Christianity has so overtaken and reshaped the lifestyle of the Igbo people of Nigeria that it is hard to say for certain what is originally Igbo and what is not. The fact that the Igbo – like many pre-colonial African societies – did not have an organised system of writing on paper and storing in easily retrievable formats, accessible to the public, dealt a devastating blow to the transfer of Igbo thoughts from generation to generation. The result is that over the decades, many Christian and Western correlatives have been adopted into the Igbo worldview as original to the Igbo.
One issue that is usually the subject of such assumptions is the way human beings are created in Igbo cosmology. The popular narrative has been that the Supreme God, “Chukwu”, oversees all affairs in the Igbo traditional world but chose to withdraw from day-to-day administration and handed over that duty to different gods.
According to Prof. Chinua Achebe in his essay “Chi in Igbo Cosmology”, “Since the Igbo people did not construct a rigid and closely argued system of thought to explain the universe and the place of man in it…, anyone seeking an insight into their world must seek it along their own way – folktales, proverbs, proper names, rituals and festivals.”
In Igbo cosmology, God rarely features whenever the creation of human beings and animals is mentioned. He is also rarely credited with deciding the destiny of human beings or when human beings should die. There is a being credited with all that. That being is chi, which has been translated as “personal god.” Each person has his or her own chi. Even animals have their own chi.
Each person is created by chi. Each person’s chi is different. That is why the Igbo say: “Otu nne na-amụ ma otu chi adịghị eke” (One mother may bear many children but one chi does not create them). This is also reaffirmed in a saying which is given as a personal name: “Chi abu otu” (No two personal gods are the same). This is the source of the belief of the Igbo people in the uniqueness of every individual. It exemplifies the individualism for which the Igbo are known.
Furthermore, whether a person meets with misfortunes in life or not does not depend on God’s favour. It depends on the person’s chi. That is why the Igbo have names like Chinwoke and Chijioke (chi is in charge of sharing or allocating fortunes). That is also why any time something bad happens to an Igbo person (including the most devout Christians of today), the person would exclaim: “Chi m e gbuo m ooo!” (My chi has “killed” me!).
In fact, before chi creates a person and sends the person into the world, the person and the chi will sit down and have a chat. It is at that parley that the person’s fate is determined. That is where it is determined how long the person will live, where the person will be born, what the person will be, etc. It aligns with the democratic ideology of the Igbo people. It may sound ridiculous that any right-thinking soul would choose a negative destiny, but that is why such is a religious belief. Although it is not clear whether the soul has the power to insist on certain destinies, the bottom line is that there is a meeting between a soul and the chi that will turn the soul into a human being.
That is why whatever happens to a human being, the Igbo will say: “Ọ bụ otu ya na chi ya siri kpaa” (That is the agreement between the person and the chi). But it is obvious that no human being remembers the details of such an agreement.
his does not mean that human beings are to fold their arms and wait for their destiny to unravel. Human beings are encouraged to strive for success in life. That is why the Igbo say: “Onye kwe, chi ya ekwe” (If a person says yes, the person’s chi will concur.) But each person is like an animal held on a leash by the person’s chi. The animal can play, run and jump within the length of the rope, but not beyond it. Therefore, nobody can rise beyond what his/her chi has determined for him/her. This is why it is said: “Onye buru chi ya uzo, o gbagbue onwe ya n’oso.” Therefore, it is advised that when people have done their best but their chi says no, they should not be blamed (O mebere ma chi ya ekweghị, onye ụta atala ya).
Also, any time a person is due to depart from this world in line with the prenatal agreement, the chi will end the person’s life. Once the chi decides to kill the person, no force can stop it. That is why the Igbo say that if there is a conspiracy against a human being but the person’s chi is not part of it, that plot will not succeed.
It is also believed that a human being can fight a monster with 20 heads and win, but no human being can fight his or her chi and win. That is the crux of the popular folktale of the great warrior Ojaadili. He fought the strongest beings on earth and won. He went to the land of the spirits and defeated all the spirits. Then he became arrogant. The spirits had a meeting and decided to present his chi as his opponent. His chi was disguised as a frail-looking little individual. His flautist saw the plot and begged him to flee. But the arrogant Ojaadili refused and said that he had defeated ferocious beings and spirits. “Why should I flee from this tiny opponent?” he asked. But when the fight began, Ojaadili’s disguised chi picked him up with a finger and smashed him on the ground. That was the end of the great warrior, Ojaadili, and an eternal warning passed on from generation to generation that people should never wrestle with their chi.
Interestingly, although Christianity sees the belief in chi as idolatry, it has become so ingrained in the subconscious of every Igbo person that it is not seen as such. To ensure that it is not practised as idolatry, the people have smartly redesignated chi to mean a shortened form of Chukwu.
While some have argued that Chukwu (God) uses chi and other gods as His messengers, some scholars like Prof. D. Ibe Nwoga and Prof. I.B. Chukwukere have argued that there was no concrete evidence to prove that before Christianity came into Igboland in the 19th century, the Igbo believed in a supreme being that created the heaven and the earth and all therein. Rather, they argued that what existed was the Ibini Ukpabi deity of the Aro people, also known as the Long Juju, which was promoted throughout the South-East and parts of the South-South as “chi ukwu” (the big god). Chi ukwu of the Arọ people was marketed by its agents, who settled in all parts of Igboland and beyond, as the deity of last resort. It was feared. When people wanted to go consult the Arọ deity, they would say: Ka anyị jee Chukwu (Let us go to Chukwu). The guilty ones never returned as they were said to have been “eaten” by Chukwu.
For Christianity to gain roots in Igboland, the British had to demonise the Aro people as scammers who used their deity to extort money from the people and sell off supposed guilty people as slaves, while lying that such people had been eaten by the deity. The British then waged a war against the Aro, defeated them and destroyed the shrines of Ibini Ukpabi. To this day, the communities of the descendants of Aro people in different parts of Igboland are still called Umuchukwu (children of Chukwu).
That was why the translators of the Bible into Igbo refused to use the word “Chukwu” for God. They preferred the coined, descriptive or borrowed words like Chineke (God that creates or allocates), Osebuluwa (God that bears the earth), Onyenweanyị (our lord), Jehova, etc. But today, the word “Chukwu” has been fully accepted as the Igbo name for God. Chi has also become a synonym for Chukwu. That is how languages evolve.
– X: @BrandAzuka