Sparse Shadow Feeler

Christianity has been able to do away with some of the rich cultural heritage of Ekwulobia people through the help of certain features of western origin that go with Christianity. These include education, science, urbanization and proliferation of churches.

Through education for instance, the missionaries exposed some Africans to the Western Culture and these people turned back to see African traditional religion as primitive and full of barbaric practices that should not have been allowed to remain on the face of the earth. With this, their ethical values changed running across the highly valued traditional ones. The missionaries wanted to give Christianity a root through creating local Ekwulobia elite through an imaginative and energetic educational programme.

Science also followed education and this has to a great dimension influenced the traditional religion of Ekwulobia people. Many people now have scientific approach to the solving of their problems. Diseases such as small-pox, tuberculosis, yaws and the rest of them which were hitherto mystified by the religion could now be medically explained and cured. Other phenomena in nature which are religiously respected have been blended them in such a way that they looked attractive. They talked about witchcraft, sorcery, magic, Ogbanje, visions just as in traditional religion. This has been a big temptation for some Ekwulobia people who run into them as a means of seeking practical solution to

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their problems .On the whole it is worthy and instructive too to assert that the impact of Christianity has not been as positive and overwhelming as to totally swallow the traditional religion. The traditional religion is well rooted in Ekwulobia and even beyond before the advent of Christianity, it still thrives in spite of all it has suffered at the hands of Christianity and their different methodologies employed in order to silence Ekwulobia cultural heritage. The impression was that of a cultural vacuum which Christianity could not fill. The situation is still largely the same and the Ekwulobia people cannot but go back to some aspects of its religion to fill the cultural vacuum. The implication is that commitment to Christianity is not total and in fact that the people’s religion is still alive in them.

Closely related to the above is the fact that the Ekwulobia person does not know how to exist without their cherished religion. Religion comes into every aspect of their existence as a cultural area; they could not therefore feel satisfied with Christianity; the tendency is always to fall back on some aspects of his old religion. This cultural baggage (i.e. education and urbanization) served as the sweet pills with which Ekwulobia people were enticed and captured. Ozigbo (1988) stated that Christianity in collaboration with Europe brought European language and culture and western science and technology (including imported goods) as supportive gifts (sweet pills) to the redemption and salvation mediated by Christ.

116 5.1.12 Revival and Protection of the Culture

Cultural patterns are passed on from one generation to another through time by means of education. By education method, we do not here mean only that sort of learning which takes place in school rooms namely formal school learning. All traditional societies had methods of education long before Europeans brought western formal education to them. Some of it was formal, that is fixed and laid down in established patterns, as in the bush school initiation rites of certain societies. Other aspects of it were informal, that is, arising out of day-to-day situations, not predetermined. But whether it was formal or informal, the function of education was to pass on the accumulated wisdom of the society to a new generation. Every society has, in the course of its history, found ways of dealing with problems, and passes them on to its young. If, as an African, you tell your child that the unity of the village is more important than anything else, more important even than his own individual pride, you are educating him in the accepted ways of your culture. There is thus no single pattern of behaviour which can be called culture.

Humans learn by observing classmates, teachers, parents, friends, and the media.

Obviously, the form of learning that is most important for culture is known as symbolic learning. Symbolic learning is based on our linguistic capacity and ability to use and understand symbols, arbitrary meaningful units, or models that humans use to represent reality. They are the conceptual devices that we use to communicate abstract ideas to each other. We communicate these symbols with each other through our language.

Humans learn most of their behaviors and concepts through symbolic learning.

Symbolic learning has almost infinite possibilities in terms of absorbing and using

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information in creative ways. Most of our learning as humans is based on this symbolic learning process. Instruments of social control include: Taboos, swearing of oath, making of blood pact, trial by ordeal, oracles, vows, secret societies and the meticulous observation of customs and traditions. .Thus, as in other parts of the world, God did not leave himself without revelation and witness in Africa (Onyeidu 1999). Parrinder in Onyeidu (1999), in his attempt to quantify the strength and membership of this ancient faith said that probably over50,000,000 people in Africa keep to this indigenous religion, and that many more mingle it with the new scriptural religions. With special reference to Igbo land, Jordan in Onyeidu (1999) observes that “A whole system of taboos and ritual ordinances controlled native life”

5.2. Effects of Christianity on Ekwulobia Cultural Environment

It is a noticeable worldwide phenomenon that the appearance of Christianity in any culture has always been accompanied by encounters, conflicts, tensions, compromises, recognitions, victories and surrenders. As has also been observed, Christianity in one cultural dress encounters another culture and then tries to incarnate itself in the new culture. In doing this, however, it challenges and transforms the culture.

It also incorporates some authentic aspects of that cultural heritage to the enrichment of the Christian culture. However, there are always reactions whenever an attempt is made to bring about a positive change in any aspect of culture. Since it is impossible to shed off

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all aspects of one’s cultural heritage as a result of encounter with a new culture, compromises are made.

This section tries to look at the part played by foreign religion (Christianity) towards the changes that have occurred in the Ekwulobia society. Christianity is a foreign religion imported into Ekwulobia while the traditional religion is the indigenous faith of the Ekwulobia people. According to Onyeidu (1999), Christianity has in time past and at present impacted so much on African culture in general both positively and negatively and it is still doing so now. Against this backdrop, Ugwu (2002) said, although the imported world religions have brought in some positive influences or effects on the Nigerian communities, they have also dealt a staggering blow on our social, economic, religious and political systems. However, change is the only thing that is constant in human life and as such it is inevitable in human interaction. Hornby (1999) defined change, as act of passing or making somebody or something pass from one state or form into another. Therefore, Ekwulobia society like any other one is a dynamic one; hence it is susceptible to change.

There are some impacts of Christianity on Ekwulobia culture and Ekwulobia Christians as well. Therefore, in any part of Ekwulobia, it had always had its own attendant impacts on the people and the church. It is in this light that we shall examine the following:

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