Idu: A Creator Festival at Okpoma (Brass) in the Niger Delta

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Abstract
Introduction: In a brilliant analysis of Kalahari religion, Robin Horton has suggested that ‘Kalahari readiness to identify their unitary tamuno with the Christian God, and to give it active worship in such a guise’, may be explained by the fact that ‘Christian evangelism coincided with a growing irruption of the wider world outside into the narrow enclave of village life, and hence with a growing need to come to terms with this wider world’. Mr. Horton may not have meant to draw this conclusion, but this assessment could be read to suggest that among the Kalahari there had been no ‘active worship’ of the Creator God until Christian missionaries arrived with the European trader and consul, that it was this irruption of the outer world that gave the Kalahari villager a reason for seeking actively to worship tamuno, the missionary arriving at the opportune moment to teach him how. The following account of a Creator festival and ritual among the Nembe or Brass people, living adjacent to the Kalahari in the Niger Delta, should serve to confirm that active worship of a supreme being antedated the establishment of Christian missions. As with the Kalahari, there was a later identification of the Nembe God with the Christian, but this did not mark the beginning of active worship. The impact of the new forces has, however, resulted in the giving up of traditional modes of worship for the new Christian procedures which are thought to be more effective, and the idu festival described here has not been performed for over a decade.

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