By Moyo Okediji
Do you know Wole Soynka’s book, MYTH, LITERATURE AND THE AFRICAN WORLD?
It qualifies to be called àjẹẹ̀dọ́yọ̌.
Àjẹẹ̀dọ́yọ̌ refers to the ancient trips that travelers took from the remote corners of the Oyo Empire to the capital city of Old Oyo.
Why?
Graduate students of African literature consider it one of the most difficult textbooks they must study.
When we were assigned the book in graduate school, a student in our class swore Soyinka wrote it simply to torment students and scholars alike.
And there was a visiting professor from Britain who said she really thought nobody could understand it.
There is a particularly referenced chapter titled “The Fourth Stage.”
It has brought tears to the eyes of too many students just trying to pass an exam.
It is, however, quite a simple book to understand.
But why does it look so difficult? Why do people imagine that Soyinka is hard to read?
Wole Soyinka quickly discovered the boundless possibilities within the Yoruba imagination, a culture naturally gifted to him simply by right of birth.
To robustly understand and fully enjoy Soyinka’s language, a knowledge of Yoruba idioms and linguistics lends a second layer of satisfaction.
Obviously, one also doesn’t need the Yoruba language to read Soyinka.
He writes in English. But what he does with the English language is to dissolve and regrow its letters inside a Yoruba cultural pot.
What has germinated from Soyinka’s pen with liberating authority is another language—a new language that builds on both the English and Yoruba sources.
Soyinka inherited an ancient imaginative vision in which everything is possible and nothing impossible: to understand him, he invites you to open up the throttle of your creative juice as acutely as needed, without placing any limits on complexities, twists, turns and improvisations.
Soyinka benefits from an ancestral gift that comes with the traditions of his indigenous culture, as a thinker and writer born and nurtured in such a fecund ancient civilization.
Reaping the fruits of his ancestors, nevertheless, requires two things: first, Soyinka mastered the nuances and details of his indigenous culture; second, he applies the principles of his indigenous culture to his global literary and dramatic creativity.
He does not condemn his indigenous culture with the biases of foreign cultures. He readily benefits from aspects of foreign culture that he finds useful.
With the power of his writing, Soyinka invites one to imbibe from the limitlessness that informs his composition.
My work has benefitted from Soyinka’s writing,
My most recent painting (shown here) comes from that same imaginative background.
Immediately, in the painting, one sees a woman who is holding an Ère Ìbejì (Ibeji Figure) in her hand. With this remarkable figure, I invite the viewer into a world of spiritual possibilities that words, songs, and performances support and enhance.
It is therefore not coincidental that one may search for words to fully convey what one sees in the painting.
The more you see, the more there is to see behind what you have just seen.
It reminds me of the Yoruba riddle that says “Awẹ́ obì kan, àjẹẹ̀dọ́yọ̌.”
The riddle (àlọ́) implies that the experience is like a lobe of kolanut that you chew forever and without any end.
Àjẹẹ̀dọ́yọ̌ refers to the ancient trips that travelers took from the remote corners of the Oyo Empire to the capital city of Old Oyo.
That is one long journey.
What is the meaning of the riddle “Awẹ́ obì kan, àjẹẹ̀dọ́yọ̌?”
Can you chew just a lobe of kolanut throughout that long journey?
Enjoy.
By Prof Moyo Okediji
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