262
Ndiokwere N.I., Search for Security, (Onitsha: Effective Key Publishers Ltd, 1995), p. 151; Cf. also in Okafor, J.N., The Challenge of Osu Caste System to the Igbo Christians, Onitsha: Veritas Printing & Publishing Company Ltd., 1990, p. VII
263 Mbefo L., "The Church Bishop Shanahan Left Behind", in: The Nigeria Journal of Theology, Vol. 8, No 1, June
But if the Igbos of the present generation would abhor and condemn in strong terms such primitive and wicked practice of killing twins, why have they failed to join in the crusade for the abolition of slavery and apartheid system embodied in the Osu/Ohu caste system? Why are the so - called "Diala" or freeborn not eager to see this worst form of discrimination and injustice perpetrated against their brothers and fellow citizens referred to as Osu/Ohu abolished? Why is inter - marriage with them still conceived as “nso” - an abomination among a people known for their flexibility, tolerance and out - going character? No wonder then that Uchendu would see Osu/Ohu caste system of slavery as constituting the greatest contradiction in the Igbo egalitarian theology.264 At this juncture, it will be appropriate to showcase the differences existing among the Pawn, Ohu and Osu. The writer in the course of interviewing and interacting with people based on this research, discovered that majority of the people who disassociate themselves from the so called Pawn, Ohu and Osu, do not even know the differences that exist among them.
(i)The Pawn: A pawn is a human being who has been used as collateral to borrow money from another person. This existed when trade by barter which is a system of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money was in vogue. Those who are very poor and had no material goods to be exchanged with normally used one of their children especially the female ones for economic exchange of goods and services or collateral for huge loans. Using female children as collateral was prevalent in Igboland during the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War. Persons who pawn themselves acquire the status of an Ohu (slave) until they are redeemed, and the children of unredeemed persons are also regarded as Ohu. They can only return to the home of their parents or be freed only when the debt has been paid. However, in the course of this research, we discovered some women who never returned back to their home at the time their parents got the material goods to pay back because their parents were made to swear to idol or shrine at the time of their despondency that their daughter will not go back. Although the parents or any of the relations may have the goods to pay back but the parents were afraid because of the oath they have taken at the time they borrowed the material. Such women were given in marriage to the children of the
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lender who wish to marry her. The woman cannot make a choice rather the choice is left in the hand of the lender who sees the woman as one of her properties. It is really agonizing since the transaction took place when the woman was at her tender age. This turned out to be a form of forced marriage.
2.3.6.1 Ohu (Slaves): This is a person who is alienated from his real home either as war captives or through kidnapping by people or children who had some abnormalities at birth or the never - do - wells. In fact, there were more than six sources of slaves, namely, intertribal war captives, lazy children, victims of political machination, unprotected or unguided strangers and people who missed their ways and could not trace it back. There were other causes such as poverty, victimization, frustration and religious obligation. They (slaves) were regarded also as subordinate to the Diala (that is the freeborn) in the society, but they could marry the freeborn children. This was a kind of slavery already established in Africa. It was forced service within the African tribal or state system. Men captured in war were forced into what may be called domestic slavery, that is, they became the servants of those who captured them. So did certain kinds of law - breakers. It was a kind of slavery that had long existed on the other continents. In Africa, on the other hand, a man who owned domestic slaves had to look after them. They could marry the master’s daughter and inherit his property. They could even become rich merchants. His only disability is that he is owned, he is not a free man. He cannot go when he wants unless he is redeemed. Hence, Aligwekwe succinctly remarks that:
Whatever the level of life that the ohu arrived at in his master’s home, he could never have the right of diala as long as he/she remained ohu and for that reason, the ohu had always remained a social category set apart. To become diala it is absolutely necessary to liberate oneself totally from the state of ohu, thus becoming a ‘completely’ freed man. A thing which was not in reality, very easy, as it was through his master that he could affirm his identity in a community and a lineage which were not originally his.265
265 Aligwekwe P.E., The Continuity of Traditional Values in the African Society - The Igbo of Nigeria, Owerri: Totan
The liberation of the slaves then was paid with goods since money was not an accepted medium of exchange. When he is liberated, he enjoys the company of the people and is no more stratified or discriminated against in the society, except in participation in certain religious matters like being the priest of a deity. The Ohu lives in the same house with his master. He works with and for him and in due course earns some money to redeem himself if he is hardworking enough. He could be absorbed into the family of his master through marriage. A marriage between the master and his Ohu or between the Ohu and a child of the master was the most efficacious and the most rapid means for the liberation of Ohu, otherwise, an Ohu, even if born and brought up in the master’s community, could arrive there only after a long difficult process.266
2.3.6.2 Osu: Many scholars have defined the Osu as a cult slave, a living sacrifice, untouchable, an owner’s cult, a slave of the deity, a sacred and holy being. This was the exact word used by Saint Paul where he urged the brothers and sisters in view of God’s mercy to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice ... (Rom 12:1). Even though they are alive but they have been sacrificed. An Osu in Igboland as well as in Africa is a person sacrificed or consecrated alive together with his or her descendants to the service of a pagan god. Osu could also be a murderer or any other type of criminal, a thief, a dissident, who had escaped death or the punishment of his community by offering himself voluntarily to a god or by taking a refuge in its temple as a means of protection. The Osu included also persons who, forced by hunger ate the sacrificial meal set before a god. From that very fact, they became automatically Osu, separated from the rest of the community as men and women more or less cursed for life. The Diala could not buy yams from an Osu, share the same hair cutter or drinking cup and so on, with the Osu. The Osu had not the right of burial in a tomb or grave. The only social communication between the Osu, the Ohu and Diala was at the level of rituals and religious sacrifice. The Osu participated at the sacrifice and had specific roles to play; he was supposed to clean out the temple of god, maintain its cleanliness and participate in the actual sacrifice. Also contrary to the Ohu; material wealth could not in any case give place to the liberation of the Osu. The Osu was Osu for life, and it was hereditary. They are at the lowest level of the Igbo traditional social classes.
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The renowned Igbo novelist Chinua Achebe makes this clear description of Osu in his book Things Fall Apart:
A person dedicated to a god, a thing set apart - a taboo forever and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the freeborn. He was in fact an outcast, living in a special area of the village, close to the Great Shrine. Wherever he went he carried with him the mark of his forbidden caste, tangled and dirty hair. A razor was a taboo to him. An Osu could not attend an assembly of the freeborn, and they in turn, could not shelter under his roof. He could not take the four titles of the clan, and when he died he was buried by his kind in the evil forest.267
This description reoccurs again in Achebe's book entitled No Longer At Ease. Thus we read of a dialogue between Obi Okonkwo, and his father Nwoye Okonkwo on the issue of his proposed marriage to Clara, an Osu. Obi fails to convince his father, despite his elaborate arguments that Osu does not matter anymore because “we are Christians” and that “the Bible says that in Christ there are no bond or free”, and that “our fathers in their darkness and ignorance called an innocent man osu ... But have we not seen the light of the Gospel.”268
His father was unmoved by what he perceived as a useless sophistry; and so, he informed Obi that:
Osu is like leprosy in the minds of our people. I beg you, my son not to bring the mark of shame and leprosy into your family. If you do, your children and your children’s children unto the third and fourth generations will curse your memory. It is not for myself I speak; my days are few. You will bring sorrow on your head and on the heads of your children. Who will marry your daughters? Whose daughters will your sons marry? Think of that. We are Christians, but we cannot marry our own daughters.269
267
Onwubiko O.A., Facing the Osu Issue in the African Synod, p. 32; Cf. also Achebe C., Things Fall Apart, New York: Doubleday 1959, p.156
268 Achebe C., "No Longer at Ease" in: Onwubiko O.A., Facing the Osu Issue in the African Synod, Ibid., p. 71
It is therefore clear that the Osu is discriminated against even by the Igbo Christians. Imagine that even Obi’s father who was so committed to his Christian faith to the extent that his own father placed a curse upon him for following the missionaries, yet, after embracing Christianity he was discouraging his son from marrying Clara just because she was an Osu. This is typical of what we are experiencing regularly in Igboland as well as in many parts of Africa.
This obnoxious social dehumanization was one of the problems that the missionaries faced and tried to solve in Igboland but to no avail. The Osu group was accepted and absorbed in the Christian Community at the beginning of the missionary work in Igboland but with fierce opposition which often tore the Christian Community apart. Chinua Achebe wrote the difficulty of breaking this age-old social tragedy in the era of the missionaries. He paints a vivid picture of what happened when the Osu first came to church. Let us listen to the pathetic narrative:
These outcasts or osu seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations thought that it was possible that they would also be received. Therefore, one Sunday two of them went into the church. There was an immediate stir and prompt commotion, but so great was the work of the new religion done among the converts that they did not immediately leave the church when the outcasts came in. Those who found themselves nearest to them merely moved to another seat. It was a miracle. Nevertheless, it lasted until the end of the service. The whole church raised protest and was poised to drive the OSU out.270
Such was the fate of the Osu at the beginning of Christianity in Igboland that even in the church in that early stage they were discriminated against by their fellow Christians even in the presence of the missionaries. Today the socio-cultural dehumanization associated with the Osu caste system has drastically reduced but not ended. Hence, intermarriage between an Osu and freeborn is still difficult to come by as some Christians tacitly oppose it or are not disposed to tolerate marrying an Osu.