The Osu system in Igboland

The Osu In Igboland


A few people say the importance of "Osu" in Igbo is slave; somewhat like the Ohu or even the Umeh. Indeed these aren't right definitions. Ohu for example is no slave - he is a contractually obligated slave. Entirely, servitude does not exist in the Igbo world, on the grounds that there is nothing last to that relationship. For example, the Ohu can work themselves out of their agreement; in manyinstannces, the Ohu may even turn out to be completely received into the family to which it is contracted, after a specific custom to ala, which gives a custom connection - amadi - to the person, who is then concurred every one of the privileges of the Diala.

In any case, talking particularly about the Osu - there were two stages: in the main stage, the "Osu" was a piece of the complex clerical framework to the Igbo custom world. It is difficult to really expound in a short space, however the Igbo world was a profoundly otherworldly framework in which all the four components in nature were reproduced and symbolized: Ala (Earth) Ogwugwu/Ime muru ochie/Idemili (water) Agwu ( wind) Anyanwu ((Fire) Sun)

In a later stage, because of an authentic mischance in which an Igbo despot and King (Amadi-oha) attempted to train vitality as an instrument of war and was blown skywards, the Igbo established the customs of Amadi-Oha as an update against the utilization of power, or the taming of vitality for sending in war. Amadi-oha was an architect, and that is the reason, you have the emblematic bit of iron at each hallowed place of Amadi-Oha. It was a piece of the pledge with Chukwu, and it was likewise the start of the pacific thought in Odinala, that the Igbo could never utilize such instruments of huge power which this well known Igbo dictator was endeavoring to create, this explore different avenues regarding "ike" - vitality/power. Amadi-oha, blown skywards and caught between the sky and the earth should remind us never to surrender to the control of one man or ruler or despot. The serpent of flame - the indication of Ogwugwu - is said to monitor Amadi-oha from coming back with his red hot vitality to earth. It is additionally stated, that whoever confers the high plague on earth endures the destiny which Amadi-Oha embodies, which is the thing that offered ascend to the legend that Amadi-Oha is the world's ambassador in case of alu. The Igbo had altars to every one of these powers in nature. Each people group had the holy place of

Ala, Ogwugwu, Agwu or Amadi-oha (which bit by bit supplanted "Ihu-Anyanwu").

The ministers of these places of worship were called Ezeala, EzeOgwuwgwu, Eze Amadioha, or EzeAgwu - ndi "isi mmuo". Each had particular ceremonies and particular seasons all associated with the development of the nature; or with the festivals, celebrations, or as indicated by the agreements of every faction. There were customarily in the Igbo world, the individuals who devote themselves, or are committed to the administration of these altars: they were called Osu. It doesn't exactly signify "slave." The nearest case of the capacity of the Osu in the customary Igbo world is the thing that priests do in Catholic church or the in Buddhist sanctuaries. They picked an existence of finish surrender to the divinities.

Customarily, they were respected exceptionally. Indeed, the names, Osuji, Osuagwu, Osuala, Nwosu, and so forth; did not present uncommon nullification; it was an announcement of devotion. Right up 'til today, numerous Igbo bear these names, and they are not "osu" in the rank thought of the word. Nonetheless, the second period of the Osu framework, when it wound up enriched with expanding negative implications was at the tallness of the slave attacks in the Igbo world in the nineteenth century. At this point, the Osu had started to be viewed as to a great extent a parasitic establishment - they were invulnerable from an excessive number of things, they had the best bit of the land, they didn't work - and they progressed toward becoming subjects of both envy and criticism in a most troublesome period in the Igbo world which requested diligent work and venture for survival. At the tallness of the slave strikes, some exceptionally defenseless individuals committed themselves to the administration of gods, or were devoted by their families to the holy place, with the goal that they would turn out to be truly "untouchable."

In time, these gathering transformed into detachment from whatever is left of the network, and moved toward becoming subjects of both dread, envy and hate. This was the situation until the point when evangelists entered the Igbo world late in the nineteenth century. The principal gathering of individuals to be proselytized were the Osu, and the evangelists obviously found in their custom confinement, a condition likened to the Indian station framework, and proliferated the questionable photo of a customarily disengage, ceremonially ex-conveyed position network, and gave the Osu the awful name that it bears today in Igboland. Truth be told generally, there was no inherited Osu. Beside the way that it repudiated the Igbo perspective of the individual and the world, it likewise completely refuted the very standard of the custom virtue of those generally committed to the sacrificial table of Mmuo. Osu in Igbo did not mean slave, and customarily, it had no negative undertone; it was in actuality an advantaged organization, until its desacralization both by advancing political and monetary reality and by the changes in the custom importance blessed upon it by Christianity.