From past to present and future: the regenerative spirit of the Abiku

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, Annual, 2004 by Mounira Soliman

   Abiku further the aims of their robber-band by using children
   as a cover for their criminal operation. Each abiku is
   born into an ile and poses as a child that is either sweet-natured
   and beautiful (and therefore likely to be lavished
   with good things) or sickly and disturbed (and therefore
   likely to be the beneficiary of expensive sacrifices). In
   such a way, the abiku quickly accumulates money, cloth,
   food, and livestock. Then, at a certain time and by a certain
   method prearranged secretly with its egbe, the abiku
   dies and takes the spiritual portion of its loot back to heaven.
   After dividing the spoils with its egbe, it prepares to reenter
   the world and fleece the same or another ile. (46)

In the same manner, as with the more commonly known interpretation of the abiku phenomenon, attempts can be made to fetter the relationship between the abiku and its egbe and, therefore, put an end to the continual robbing of the ile by the abiku. To do that, the ile must discover the oath or the sealed words that bind the abiku to its egbe and which specify the exact when, where, and how of the abiku's return to the spirit world. Having done that, the ile then is able to break the bond between the abiku and its egbe by either blocking the circumstances necessary for its death, announcing that the abiku's oath has been found or by disguising the abiku so that it will not be found by its egbe when its members come to take it from the ile (which they perceive as a kind of imprisonment imposed upon the child). The abiku will then be forced to stay on in the world of the living but its egbe will nevertheless continue its attempts to retrieve the child (McCabe 46).

From the above interpretation, it is obvious that there is a constant conflict between the ile and the egbe based on the meaning and implications of both. The ile represents the house, the village, and the ancestral city to which one is connected, not only geographically but historically as well since it constitutes one's family and origin. In other words, the ile represents a past that extends into the present and possibly the future. The egbe, on the other hand, represents a group of people associated together not through marriage and lineage--as is the case with the ile--but rather through a common activity which does not require them to be tied to a certain geographical location nor to a certain historical origin (McCabe 47). Therefore, the ile and the egbe

   constitute two contrasting templates of sociopolitical
   organization among the Yoruba: the male-dominated ile
   is based on marriage, lineage, procreation, geography,
   and hierarchical structures of seniority and inheritance;
   the male or female-only egbe is based on voluntary membership,
   mutual benefit, pursuit of a shared nonreproductive
   purpose, and group secrecy (the keeping of esoteric
   or specialized knowledge, practices, skills). (McCabe 48)

Despite being rivals, the relationship between the lid and the egbe has always interpenetrated, since in many cases people had loyalties to both and, in fact, sometimes they did belong to both social structures--hence the conflict. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the ile ideology dominated Yoruba history because it was strongly tied to the Oyo Empire which depended on the ile social structure in its political ruling of Yorubaland. But with the increasing contact with Europeans--through the colonial experience and the rise of smaller political entities, like Ibadan and Abeokuta, whose economies depended upon the amassing of material wealth through banditry and slave trade--the hegemony of the Oyo Empire, with its emphasis on ancestral and geographical origin, was undermined and eventually gave way to the hegemony of the egbe ideology (McCabe 48-9). Now the pressing issue is to explain the reason for the use of this particular traditional Yoruba theory in the interpretation of the abiku phenomenon. What are its implications and how does it reflect the contemporary socio-political history of Nigeria?