially Yoruba culture from 1950 until 1967.

First Ṣoyinka's use of the play to illustrate the Yoruba world-view will be summarized. The myth of Obàtálá (the creator arch-divinity) is that while he was engaged in the creative task entrusted to him by the Supreme Deity, Olódùmarè, he became thirsty and drank some palm wine to slake his thirst. Unfortunately the effect of the wine put him to sleep. The Supreme Deity, observing the cessation in the creative process, sent Odùduwà (the ancestor of the Yoruba) to complete the task. Odùduwà did and, before Obàtálá woke up, he installed himself on the throne as the ruler of the people. Obàtálá did not forgive Odùduwà for supplanting him. Therefore, both he and his progency engaged Odùduwà and his progeny in a long contest aimed at regaining the ascendency (see Idowu, 1963: 71 ff; Adedeji, 1972). The annual observance of Obàtálá's festival at Ẹdẹ includes a mock battle recreating an aspect of Obàtálá's contest with Odùduwà, and in which the former is captured, incarcerated, and later released after the payment of a ransom (Beier, 1956; Rotimi, 1968).

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 1979 , pp. 43 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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References

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