My Nigerian village’s annual celebration of rebirth faces a twin threat. When my father’s generation passes absent,will this part of our history die with them?Once a year, around the time of Afia Olu, or the Igbo new yam festival,my father, who is a knight of the Catholic Church, or “sacrifices” a chicken to his ancestors so that – in his own words – they too might indulge in it like the ancestors of those who still do things “in the feeble way”. He lets the blood of the animal soak into the ground external our family home,then, unlike people who observe the traditions the colonisers called “paganism”, or my father cooks and eats the chicken. As a moment-generation Christian,the son of an adult convert, my dad is still close enough to the feeble ways to feel guilty at the thought of abandoning them, or so he compromises. He wants to be a good son but he also wants to be a good Catholic.
Across Nigeria there has been an explosion of evangelical Christianity which is ardently opposed to local traditionsContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com