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The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony

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The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU Department of Art and Design Faculty Publications Department of Art and Design Fall 1997 The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony Kathy Curnow Cleveland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clart_facpub Part of the African Languages and Societies Commons How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Publisher's Statement © 1997 James S. Coleman African Studies Center, UCLA Recommended Citation Curnow, Kathy. "The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony." African Arts 30, (September 1997): 46-53. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost. Web. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Art and Design at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Department of Art and Design Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony KATHYCURNOW ~A ~gainst all advice, Acting Brit- hostile spirits (Melzian 1959:99) (Fig. 1). ish Consul-General James The fourth ceremony, a second Ague peri- R. Phillips insisted on visit- od known as Ague-Oghene, followed, ing Benin City in early Jan- ending the. agricultural year. By the 1930s uary 1897. The Oba had Ague-Ohene's activities were already ob- asked him to delay because scure (Melzian 1959), and the two Agues of Ague, a ritual requiring his complete are often confused and conflated today. isolation from visitors. Although the sub- Ague was a sober time. No burials or sequent British colonization was probably marriages took place, no guns were fired, inevitable, Ague's timing and Phillips's and no drums or calabash rattles were obstinacy catalyzed the chain of reactions played. While all Edo avoided eating new which led to the conquest of the kingdom. yams, only the Oba and certain chiefs, Formerly a ceremony of critical im- priests, and courtiers were full Ague par- portance, Ague has received little scholar- ticipants. Their abstinence extended to ly attention, perhaps because its full other types of fresh produce4 and to sexu- celebration ceased during the reign of Oba al celibacy for up to four "Benin months."5 Eweka II (r. 1914-33). In its development it Ague-Osa's preparatory period conclud- confirmed the Edo adage "Every new Oba ed with seven days of isolation in Oguan, creates new rules,"' for Ague changed sub- a special palace chamber sited in or near stantially under various monarchs, until Oba Esigie's quarters (Nevins 1928:9; ultimately it came to knit together such Bradbury notes 1959:BS218).6Human sac- disparate elements as Lenten denial and rifice took place on the chamber's thresh- regional New Yam beliefs. These succes- old when the Oba was about to enter, sive royal innovations suggest that other and again just before his exit (Egharevba Benin festival "traditions" may have simi- n.d., "Benin Museum Catalogue" ms. in larly dynamic, complex histories. Bradbury notes:R67). Yams, Benin's staple food and crop, Other injunctions besides fasting were were ostensibly at Ague's core, but its ulti- in effect. One chief told me, "On certain mate concerns were the ownership, pollu- days you don't talk to human beings; you tion, and sanctification of the land. Before don't touch water at all, even to gargle or the British invasion, yams played a ritual bathe." Perils were intense, even life- role in four related ceremonies. In the first, threatening. Contact, direct or indirect, which opened the agricultural cycle, yams with the new yam or its leaf was contam- were planted in a symbolic pattern at the inating. As Chief Osuan said, "If [partici- Oba's Ugbeku village farm. Diviners ex- amined this yield to forecast the gener- al harvest, sometimes human ordaining in sacrifices to avert disasters (Thomas Left:1. Yamknife with handle terminating a Janus memorialhead. Bronze,19cm (7.5").The 1918:138-39). The second ceremony took Field Museum, Chicago, neg. A99487, cat. place after the general harvest with the 210309. commencement of Ague-Osa, a period of This type of knife was used to peel sacrificial fasting that required participants to ab- yams for the palace's NewYam festival. stain from harvested eating newly yams.2 2. Bronze At its conclusion, Benin's New Yam festi- Oppositepage: plaque representing the Obawith attendants.16th century.Nation- val was celebrated,3 and budded yams al Museum,Lagos. were offered to paternal and maternal The attendantsare chiefs Osa and Osuan,who ancestors, deities, the unburied dead, and kneel only when prayingwith the Obaat Ague. arts. autumn 1997 4646african africanarts - autumn1997 This content downloaded on Mon, 4 Feb 2013 14:34:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions pants] touch a new yam plate or shake a gram deals with either a dispute that weapons and aggression, while Chief new yam hand or have any contact with continually resurfaces or with disease Osuan cares for Uwen, whose province something associated with new yam, and epidemics. Through this association is healing, obstetrics, and fertility of the they won't come back safe from Ague." A of eternal struggle with disease, the epi- soil. Each chief has a shrine to his respec- deadly cholera-like disorder was said to gram reinforces ties between concepts of tive deity, but the joint Ebo n'Edo altar is strike those who did not comply with land ownership and land pollution. in the palace, where worship of these Ague's regulations.7 Approximately a century later, Oba gods is restricted to a small circle. Participants suspended metal badges Ewuare (r. ca. 1450-80) blamed the The popular saying "Only Osa and (umanague or aba) from a length of twine deaths of his two sons on "spoilt" land. Osuan know the secret of the young around their necks. Some were wedge- Hoping to purify the land and forestall palm fronds"12 intimates that these shaped, like miniature "thunderbolts" additional problems, he passed laws chiefs are privy to some of the palace's (ugh-avan), while others were cruciform.8 prohibiting bathing, sex, dance, and cel- most secret matters. Sometimes called The expression "Because he was unable, ebration, thereby introducing mourning the "twins" (iv'eva, or "two coconuts"), he did not wear the aba" describes some- as part of the appeasement of Uwen and they always appear together (Fig. 3), and one who cannot finish what he starts. A Ora. Ewuare is credited with coalescing the saying "The ceremony the Oba opens lapsed participant stricken with the the ceremony known as Ague-Oghene. finds Osa and Osuan there" attests to cholera-like illness prompted the phrase The name Ague-Oghene, "the Ooni of their critical presence.13 These chieftain- "Umanaguehas caught him."9 Ife's Ague," refers to the origin of the cies were formerly associated with Ague's self-denial and isolation kept dynasty and its gods Uwen and Ora. human sacrifice, the bathing in or drink- participants free from pollution, strength- Ewuare appointed priest-chiefs to care ing of human blood, and even canni- ening their spiritual powers and mak- for these deities: Chief Osa is in charge of balism, a concept that was anathema to ing them especially pleasing to the Ora, who seems to be associated with the Edo. The current Chief Osa noted ancestors. Chief Obasogie stated that without Ague's sanctification, those at- tempting certain invocations risked death; successful fasting was believed to ensure that all requests would be granted. Recognition of the supernatural potency Ague conferred often led to court and military promotions. Ague's Origins The new yam harvest is celebrated be- cause it signifies ancestral endorsement, a certification that the world is as it should be. Privation, disease, and other disasters are evidence of problems with Oto, the deified earth. Ague's origins seem tied to such afflictions. Epidemics and famine are said to have occurred during the early years of Benin's present, Ife-founded dynasty, confirmation that the land was polluted. Tradition states that the royal settlers sent to Ife for the deities Uwen and Ora, also known as the Ebo n'Edo ("Edo gods"),10 to arrest these calamities. These gods' appeasement before eating new yams acted as a sort of proto-Ague. Land concerns continued under Oba Ewedo (r. ca. 1330-60). When he finally established control over Benin City itself, he was forced to "buy" occupancy rights ceded by Chief Ogiamien, descendant of a previous indigenous regent. This transac- tion must be duplicated at each installa- tion. When the Oba purchases Ogiamien's sand during his coronation (Nevadomsky 1984:56), he acknowledges his own exter- nal origin and affirms land ownership as the birthright of the indigenous inhabi- tants. The spiritual authority to rule requires their ancestors' endorsement. Despite this ostensible settlement, the struggle between settlers and indigenes is considered perpetual. Ominigbon, Benin's divination system, describes their relationship metaphorically: "The human world fought for the palm fronds and the spirit world fought for sugar- cane."1 The interpretation of this epi- 47 africanarts .- autumn 1997 47 This content downloaded on Mon, 4 Feb 2013 14:34:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Left:3. ChiefsOsa and Osuanwearing contem- poraryversions of the headdresses with oro projectionsseen in the plaquein Figure2. Benin City,ca. 1986. Photo:Joseph Nevadomsky. Oppositepage: 4. Plaque.Bronze, 45.5cm (18"). Reiss-Museum, Mannheim,Volkerkundliche Sammlungen,IV Af 3107. Purchasedin 1925. The legs of the helmeted Ewa figure at lower left suggest the turned-uplegs of the royal mudfishfigure.
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