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Comment on E.M. McClelland's “The Experiment in Communal Living at Aiyetoro”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
Dr. McClelland's account of the communal settlement of fishermen at Aiyetoro, with its moving tribute to “the strength of purpose” and “fortitude”of “simple uneducated men”, brings to mind some lines by the Nigerianpoet, Gabriel Okara, in which he attempts to show something of the religious force behindan older group of African Christians on the West African coast, members of what is now known generally as the “Aladura” movement, the praying people, with their emphasis on the Holy Spirit:
They pray, the Aladuras pray
to what only hearts can see while dead
fisherman long dead with bones rolling
nibbled clean by nibbling fishes, follow
four dead cowries shining like stars
into deep sea where fishes sit in judgment;
and living fishermen in dark huts
sit round dim lights with Babalawo
throwing their souls in four cowries
on sand, trying to see to-morrow.
Still they pray, the Aladuras pray
to what only hearts can see behind
the curling waves and the sea, the stars
and the subduing unanimity of the sky
and their white bones beneath the sand.
And standing dead on dead sands
I felt my knees touch living sands -
but the rushing wind killed the budding words.
- Type
- Religious Movements
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1966
References
1 “One Night at Victoria Beach”;, Modern Poetry from Africa, edited by Moore, Gerald and Beier, Ulli (London, 1963), pp. 98–99Google Scholar.
2 “Jesus of Oyingbo”, New Society, 9 April, 1964, p. 13Google Scholar.
3 A useful, succinct review is Luethy, Herbert, “Once Again: Calvinism and Capitalism”,Encounter (London), XXII, 1 (1964), pp. 26–38Google Scholar.
4 E.g. Duckworth, E. H., “A Visit to the Apostlesand the Town of Aiyetoro”, Nigeria(Lagos), 1951, No. 36, pp. 386–440Google Scholar; Anone., “Aiyetoro”, Nigeria (Lagos), 1957, No. 55, pp. 356–386Google Scholar.