The Audacity of Ibi Ebibi Rite of Passage and Cremation Burial Rite

To make this commentary as straight forward as possible, I have borrowed the catch word “audacity,” and tied it to ibi ebibi or death wish (which means, literally, “making a heritage will”) in order to explore ritual, life, and death in a diasporal context. It takes as fact that when a knowledge context is ignored in any piece of awareness creation, or of raising an alarm pertaining to a cultural value, it can be as misleading for the reason that both the individual and his or her group act as cause and effect of a larger sociocultural system.

“Audacity” will be used here to refer to daring, boldness, courage, bravery, strong-will, confidence, and prudence—as opposed to its antonym, cowardice. As will be shown, a performative ritual context does not anchor or organize fear, which results in failure of dreams and expectations, but courage, which results in emergence into a new identity of hope and continuing struggle to attain social, religious, economic, and political goals. To achieve this end, I will refer to the late Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, whom I had the privilege of meeting first hand in 2005, during an “Igbo Fest” in Manitoba, Canada, where he was a speaker and the guest of honour. Through the insights of this nationalist, healer, and scholar, I will examine the concept of ritual, thereafter commenting on the rite of cremation burial on River Niger.

Many of the Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria[1] are concerned that Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, a professional healer and leader of international standing, would “will out” his body to be cremated and used as a magic powder (ifu onunu, see Iroegbu 2001).[2] Ifu onunu refers to, in part, the use of burned cultural and medicinal materials, in a powdered state, for ritualistic purposes—namely to provoke, redirect, cause, or heal illness or social problems within kinships as well as within matters of ethnic and national concerns. This is a well known ritual among Igbo ritual experts (see also Iroegbu 2005).[3] Basically, the use of magic, including ritual, taboos, and passion, as Gmelch (Gmelch 2008:126; Bronislaw 1948)[4] shows is to manage anxiety generated by unpredictable events that challenge human control, therefore adding credibility to the advocacy for psychological ties of stability for which it is to become known in the ritual process. Regarding the use of the ashes of a dead body, this may be intended to cleanse, to empower a determined intent, or to carry a flow of healing or therapy when given over to the current of the River Niger.

People are now asking: why would such a prominent nationalist demand that his body be cremated for such ritualistic actions? While this essay does not claim to know “why” in the case of Dr. Ikejiani, it does explore and situate, based on the implications of identity in the Igbo unconscious and rites of passage (Van Gennep 1960),[5] the circumstances that provide for such ritualistic behaviour. The suggestion is made that there must be some process and reason responsible for this behaviour.

It is also considered that human culture is not fixed, but in constant flux. This is, so to speak, a pointer to the argument for why a nationalist would engage in

a somewhat “rented” culture to address issues affecting politics and development in his homeland, Nigeria. The article hopes to apply some anthropological dynamics in rendering some reflections on the nature of a human person, his lived world, and the challenges of cultural identity in relation to the issue at hand.

I first heard about Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani in 2002, soon after I had arrived and settled in Canada, and during the formative stages of the Igbo Cultural Association of Edmonton. Within the context of the association, I worked, alongside the sister-in-law (otherwise wife-in-law)[6] of the late chap, on a committee that was drawing up the constitution and bylaws of the association. At that time, it was mentioned that Dr. Ikejiani had presented a paper to the Nigerian Association of Alberta sometime before, and he was referred to as a visionary thinker and leader. After that, I began hearing stories about this eminent Nigerian of the first republic and about his status as the first category of Nigerians to earn a Ph.D. in Medicine in the 1930s and ‘40s. A scholar myself, I am still lost in wonder and admiration for this gentle grandpa, particularly when I consider the conflicts of life and cultures he passed through to reach the level he attained in ancient and contemporary times—that is, the era of racism and colonialism up to the present moment of globalization, of a sort, of cultures.

After this life—no matter where it is lived—where do the Igbo expect to go within the divine or ancestral world? Does a culture enter into deception when a westernized person, or someone who lived most of his life in diaspora, performs its embodied rites? These leading questions will guide some of the viewpoints I will connect to Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani in this essay, which celebrates the virtues of Igbo beliefs and practices of life and death. Of the same ilk as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Akanu Ibiam, Michael Okpara, Nwafor Orizu, Zik C. Obi, Obafemi Awolowo, and Tafawa Belewa, and other political and economic “ace” men and women, movers and shakers, juggernauts, and big-wigs of the First Republic, Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani served Nigeria at the top level of railway corporate management and nation building. Thus, as one of the founding fathers of Nigeria nationalism, he was declared an unrepentant nationalist up to his death, as his autobiography, or memoir, observed.

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo[7] recently captured some of the fears of historical antecedents that Nigerians need to harvest and address with the passing of the first generation of intellectual and political leaders. In his emotional epitaph and discourse, he writes of Dr. Ikejiani as follows:

The other day, Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani died in Canada. Who? Who cares? Few moments ago, I found out that he demanded that his body be cremated. Nwaafo Nri asked that his body be burnt up and his ashes spread on River Niger. Frightening precedence! It got me thinking. It got me thinking hard. Why did he demand that? Did the Igbo piss him up that much that in death he would deny them the chance to see his corpse?

As can be seen, there is a well-framed, but sensationalized, concern in the above citation. Yet, would Ikejiani more likely dare a precedence of fear or of courage? Here is a man who had seen it all, from colonial times to the present, at the top level of life and matters of living. And we are talking of learning from those of his genre in Nigeria, and for Nigeria—his generation traversed the continents and regions of Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and the Middle East. Of course, the fear of the dead leads to the search for knowing to assure the safety and peace of the living generation. In this case, why did this man of history “will out” his body to be cremated and his ashes spread on River Niger? What does Igbo culture say about things like this “death rite” of passage, and how can we explain this rite of cremation in the modern context of migration and one’s root culture? Unfortunately, we do not have the details of the spread in terms of what quantity—whole or part—was to be spread on the River Niger, as it may be of cultural interest for our referred subject to represent his Canadian identity in this symbolic rite, or to protest some national issues using his cremated body.

There is much curiosity about what prompted this action. Is it attributive to that which Barr. Zik C. Obi II fathomed in his address, entitled Taa bu gboo to the World Igbo Congress 2007?[8] That is, is it possible that Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani has, like others before him, but in a different way, shown his anger against successive governments by letting his dead body be burned up and the ashes spread on their heads for their failings? Certainly, he may have responded against the ills of the military and corrupt civilian governments in a manner similar to that of Francis Akanu Ibiam and Chief Z. C. Obi, who renounced their British Knighthood and the Order of British Empire (O.B.E.) respectively during the civil war in protest against the British support for Nigeria. This could also be true in following the landmark footsteps of Professor Chinua Achebe, who recently renounced the Nigerian National Honours in protest against the treatment of Ndiigbo in Anambra by Obasanjo and his presidential team. Only such rare heroes, who have such an audacity of purpose, can make that kind of sacrifice for Ndiigbo and Nigeria today in a creative bid for liberation from dominance, ignorance and poverty.

The point is, useful demonstrative ritual actions such as the ones mentioned here will go a long way to re-ordering realistic and empathic political and economic environments for the good of all involved in the theatre of symbolic performance. In analyzing the intent of a ritual, such as the cremation burial rite, the analysis should not be limited to one small domain of life, but should embrace a holistic approach that considers all aspects of life negotiation, adaptation, and survival as they relate to ethnic variables and political, economic, social, and cultural issues of national development. As Devisch (1990)[9] has shown among the Yaka of Zaire (now DRC), the human body is a vehicle for emotions. He draws out the fact that the use of our body is central to understanding the seat of culture-specific patterns of human health and pathology. The state of the body is therefore embodied in psychological, cultural, symbolic, political, and economic dimensions of human experience. In like manner, it is imperative to expel negative bodily emotions or forces that harm health and the orderliness of society via those embodiments. In this case, symbolic acts of expelling pain can tie in with rituals of the body, such as the cremation burial rite.

On the one hand, a rite is a step involved in the stages of a ritual. That is, it is one stage of the ritual “package.” Rites of passage therefore entail a serial inoculation, or “booster” rituals. On the other hand, a ritual is composed of a series of rites aimed at actualizing a transformative sense of symbolic reality. The goal of the rites involved is to achieve an objective and inter-subjective manner of realizing an outcome. Van Gennep (1960)[10] describes rites of passage as ritual issues that involve life transitions in social and cultural context of interaction. This suggests that cultural rites of passage will sequentially affect the society itself by affecting the transformation of the individual involved in the ritual. A ritual is, therefore, a patterned, repetitive, and symbolic enactment of cultural belief or value whose primary purpose is the alignment of the belief system of the individual with that of the society. Of course, then, a ritual is a laid down set of actions, often thought to manifest or have symbolic value. Its performance is one of which is usually prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a group. A rite of passage will essentially succeed in moving individuals from one social state or status to another. As such, one can say that both a society’s perception of individuals and individual’s perceptions of themselves are, together, transformed. In other words, both a society and the individuals within a society act on one another to achieve mutual transformation.

A major significance of a rite of passage is that it involves three essential stages of experience. The first of these is a “period of separation” from the present social state, otherwise called “seclusion.” For example, in the transition from a homeland to a foreign land, life to death, pregnancy to childbirth, peacetime to wartime or vice versa, one social space or state will need to give way for the other to occur.

The second stage is known as the “period of transition,” in which one is located between two states of social being. That is, the candidate is captured in neither one thing nor the other, and such a moment provides for a change in one’s body and psychic framework.

The final stage is the “integration phase,” and embodies various rites of incorporation in which the candidate is absorbed into a new social role. For instance, becoming an elder and dying to assuming a venerated identity as an ancestor. This stage, in particular, is a re-uniting one in which re-integration into the society and world order of this world or that world is endorsed.

A very important feature of all rites of passage is that they place their participants in a transitional realm that has few of the attributes of either the past or coming-to state, and, by existing in such a non-ordinary realm, they facilitate gradual psychological opening of the initiates to profound interior change (Turner 1975, Tambia 1985).[11]

Related to the matter of one willing out his body for cremation upon death, this infers that an after-this-life state and connection with the cosmological forces of the physical and divine worlds is being sought through rites of cremation burial. The question to be posed here is this: is cremation burial of the body a valued cultural outfit of a society? Given the circumstances—accidental deaths, plane crashes, shipwrecks, automobile crashes, house fires, drownings, and phenomenal disasters such as earthquakes, floods, episodes of war, and missing or devoured persons—we perceive and experience different forms of dead bodies and how burials are afforded accordingly. In the west, such as in Canada, where human bodies are cremated upon request, people in the culture find it reasonable to benefit from the ritual act of cremation.

Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani worked as a medical doctor and administrator. His lived experiences in handling human bodies should speak for his belief in having his own body cremated and ported home for immersion in the River Niger so that he might rejoin his roots of life-identity or life-world. It does not matter what the pathway was to this particular decision, the important thing is the intent to bring his remains home in a grand symbolic design. In doing so with the ashes of his body, a new vista was cast.

One can advance some reasons as to why intercultural experiences can influence and reshape people’s behaviour even at death. The essence of living in another culture does not mean one cannot adopt the traditional beliefs and practices of that culture when it is found to be credible to one’s psychology of the eternal world. To claim one’s place in the divine world, adjustment is required in the human world, one adjustment of which is for the migrant to find the best way to connect, tailor down, and express the root of the many shared worlds.

Another issue factoring into Dr. Ikejiani’s decision could have been saving the expense of transporting a body home. It may be that many migrants, currently spending huge sums of hard-earned dollars to send a dead body home, will now consider that there are other options. Underlined here is not the question of those who have means and those who have not—rather, the matter at hand is whether it is right for an Igbo person to decide, on behalf of the living, how his own body will be used for public ritual?

One more issue to be raised here pertains to the classical “what if” clause type of question for knowing? As human nature is such that no one knows how he or she will come to an end of this life bearing in mind that people die in many different ways. It presupposes that “What if” one dies in a plane-crash or fire burning in such a way that only the ashes of the body will be collected for burial rites? Community persons are not unaware that ashes of the body are equally representatives of the human persons at death for burial purposes. Typically, the Igbo like to talk about seeing the dead body (ihu ozu anya) for a last respect and for as something to talk about among themselves. Whatever form of the human body that turns out at death, the most important thing for the Igbo is to accord useful burial rites for the peace of the living and the dead. It is here rituals are so important to fashion what is the best way of action at that moment to cool down anxieties and tensions. Drawing from the western culture of cremation and application of the ashes of the dead, it is informative that care is taken to avoid abuse, as it may well be of concern to the health and safety of the living.

In light of the application of human rights, living persons have the right to suggest how best to handle and bury their dead bodies. As tradition holds, it is required that dead bodies be buried with respect and in well dug-up graves. Graves are considered the abode of the dead, through which the world of the ancestors is joined (see also Ebeh 2007:95-96).[12] In the Igbo view, giving a befitting burial is part of a proper grave burial in addition to being a fulfillment of rites of separation, disconnection, seclusion from the human world, and transition and integration to the other, divine world, where the dead person is meant to settle down properly. Culturally, it is not uncommon for elders to fashion how they will be best assisted in transitioning to the realm of ancestral existentialism. Interculturally, this includes, but is not limited to, those in diaspora, who may also choose to attend to a course of traditional action when the end comes.

Since migration separates a person from his group at home, it also calls for a decision regarding burial rites. The Igbo need not see people in other cultures in the modern world as mere objects, but as others who also have deep inter-subjective cultural identities of their own (cf. Csordas 1994).[13] Such inter-subjective realities, unfortunately, only make sense at death, and this is especially brought to bear in the wonder and shock with which people will begin to question and compare such things as behaviours, preferences, and choices, without considering the changing Igbo within the context of experiences of other cultures.

I am not aware if a person hanged in a public space ever reincarnated in Igboland or thereabouts. A hanged person would surely be considered a disgraced person. Such a person, upon burial, is cursed not to return to the living directly or indirectly. By analogy, anyone who wishes his body to be cremated, that is burned and the ashes collected for ritual purposes, is unlike a publicly restrained person. Human sacrifices are obviously the highest offering to achieve ends. A wish to have someone’s body burned and the ashes spread around or sprinkled on a flowing river should, indeed, be seen as a rare symbolic sacrifice. Such an act, performed in good faith, takes a man who has deep emotion for change for his people. I have the impression that Dr. Ikejiani did not lose his Igbo cultural spirit, as he remained with the Igbo and with Nigeria until his death.

Ritual acts enable humans to deal with and explain deep psychological issues symbolically. Rather than becoming politicized, the case of Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani should be understood as a rare grace of healing and intercultural nationalism through the Igbo unconscious rite of passage. I would argue that this should remain so until such a time as clear details of his personal directives in this matter are officially obtained, analyzed, and published. In so doing, the call to investigate and write history as it is lived, and hopefully transmitted, to future generations would be initiated.

In the following theme, I will refer to and explain the concept of ibi ebibi. I will also briefly relate it to the idea of willing a wish and ritual action to achieve that wish during and after death, as well as stating whether or not it is a human rights issue.

Every law originates from a need for a system of order, rights, and protection for citizens. This is why societies around the world enact rules that govern their customs and traditions. In other words, laws are built upon the “wills of a culture,” and expressed in their customs and traditions. One of the areas in which the Igbo establish their will is in the conception and practice of ibi ebibi rite of passage, which I call a “heritage ritual performance action” or a “wish action ceremony.” In a literal communication, it can also mean “oration rite”. Signified in all of these nuances is a moment in which mourners of the dead person, in particular family members and all gathered kin-group proclaim good qualities essential for good life experienced with the dead and denounce bad qualities in life matters for the next life.

By analogy, a naming ceremony may be typical for a child in that, if it is well tailored, a child is initiated with potentials that will guide his or her being. A wish pronounced on a child, and guided by the family and communal ethos, is socially and cosmologically significant for the Igbo. In like manner, at maturity, and more importantly, at death, ibi ebibi is culturally relevant, in part because life is considered to have been already lived and experiences have been gained. As such, this calls for a revaluation of positive life potentials. As ancient philosophy recalls, the unexamined life is not worth living. Since the Igbo believe in life after death—that is, reincarnation—the cultural logic holds that there should be help to ensure that the next life will be better than the present life should the present life be found to be critically unfulfilled or challenged to the extent that there is a need to change, or reweave, the cosmological force impinging on a valued, good life.

Ibi ebibi (literally, oration rite), in Igbo culture, refers to the epitaph of good virtues worthy of praise and retention, and a wish to return in the next life with those same credible potentials and life skills—particularly when a person lived a good life and helped others in his family and community with his or her achievements. Ibi ebibi can also be used to curse a dead person whose life did not merit praise or provide any benefit. In such a case, pronouncing a retribution or curse against the dead person who had a questionable life, causing concern for the living, is, to say the least, a rebuke against bad character traits and an unfulfilled life. It takes courage to challenge the dead within a restrictive worldview. Thus, the Igbo, within the context of ibi ebibi, gather at the grave side of the dead person to express their wishes for this or that kind of life. Usually, an elder from the close family unit or kindred render the ibi ebibi with calculated eloquence and audacity, and it is imperative that the one in charge of the rendering is him or herself ethically sound and progressive in the view of his or her kinsmen and women.

A living person may request, in the exercise of his or her fundamental rights, that certain defined wishes be charged on him or her at the graveside—to live, marry, train his or her children, become a grandparent, acquire wealth, take titles, grow old, celebrate ori n’ndu or gbaa onyima,[14] die, lead or be led, profess a religion of his or her choice, help others or be helped, or express him or herself in a meaningful way. Or, while still alive, he or she may be singing the music of his or her intentions for the next life. For example, a person who did not have the opportunity to go to school may state that intention for the next life so that he or she may return to a family that will offer him or her a good education and the skills to achieve a better life. This “heritage wish right,” which is expected to be honoured by the living, is also implicated in the decision to have one’s body treated in a specific way upon the death of the individual in question. Increasingly, the writing of wills (Wills Law) or personal directives is as important in modern society as were traditional ways of communicating the same intentions. Wills are to be respected, and should someone will out his body for scientific research that act is equally as significant as a ritual intention, such as cremation and the spreading of the ashes on a chosen river or geographical location. Let us not view Igbo beliefs and practices as fixated circumstances when, indeed, they embody expansive ritual meanings and social and cultural applications.

The Igbo speak of burning a human body in cases of a “bad life,” such as a dangerous criminal or a witch orchestrating forms of misfortune or causing malfeasance of unbearable consequence. Yet, such notions of burning as a penal code—which used to be rare but has become increasingly common on today’s streets—arise due to greed and forces of economic, political, and social hardship. It is important to understand the cultural dignity of symbolic human sacrifice in order to alleviate the woes or miseries of one’s population group and national bearing. Thus, we need to explore the symbolism of this ritual cremation and spreading of the ashes on the River Niger rather than undermine the significance and audacity of its purpose. I am sure that this will open up intriguing research in the field of social care in the context of medical anthropology in all its aspects, especially those of human culture or human rites of passage intended to alleviate ethnic problems and ecological difficulties for development across the flow of the River Niger.

It is evident that people do not die with the hope of being soon forgotten. Thus, they try to do something unique as a matter of identity holding (ahamefule) (ref. Echeruo 1979).[15] So it is that the cremation burial rite can be interpreted in many ways—such as serving as a form of igba ndu (a mechanism of life adjustment) with the dead at death for both the living and the dead, as well as an act of a dead folk alive (cf. Emeka 1991)[16] in reference to the symbolism of the embodied ritual action.

Historically, social science disciplines such as anthropology studied non-western peoples, and had them presumed as bounded and definable with various labels and interpretations by outsiders. The intercultural link-ups and influences that emerged between the observed and observer were not necessarily highlighted. Nowadays, improved cultural awareness studies have been helping to depict change in culture and it is as a basic step toward adjustment for development and modernism. To understand individual persons of a society and the entire population group to which individuals are affiliated, it makes sense to recognize and look at how people and cultures are interconnected; in particular in ways that shape their identity within and outside. Connections merge with migration, borrowing values and incorporating them. This is also to be located in intermarriage affairs and inter-culturally driven co-operative efforts for development actions. Talking about Igbo persons as if they are bounded groups will catch too little in the modern world. To better themselves, in their own terms, the Igbo also think about their connections with the living and dead regardless of where they may be - at home or in diaspora.

Of the essence is, notions of rites of passage as have been stressed in this discussion relate to passing, for instance, a resume writing test to apply for a first job to enter into the social adult age. As it is socially and culturally deterministic, passing a driver’s test in order to use automobile in Belgium, Canada or USA comprises a rite in itself for entry into the adult stage. On the contrary, for Nigeria, for example, a rite of passage in other measures of social entry into adult age can be in namely passing through masculine or feminine responsibilities related to adulthood. Therefore, migration (moving out) and settling down with new life challenges (diaspora) are interrelated issues for life and death as well as for development or culture change - as Iroegbu has boldly positioned the two (see Iroegbu 2007:11).[17] The argument is connectivity is a form of cultural transmission of values and this occurs as true for all forms of immigrant settlements irrespective of what may have made someone to move in the first place. Fuelled by experiences of life in diaspora, change in values and the way such changes at death wishes occur may constitute defying values for many Igbo observers.

Largely, this article has brought to the fore one way to understand the dynamics of culture change with regard to identity, life and death wishes as an expansive intercultural embodiment of shared beliefs and values rather than as a closed or fixated cultural embodiment.

I have, in this exposition, attempted to define rites of passage and argued that a self-chosen, symbolic, bodily sacrifice at death is an important cultural issue, involving migrants and their root life, as well as being a form of life adjustment for both the living and the dead. Much like a personal will or directive, cremation of the body, the purpose of which can address a ritual need or a biological, scientific issue, falls within the right of the person involved. Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, who was a statesman, scholar, administrator, and diasporant, should not be faulted in his act of choosing cremation of his body as an adjustment made in this world to claim his place in the divine world of Igbo and Nigerian ancestors. The article critically advises that the notion of Igbo beliefs and practices should not be undermined as if they have no intercultural chances for expansion and application beyond Igboland. Further exploration of the concept of ibi ebibi as Wills Law is called for. It is only when the deeper framework of Igbo life and death is clarified with modernism that many of those rites of passage connected with the lives of people in diaspora will dignify intercultural subjectivities of valued cultural identities and their symbolic expressions.

Apparently, how to deal with the unusual, rather than commonplace, intracultural and intercultural paradigms of identity, life, and death faced by migrants in mixed societies will provide critical codes of adjustment in related or varied cultural worlds. But it cannot be denied, given the veracity of Igbo burial customs, religious beliefs and practices, and indigenous healing models, that the cremation of an elder in the Igbo unconscious will be viewed differently in the epistemological sense. Providing understanding when a culture is challenged is best based on cultural responses that truly negotiate and explain the internal and external realities involved. This is essential, as spiritual life reflects and reinforces Igbo cultural values regarding life, death, burials and memorials (Iroegbu 2007)[18].

Conclusively, and incontrovertibly, ibi ebibi or death and burial wishes involving rituals of resonance come to be true in the context of identity, cultural passion for change and for important growth in ethnic or national spheres - namely social, political and economic development. Realizing that development can occur during one’s life or after one’s death as the case may be is a cultural vision whose ground needed to be laid out in wishes and real or symbolic ritual actions.

[1]* Copy right of this article is reserved. To republish this piece elsewhere, permission from the author or the website publisher is required. Contact: patrickiroegbu@yahoo.com .

[1] Igbo people inhabit the southeastern Nigeria covering about 45,000 square kilometers with a speculated fast growing population of 45 million. Individuals in Igbo society are aware of their kin connections and also of their dependence on, and contribution to, the kin group and community. Igboland shares borders with other neighbouring groups such as Ibibio, Idoma, Edo, and Urhobo. The present state formation for closer political administration of affairs divides Igbo into five main areas namely Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo political states excluding those living outside Nigeria. A major river called River Niger is a pride of the Igbo upon colonial encounter. Even so, it places the Igbo in the geopolitical axis of the Niger Benue confluence. Ritual is extremely a part of their everyday life experiences for adaptation and survival and this is reflected in their unique religious ritual symbols of autochthony and worship, such as Ofo (for more information on this, please see among others Iroegbu (2001); Ejizu (1986); Green (1964).

[2] See Iroegbu, E. P. 2001. Healing Insanity: Anthropological Study of Igbo Medicine. Thesis submitted to Anthropology Department of the University of Leuven, Belgium.

[3] See also Iroegbu, E. P. 2005. Healing Insanity: Skills and Expert Knowledge of Igbo Healers. In: Devisch, R., Njoku, T. and T. Okere (eds.) Africa Development Journal (special edition), CODESRIA, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2005.

[4] - i. Gmelch, G. 2008. Baseball Magic. In Spradley, J. and D.W. McCurdy (eds.) Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology (12/e.), Special Edition. Pp. 126-135. Toronto: Pearson.

- ii. Bronislaw M. 1948. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

[5] Gennep, A. 1960 (1908). The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[6] It seems fit here to recreate the address term sister-in-law in general English language connotation and substitute it with the term wife-in-law (brother's wife). In so doing, reference to a wife-in-law in the same household being occupied by several brothers will help to convey directly what is meant by a married woman to one of those brothers rather than the general term sister-in-law - connoting too many things at the same time. The term wife-in-law reflects a kin-population where a male person addresses every married woman as my wife.

[7] Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo’s submission to www.kwenu.com captioned: A Requiem High Mass for Igbo Race of Friday, September 7, 2007 (retrieved Sept. 10, 2007) helped in initiating my reflections for this article, although some of the issues he raised in his submission are constructive and debatable. Yet, a critical observation is rendered to put researchers to work to observe and document history from firsthand of the Nigeria’s political and development heroes and heroines - with attention to first generation founders of Nigerian political philosophy and administrators. His view is that we acknowledge their contributions, and share and question the lapses in history of their ideals toward nation building and rebuilding. Rather than perceive Rudolf Okonkwo’s raise of alarm for documenting knowledge, generated by his research experiences and surprises, as Franz Boas and his team did with the concept of historical particularism or context in the 18^thand 19^th centuries of evolutionary thought, beliefs and practices, we need to go deeper and explore more of the dimensions of Nigerian culture, politics, economics and migration as it is seen and lived by challenged Nigerians too. The good news is Igbo and African Forum of the Yahoo Group was at work, for some days, sharing and commenting on the insights of Okonkwo’s timely political and historical epitaph on Igbo race of the Niger. Such an invitation to the lens of history, to think and act in time and space should be a welcome schooling.

[8] Barr. Zik C. Obi II. 2007. Taa bu Gboo (today as in the past). A keynote address given at the 13^th Annual Convention of the World Igbo Congress in Detroit, Michigan, USA on August 31, 2007. In www.kwenu.com, retrieved Monday, September 10^th, 2007.

[9] Devisch, R. 1990. The Human Body as Vehicle for Emotions among the Yaka of Zaire. In: Jackson, M. & I. Karp. (eds.). Personhood and Agency. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.

[10] Van Gennep, A. 1960. The Rites of Passage. Ibid.

[11] - i. Turner, V. 1975. Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

- ii. Tambia, J.S. 1985. A Performative Approach to Ritual. In Id., Culture, Thought and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective, pp. 123-66. London: Harvard University Press.

[12] Ebeh, J.I. 2007. Death, Grave and Burial Ceremonies among the Igala People of Kogi State. In: Ukagba, U.G. (ed.) The Kpim of Death: Essays in Memory of Fr. Pantaleon Iroegbu (Fada Kpim), pp. 91-100. BC. Canada and UK: Trafford Publishing.

[13] Csordas, T. (ed.) 1994. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[14] Ori n’Ndu, or Igba Onyima is a rite of passage performed for an old person in Igbo culture during which the celebrant receives gifts of money and goods from all his or her children and grand children. And in turn, the celebrant blesses all and wishes that their own children will accord them equal respect and honour in their own lifetime. As a well ripe old age rite, it is mostly done before a person dies. It can be demanded by the celebrant as a right to be accorded with a ripe old age honour from his or her children. With hope, a most recent case study of this rite of passage in Mbano Area of Imo state will be presented in another article.

[15] Echeruo, M.J.C. 1979. A Matter of Identity: Ahamefule. Ahiajoku Lecture. Owerri: Culture Division.

[16] Emeka, L.N. 1991. Dead Folks Alive: Igbo Funeral Rites in the Broad Spectrum of Igbo Concept of Death. In: Ahiajoku Lecture (Onugaotu) Colloquium. Owerri: Directorate of Information and Culture, pp. 10-33.

[17] Iroegbu, E. P. 2007. Migration and Diaspora: Origin, Craze, Significance and Challenges for Development at Home. In Enwisdomization Journal: An International Journal for Learning and Teaching Wisdom. Pp. 11-28. Nigeria: Enwisdomization Academic Forum.

[18] Iroegbu. E.P. 2007. Death, Identity and Father Pantaleon Foundation. In: Ukagba, U. G. (ed.) The Kpim of Death. Essays in Memory of Fr. Pantaleon Iroegbu (Fada Kpim). BC., Canada and UK: Trafford Publishing.