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brief biographical sketch of Bessie Head excerpted from Gillian Eilersen's Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears

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Poet, writer, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and Howard University, spent three years in the U.S. Air Force, and returned to New York City to attend Columbia University and the New School for Social Research.

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Kola nuts are not only known for its origin to many American and European soft-drinks and its chewing by labourers to diminish hunger and fatigue, but even more for its sacred significance in Igboland.

Attending a kola nut ceremony is almost inevitable for anyone visiting Enugu and is Igbo tradition at its best. Elder agree that once the 5-centimetre nuts are blessed with incantations, the visitors will feel ensured that they are welcome. People are more than willing to explain the ceremony, and where there is no kola nut available, the host will need to do the explanatory apology to his visitors. The kola nut tradition is used for a variety of events, but principally to welcome guests to a village or house.

Breaking of Kola Nut

The ceremony may vary depending on the occasion and people present at the ceremony, but there is a common understanding in the traditional way of breaking them. To illustrate this delicate ceremony, I will take the occasion of welcoming a group of visitors to a village. The host presents a plate with a number of Kola nuts (ranging from two up to sixteen) to the leader of the delegation, who will take the plate and shows it to the most senior member of his entourage. To acknowledge that he has seen the plate, he briefly touches the plate with his right hand, before it is shown to less senior members and so forth till most members have taken a glimpse of the plate. After that, the host gets the plate returned from the visitor and takes one of the kola nuts and gives it to the visitor while saying:

'Öjï luo ünö okwuo ebe osi bia.'
'When the Kola nut reaches home, it will tell where it came from.'

This proverb says that the visitor needs to show the kola nut to his people at home as a proof of having visited this village.

Igbo Kola Nut Ceremony

Usually, the oldest man among the host audience is asked to bless the kola nuts. He will take one of the nuts in his right hand and makes a blessing, prayer or toast using a proverb, e.g.

'Ihe dï mma onye n'achö, ö ga-afü ya.'
'What ever good he is looking for, he will see it.'

Subsequently, the presenter or an appointed person breaks the kola nut with his hands or using a knife. An aid or close relative breaks the remaining nuts. The visitors now explain the purpose of their visit, while the kola parts are distributed to the people, occasionally coming along with palm wine, garden eggs and peanut butter.

As mentioned before, it is the breaking that is the significant part of the ceremony. The more parts the kola breaks up to, the more prosperity it gives to its presenter and visitors. Though there is one exception: if the nut yields only to two parts, it signifies no good as it signals that the presenter has a sinister motive behind the kola. Because of that, Kola nuts with only two parts are avoided for this ceremony and therefore the purple/reddish coloured nuts, cola acuminata are preferred over its greyish counterpart, the cola nitida, as the latter one only breaks up in two. Four parts coincide with the four market days of the Igbo week. Five or more broken parts mean prosperity for the family. In some parts of Igboland, when the kola breaks into six, a separate celebration is required and sometimes even including the slaughter of a goat.

There are many other rules surrounding the kola nut ceremony, which you can read in the books mentioned in the references. I will mention only a few more things: kola nut should only be presented with two hands at the same time, and also as the kola tree is associated with man, only men can climb and pluck the kola tree. Sorry ladies!

Igbo Welcoming to Village

Conversation: To the Hospital
♬ Click here to listen to this conversation.
Vocabulary

ahü

body

dibïa

traditional doctor, medicine man

dibïa oyibo

doctor

örïa

sickness

rïa örïa

fall ill (verb)

oyi

cold

mgbu

pain

akwa (HH)

weeping

bee

cry (verb)

kpörö

bring, take (verb)

ülö ögwü

hospital

ögwü

medicines, tablets

ogologo

long

ndü

life

Parts of the Body

Author depicted by young neighbour

enwere m isi
I have a head

o nwere mkpïsï aka iri
he has ten fingers

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Kola nut is an important tradition in Igbo culture. This chapter explains insights into Igbo culture and language and includes pictures and live conversations.

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The BBC's Barnaby Phillips"It's time to revisit the foundations of Nigeria"Chief Emeka Ojukwu reflects on the Biafran War"None of the problems that led to the war have been solved yet"

real 28k

real 28k

Biafra: Thirty years on

By Nigeria correspondent Barnaby Philips

It is 30 years since the end of one of post-independence Africa's first and most bloody wars.

The Nigerian civil war not only came close to tearing Africa's most populous country apart, it also provoked passions in many other parts of the world, particularly in Britain, the former colonial power.

Nigeria became independent in 1960. Like most ex-colonies in the continent, its boundaries had been defined quite arbitrarily to demarcate where the competing claims of the imperial powers collided.

Consequently Nigeria was composed of semi-autonomous Muslim feudal states in the desert north, and once-powerful Christian and animist kingdoms in the south and east, which was where the country's only significant source of income - oil - was exploited.

Ethnic split

At independence, Nigeria had a federal constitution comprising three regions defined by the principal ethnic groups in the country - the Hausa and Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the south-west, and Ibo in the south-east.

But as the military took over in the mid-1960s, and the economic situation worsened, ethnic tensions broke out.

Up to 30,000 Ibos were killed in fighting with Hausas, and around 1million refugees fled to their Ibo homeland in the east.

On 30 May, 1967, the head of the Eastern Region, Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, unilaterally declared the independent Republic of Biafra.

After initial military gains, the Biafran forces were pushed back.

Over two-and-a-half years later, 1 million civilians had died in fighting and from famine.

Photographs of starving children with huge distended stomachs from protein deficiency horrified people around the world.

Finally, Biafra was reabsorbed into Nigeria.
Responsibility
Today, Chief Emeka Ojukwu enjoys the role of elder statesman, living in comfort in the former Biafran capital, Enugu.

Forgiven by the Nigerian authorities in the early 1980s, he admits to no remorse for the events of the civil war.

I don't feel responsible at all. I did the best I could

Chief Ojukwu

"At 33 I reacted as a brilliant 33 year old," he says. "At 66 it is my hope that if I had to face this I should also confront it as a brilliant 66 year old.

"Responsibility for what went on - how can I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide? No, I don't feel responsible at all. I did the best I could."

For the men who fought for the Biafran cause, defeat has been followed by 30 years of humiliation. The wounded veterans line up in their wheelchairs alongside the main roads in Enugu, begging for money from passers-by.

Men like former Sergeant Michael Okafo believe they are being punished for fighting on the losing side.

He wants food, he wants to educate his children and he wants shelter. He wants to be treated like any other Nigerian.
Exclusion
When the civil war ended, the government promised the Ibo people that there would be no victors and no vanquished.

The authorities were desperate to avoid a repetition of the ethnic tensions which preceded the war.

Chief Ojukwu believes the Ibos have been largely excluded from power ever since and this could cause instability in the future.

"None of the problems that led to the war have been solved yet," he says.

"They are still there. We have a situation creeping towards the type of situation that saw the beginning of the war."

British stance

There is plenty of resentment but little talk of secession among the Ibo today.

During the war, Mrs Oyibo Adinamadu was a leading women's activist for the Biafran cause.

But only a few African countries recognised it as an independent state.

She even travelled to Britain to lobby the then Labour government, which refused to meet her.

Instead Britain was a key arms supplier to the federal government, enabling it to crush the rebellion, because it believed that Biafran secession would create regional instability.

The then British Labour Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, agonised over this policy.

"It would have been quite easy for me to say: This is going to be difficult - let's cut off all connexion with the Nigerian Government," he says now.

"If I'd done that I should have known that I was encouraging in Africa the principle of tribal secession - with all the misery that could bring to Africa in the future."
Equitable
Today, Mrs Adinamadu thinks that equitable distribution of resources will encourage the Ibo of eastern Nigeria to believe in the future of the country.

"And if the easterners are treated fairly, and other parts of Nigeria too, and you see an equitable handling or distribution of what is available, and then of course working to develop and to progress - I think easterners would like to stay in Nigeria," she says.

But following Nigeria's recent return to democracy, many of the country's diverse peoples, not just the Ibos, are demanding greater autonomy.

Nigeria is a young country. The vast majority of its population is under 30 years old and only a small proportion have direct memories of the war.

But the causes of the Biafran conflict - ethnic rivalry and mistrust - are as relevant today as ever

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bbc news world uk international foreign british online service

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BBC News | AFRICA | Biafra: Thirty years on

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The BBC's Barnaby Phillips"It's time to revisit the foundations of Nigeria"Chief Emeka Ojukwu reflects on the Biafran War"None of the problems that led to the war have been solved yet" real 28k real 28k Biafra: Thirty years on By Nigeria correspondent Barnaby Philips It is 30 years since the end of one of post-independence Africa's first and most bloody wars.

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It is initially hard to see why Lagos has been called the "megacity of the future", with the potential to become the "Singapore of Africa". There's plenty to think about if the Nigerian city of 16 million tightly packed inhabitants is the ultimate expression of modern urban living. Lagos is growing at such an astonishing rate that by 2015 it is predicted to be the third largest city in the world, behind Mumbai and Tokyo, but it is an unlikely model metropolis.

Although the country has vast oil resources, the city's infrastructure is appalling. Three-quarters of Lagos residents live in slums. The rail network manages one train per week. Despite being the world's sixth biggest oil producer, power cuts are a daily occurrence and a national joke. Lagosians have renamed the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) as Never Expect Power Always.

When I first visited Nigeria, my parents' homeland, a decade ago, I was unprepared for the reality. It was like landing on another planet. Although the city is a nightmare to navigate, the Lagosians are a breed apart. Millions of quick-witted economic migrants have created a city characterised by personal ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Nothing is wasted, everything is a commodity. "Lagos is not a kind of backward situation but an announcement of the future," the architect Rem Koolhaas has said. "What is now fascinating is how, with some level of self-organisation, there is a strange combination of extreme underdevelopment and development."

Will Anderson, the series producer of Welcome to Lagos, a fascinating new three-part documentary, agrees. He believes the way they have addressed the problems of extreme population growth is a lesson for us all, especially now that half the world's population live in cities, including one billion slum dwellers. "I am an anthropologist by background, but rather than looking at marginal and tribal populations, I wanted to look at massive cities. If a Martian came down to Earth, they would report back that we are a species that lives in cities. And in some degrees the people in Lagos are doing it better than we are in the west," he says.

The series looks at life on the Olusosun rubbish dump, the workplace and home to more than 1,000 scavengers who sift the garbage looking for recyclable material. This is a vibrant, self-policing community living next to a mosque, a barber's shop and three cinemas. The film-makersalso take us to Makoka lagoon where 300,000 people live on water and in squatter camps on the beach. It is soon clear that most Lagos residents will do anything to earn a few dollars a day, from back-breaking labour to sharp business deals, because there is no welfare state to provide a safety net.

But among Lagosians, who tend to combine relentless entrepreneurial flair with the belief that God will provide, there is little time for self-pity, a fact reflected in the series. "We did not want the people to come across as victims because that is not how they see themselves," says Anderson. "They are normal people doing what they have to do to survive. They encounter the same obstactles as the rest of us, but it's just that they do so in extreme circumstances."

Welcome to Lagos will be shown on BBC 2 at 9pm on 15, 22 and 29 April

Voices from the margins

ERIC OBUH Eric, 28, works as a scavenger on the Olusosun landfill site, the largest dump site in Lagos, and has recorded his first album "Send Them Come".
"They call me Slender, Vocal Slender, that's my music name. Because I'm very lean in the face, and because I'm always singing my songs. I have so many songs I still want to record, good songs that I've written, but no one has heard. Songs about divine love, peace and unity in Nigeria, and others which praise all the girls.

"The film crew have made me a website. MySpace. It's not easy to get a website on your own. I know about 200 singers in Ajegunle where I live, but only two or three have websites. Ajegunle is the biggest ghetto in Lagos. It's where all the biggest Nigerian stars come from, people like Daddy Showkey, Baba Fryo, Mighty Mouse, African China, B'Clean, and Nico Gravity. Every night there's a party going on somewhere, people playing music on the street corners, or setting up sound systems to dance to.

"One day I'm going to be more famous than Craig David. Then I'll have enough money to be able to spend all day on my music, instead of working here on the dump. A lot of people who know me, my friends, and my family, they don't know I work in the dump. They believe I just do music. And I want to keep it that way, so I will have respect. It's not that the dump is bad, because the money I get from it keeps my body and soul together, and helps me make my music."
MOHAMMED ADAMU Mohammed, 30, is a cattle dealer at the Oluwainshola Cattle Market and Slaughter Yard on the outskirts of Lagos.
"I am planning to marry presently, some time soon. I think it is the right time. I'm 30 now, and I have sent a message to my family letting them know I am ready. They will arrange everything. Her name is Aysha. I have met her three times already, during my trips home to my village in the north. She is good, I like her, there is love and understanding and I don't doubt her at all.

My family are very happy with me. To have only one wife is OK by me. I have seen the disadvantages people have with more than one wife. I want to get a house in Lagos, and to live with her here. She has never left her village. But I cannot be going up and down to the north all the time - the expenses would be too much.

"I am waiting to know the exact day of the wedding. I will have to provide property for her, and decorative things, two or three bags of clothes. The bags will be filled with everything concerning women's dresses, including the shoes. The only thing they have asked me for is jewellery. The whole thing will cost around 150,000 naira (£600). I know I can reach that amount.

"When the day comes, me and my friends will go to the north, and my wife's family will cook. W e'll gather for prayers, and then I'll take my wife to the house to celebrate the wedding. The next day I'll bring her back to Lagos, and continue selling cows in the market."
ESTHER OGUNLEKE Esther, 24, lives in a house built on Kuramo Beach, a tiny spit of sand attached to Victoria Island, Lagos's most upmarket neighbourhood.
"I've just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. One of the film crew left me her copy when she said goodbye. I thought it was beautiful and exciting, and I want to read the next one in the trilogy, but I haven't been able to find a copy anywhere. I pray to God that he will provide one. I love to read so much.

"This is me, outside my house on Kuramo beach. It's a small stretch of sand attached to Victoria Island, one of the most upmarket neighbourhoods in Lagos. Everyone thinks only drug addicts, armed robbers and prostitutes live here, but they never come to find out the truth. I've lived on the beach for almost eight years. There's about 1,000 of us here. Shopkeepers, motorbike taxi drivers, even businessmen who work in banks. My best friend, Lati, runs a cinema house next to where I live. We watch Nollywood movies, and all the Chelsea matches. I could never be friends with anyone who supports Manchester United. They are the Red Devils. They are devilish. Maybe they are using their devilish substance to win all the major trophies they have been winning. I hate them. Their nickname is very bad. Up Chelsea! Blues for life!

"My house cost about £60 to build. You have to buy the wood and tarpaulins, and then pay a tax to the local chairman. I like to keep it very clean. When I was arguing with my husband, we had a big fight about who was going to get the house. I wasn't going to let him leave me homeless, with nowhere to go.

"In this picture, I'm getting dressed up for church. I'm a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. On the first Friday of every month they hold a 'miracle service'. Sometimes there's more than a million people praying together; it's quite fantastic, and then I know God will never give up on me ..."
JOSEPH ORJI Joseph, 39, is a scrap trader at the Olusosun landfill site, and lives 10 minutes walk away with his wife and two young daughters.
"My business depends on the dollar. When the dollar goes down, the price goes down. When the dollar is up, the price goes up. The only difference between me and someone who works in the stock market is the suit and the tie, and the fine shoes. I've been working on the dump for 12 years. I'm a buyer. I buy from the scavengers, and sell to the reprocessing factories. Aluminium, zinc, copper wire, rubber slippers - all this is what I buy.

"All these big rich people, they don't like to conserve things. They throw everything away, even if there's nothing wrong with it! My house is full of the things I've found on the dump. Toasted-sandwich makers. Field glasses. Even my daughter's teddy.

"My older daughter, Peace, will be four in May. One day, she's going to be the future Miss World. My wife Elizabeth and I believe she's going to be great in life. That's what we pray for. I don't mind what she does or how she does it - she'll make her own life.

"I'm not ashamed to work in the dump. All my neighbours know that's where I work.I don't rob. I don't steal. I'm an honest person. What is important is love for your family. That's what drives you to walk that extra mile. If there was a dump that was stinkier than this one, where I could earn more, then I'd go there to work, just to make sure my family enjoys life.

The government are not interested in our recycling business. They don't look at us as human beings. They just look at us as if we are miscreants. Vagabonds. But they don't know that we are the tyres of the nation. We move the nation forward."
Topics

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It is initially hard to see why Lagos has been called the "megacity of the future", with the potential to become the "Singapore of Africa". There's plenty to think about if the Nigerian city of 16 million tightly packed inhabitants is the ultimate expression of modern urban living.

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Chris Abani is part of a new generation of Nigerian writers working to convey to an English-speaking audience the experience of those born and raised in that troubled African nation. Abani began writing at a very young age and published his first novel, Masters of the Board, while still a teenager.

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Igbo, also called Ibo, people living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria who speak Igbo, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Igbo may be grouped into the following main cultural divisions: northern, southern, western, eastern or Cross River, and northeastern. Before European colonization, the Igbo were not united as a single people but lived in autonomous local communities. By the mid-20th century, however, a sense of ethnic identity was strongly developed, and the Igbo-dominated Eastern region of Nigeria tried to unilaterally secede from Nigeria in 1967 as the independent nation of Biafra. By the turn of the 21st century, the Igbo numbered some 20 million.

Most Igbo traditionally have been subsistence farmers, their staples being yams, cassava, and taro. The other crops they grow include corn (maize), melons, okra, pumpkins, and beans. Among those still engaged in agriculture, men are chiefly responsible for yam cultivation, women for other crops. Land is owned communally by kinship groups and is made available to individuals for farming and building. Some livestock, important as a source of prestige and for use in sacrifices, is kept. The principal exports are palm oil and palm kernels. Trading, local crafts, and wage labour also are important in the Igbo economy, and a high literacy rate has helped many Igbo to become civil servants and business entrepreneurs in the decades after Nigeria gained independence. It is notable that Igbo women engage in trade and are influential in local politics.

Except for the northeastern groups, the Igbo live in rainforest country. Most Igbo occupy villages of dispersed compounds, but in some areas villages are compact. The compound is typically a cluster of huts, each of which constitutes a separate household. Traditionally, the village was usually occupied by a patrilineage ( umunna).

Before the advent of colonial administration, the largest political unit was the village group, a federation of villages averaging about 5,000 persons. Members of the group shared a common market and meeting place, a tutelary deity, and ancestral cults that supported a tradition of descent from a common ancestor or group of ancestors. Authority in the village group was vested in a council of lineage heads and influential and wealthy men. In the eastern regions these groups tended to form larger political units, including centralized kingdoms and states.

Traditional Igbo religion includes belief in a creator god (Chukwu or Chineke), an earth goddess (Ala), and numerous other deities and spirits as well as a belief in ancestors who protect their living descendants. Revelation of the will of the deities is sought by divination and oracles. Many Igbo are now Christians, some practicing a syncretic version of Christianity intermingled with indigenous beliefs.

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Igbo, also called Ibo, people living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria who speak Igbo, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Igbo may be grouped into the following main cultural divisions: northern, southern, western, eastern or Cross River, and northeastern.

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Nigerian Civil War (Nigerian-Biafran War) | the Polynational War Memorial

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Details about the armed conflict Nigerian Civil War (Nigerian-Biafran War) and related information about memorials