Abstract
Introduction
Remi Raji is the pen name of Aderemi Raji Oyelade, a Professor of English at the University of Ibadan. His first publication
For many, Remi Raji’s poems are often viewed from the political lens. This manifestly is due to the overt political nature of his poetry. While this piece is not out to challenge this patently valid thesis, it however posits that beyond the political nature of Remi Raji’s poetry, his mastery and use of natural elements is profound and salutary. Remi Raji has a charming religiosity for the use of nature and natural elements in his poetry. His deep sense of nature and its use by him almost as an object of worship in his poetry have attracted this attempt to examine his religious use of ecocritical materials or animism in his latest collection
The collection Some of the poets exuberantly poetise the belief—that their poetic inspiration come from natural objects, such as water, hills, rocks and trees. Other poets clearly deploy the animist belief in natural objects to thematise critical issues in the life of their nation.
Remi Raji, though a fecund and versatile poet, writes about all shades of issues and has perfected the art of exquisitely bringing nature into whatever is the subject matter that his poetry is trying to celebrate. He therefore belongs in the second category of poets that Egya highlights above. The first-generation Nigerian poets were Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, among others. It is instructive to note that animist belief in natural objects differs from people to people and from race to race. It therefore goes without saying that a poet who would richly use nature and her elements in poetic forms must be deep in the knowledge of such representations by his people. Remi Raji is one such poet who has an inimitable grounding in nature, cosmology, and the artistic representations of his people, the Yoruba race. He exemplifies a poet who has a rich reservoir of the oral traditions of his people. This often reflects in his poems as we shall later see.
Remi Raji engages in animism for most of the time as a counter-discursive approach of situating the theme of the poem in context. He therefore historicizes the sociopolitical realities surrounding his environment. Egya (2016) asserts that Raji “follows the steps of sociological writers in Africa (a path well forged by Achebe) who always establish an organic connection between their writing and their society” (p. 63). Other poets who exemplify this mode and temper aside Remi Raji include Wole Soyinka, Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, J. P. Clark, and Harry Garuba, whereas poets who have religious coloration to their kind of animism include Gabriel Okara and Christopher Okigbo. It must be said here that these are loose categorizations; as in practice, a very thin line separates the poets and the value they attach to animism. Egya (2016) further clears the air on this when he says, It is important to stress that the difference between poets who deploy animism in their nature poetry to express their affiliation to gods and goddesses, to stage their poetic inspirations, and those who use animism to engage in counterdiscourse is not clear cut. It is rather a matter of degree (p. 262).
This clarification must be made lest the categorization may seem rigid. But really, it is because while animism is there in Nigeria as in other societies, it comes in differing shades and people too react to it in different ways.
Animism
Animism is the belief that all natural things and phenomena are alive as they have innate soul or spirit. Animism at first was an unfashionable term as it derogatorily denoted primitivism. This accounts for why Carolyn Rooney (2012) asserts that “animism belongs to the repertoire of terms that were aimed to distinguish between primitive and modern thought.” Nature is the environment in which humans are enfolded; humans must therefore interact with the generative forces of nature, out of curiosity, out of existence, and generally as a way of relating to their environment. The agency of nature has been a long held one and it is properly grounded in the scriptures. For instance, in the Bible, Genesis 28: 10–22, Jacob in a dream had an encounter with God, and in Verse 17, the Bible (KJV) says, “And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Also in Verse 22, the Bible (KJV) says, “And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” The stone therefore becomes a reverence being transmuting from “thingness” into a spiritual essence and significance.
Similarly, in Joshua 24:27, the Bible (KJV) says, And Joshua said unto the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spoke to us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.
Also in Luke 19:40, the Bible records Jesus when he says, “And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” In the same vein, the Muslims venerate Ka’ba, the sacred stone in Mecca when they go on pilgrimage. These are clear indications of the inseparability of animism from religion, and no religion, according to Gilmore (2010), has been able “to disown some of their commonest heirlooms left by their primitive modes of thinking” (p. 4). Gilmore (2010) further opines that this belief is derived from the long-held beliefs then that “nature behaves like humans, animated by desires, moved by emotions and empowered by abilities parallel to those he perceives in himself” (p. 4). Contemporary environmental concepts such as deep ecology, and some scientific theories such as the Gaia theory, are often considered as sympathetic to animistic beliefs.
Tylor, according to Gilmore (2010), defines animism as “the doctrine of spirits or spiritual beings” (p. 4). Tylor’s definition has often been criticized as “so vague that it gives no grip upon the actual conditions which attend to an animistic stage of thought or upon that thought itself” (p. 4). In another vein, animism according to Gailyn (1991) is “the belief that personal spiritual beings and impersonal spiritual forces have power over human affairs and that human beings must discover what forces are influencing them in order to determine future action and, frequently, to manipulate their power” (p. 20). Despite the many shortcomings that may be advanced against Tylor’s definition, Mattar (2012) believes that Tylor has made an astounding contribution to the study of animism. He says, Edward Tylor, Andrew Lang, James Fratzer and their contemporaries’ espousal of animism is reflected in the mythology, folklore and belief that sprang from this period of development and lingered on into the “adulthood” of the world or a series of “survival.”
Indeed, this mode of representation ruled human thought for a long time and it is still the foundation of most human beliefs.
The whole existence of humans rests solely on nature just as nature too needs humans, and this creates an ontological connection that is manifest in the complimentary relationship that exists between the two. There is the shade of religiosity to the human–nature relations which manifests in paganism, that is, worshipping natural elements such as stones, trees, and animals, among others. This approach formed the fulcrum of interactivity between ancient generations and nature. From the standpoint of ecology, the primitive people were therefore able to place an intrinsic value on nature albeit spiritual which imbues the natural elements with some sacredness and agency to mediate undertakings in the human world. This in a way afforded the preservation of nature which is one of the objects of modern-day ecocriticism.
The import of ecology and ecocriticism is to place some value on the nonhuman elements of the world to be able to relate with them in ways that will not only confer respect on them but that will ensure their dignity and preservation. To this extent, animism and its offshoot such as paganism and fetishism and such other nature religions are seen as dimensions of ecology or ecocriticism at least to the extent of the value they place on nature.
There are also those who believe in the nonanimistic tradition. They do not suggest soul or spirit for natural entities, yet they ascribe intrinsic and utilitarian value to nature and therefore reverence nature as important in the earth sojourn but they do not worship it. Graham (1997) advocates that the contemporary pagan “world view is one in which everything that lives deserves honor and rights not normally given to other-than-human life” (p. 133). In a similar vein, Mbiti (1992) further confirms this when he says, Outstanding mountains and hills are generally regarded as sacred, and are given religious meaning. Information about this comes from many parts of the continent . . . The Bavenda and Shona consider the Matoba (or Matopo) mountains to be the place of God’s special manifestation. Five high mountains, including Mount Kenya, visible from Gikuyu country are believed to be sacred and the dwelling places of God when He visits the earth . . . Mountains, hills and the high standing earth formations, are in no way thought to be God: they simply give a concrete manifestation of His being and His presence . . . They are points of contact, drawing together, not only people in a given region, but also men, spiritual beings and God. Among many societies, mountains and hills are associated with spirits of divinities . . . Certain caves and holes are given religious meaning (p. 55).
Yet, there are others who see nature as mere materials and therefore deal with nature on a framework that only attaches use value to it. Worster (1994), however, says “denying to non-human entities a soul or indwelling spirit . . . helped reduce man’s perception of nature to the status of mechanical contrivance” (p. 29). But according to Krech et al. (2004), Thoreau shares a different view. He asserts that Thoreau believes that the closer one is to nature the better understanding of it one has. This, he figured, assisted the Indians in presenting a more accurate rendering of natural workings than that delivered by Western science.
Animist belief stems from the world view that nature is inspirited and that ultimate reality is spiritual and not material or physical. Animism distinguishes the sustaining relationships between humans and the environment, and grants that relationship an ontological status. It demonstrates how all human life exists and perpetuates itself only within life-world relationships; it also establishes how separated thinking can account for much needless human and environmental suffering, and waste. A core factor in animism is the truism that nature energizes the world with its constant flux. Hornborg (2006), in his essay, “Animism, Fetishism, and Objectivism as Strategies for Knowing (or not Knowing) the World,” asserts, “We might begin by suggesting that the ‘object’—in the sense of a material intrinsically meaningless, but essentially knowable reality—is a thoroughly modern invention” (p. 27). Humans cannot but therefore interact with the fluid nature of the world and attempt to cope with the challenges that nature streams from time to time and continually.
However, animism, especially as practiced by the indigenous people, has been pejoratively conjoined with paganism and primitiveness, coupled with its disarticulation of other levels of ecology beyond the spiritual essence that it offers, there is a new wave of animism that is blowing across the world. This new wave has supplanted the traditional animism, and its vigor stems from categorizing traditional animism as paganistic and primitive. Bruno Lantour quoted in Mattar (2012) justifies the new mode when he says, “there is no way to devise a successor to nature, if we do not tackle the tricky question of animism anew” (p. 137). The 1990s witnessed a surge characterized by a review and a revival in animism. Philippe Descola, Nutri Bird-David, EduardoViveros de Castro, Tim Ingold, and Lantour reworked the efforts of earlier critics such as Marilyn Strathern to hatch a new animism on the world (Mattar, 2012). These thinkers, according to Mattar (2012), “renegotiated understanding of relations within an animated pulverise that carries the name ‘animism’ without its stigma of belatedness” (p. 139). These critics thereby expound the corporeality of animism beyond the primitive space to the age of science, yet stretching the horizon and the importance further even beyond now and showing potentiality to always push science to the rear.
Animism was a term ethnocentrically promoted by E. B. Tylor in
Garuba, rather than denying the presence of animism in Africa, provides a rigorous vindication of its practice as intricately organic in the culture and worldview of the people. In the essay, “Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society,” Garuba (2003a) provides the needed manifesto as the lens from which African literary and cultural articulations bordering on animism can be assessed. He argues that animism is part of the windows through which the African mind conditions reality and one through which the African worldview can be approached. The essay, therefore, beyond anything, provides an indication, a window through which the works of Garuba himself and other writers with similar ideology can be analyzed and understood. To this extent, Harry Garuba’s (2017) latest collection of poetry I refer to the accounts given recently of the ways in which Africans appear to outsider observers to have “gone back” to some of their “age old traditions” and the consequences of “such regression” for African politics. Although much nonsense has been published in the media about Africa’s “backward” civilization, it will be unwise to dismiss all the accounts of what I call “re-traditionalisation” simply because of these crass and gross simplifications. There is undoubtedly something going on in Africa but here again we (outsiders) are uncertain what it is and, especially what it means (p. 265).
Chabal’s insidious remarks about Africa and his misrepresentation of the African worldview thus created the platform for Garuba (2003a) to “provide a model for accounting for this all pervasive phenomenon of modern African society” (p. 265). Garuba (2003a), in his response, espouses the African worldview in relation to animism and argues that the re-emergence of traditional and cultural beliefs in Africa goes beyond mere “nationalistic appropriations” but has “a much deeper level, a manifestation of an animist unconscious, which operates through a process that involves what I describe as a continual re-enchantment of the world” (p. 265). He therefore and rightly goes to the core of how animism is a part of the African culture and world view that cannot be evacuated from the African consciousness. It is a way of life and it cannot be willed or wished away because it has been consciously or unconsciously imbibed and embedded; it forms part of the psyche and would always constitute the philosophy behind human actions and thoughts in Africa. It is a way of engaging a changing world, hence the protean nature of animism itself.
Garuba states his concern in the essay in “the manner in which an animist mode of thought is embedded within the processes of material, economic activities and then reproduces itself within the sphere of culture” (p. 269). This temper is better captured by Cooper (2012) when she asserts that “African writers very often adhere to this animism, incorporate spirits, ancestors and talking animals, in stories, both adapted folktales and newly invented yarns, in order to express their passions, their aesthetics and their politics” (p. 40). To the Africans, animism is an acceptable mode of relating and interacting with the world. Wole Soyinka quoted in Garuba (2003a) writes that “the deistic approach of the Yoruba is to absorb every new experience, departmentalise it and carry on with life” (p. 264). This practice should in no way be viewed as worshiping inanimate objects as Tylor’s definition of animism suggests, and this bias is still shared by some European scholars. This act is not more than bowing and curtsying for the queen or standing up to sing or respect a national anthem or better still saluting a national flag. They are mere interactivity with objects, livable experiences, and cognition of meaning in a complex roll of animate and inanimate mix.
Animism and nature share close affinities; indeed, the subject of animism is nature. There cannot be animism without nature. The inseparability of animism and nature is better viewed from the deadly confrontation in the Peruvian Amazon between the police and the indigenous Awaj’un protesters over President Alan Garcia’s decrees concessioning their territories to oil, timber, and hydroelectric corporations. Most instructive in the episode is the justification provided by Leni, the leader of the protesters, quoted by Mario (2013) that We speak of our brothers who quench our thirst, who bathe us, those who protect our needs—this [brother] is what we call the river. We do not use the river for our sewage; a brother cannot stab another brother. We do not stab our brothers. If the transnational corporations would care about our soil like we have cared for it for millennia, we would gladly give them room so that they could work here—but all they care about is their economic benefit, to fill their coffers with wealth. We do not understand why the government wants to raze our lives with those decrees (p. 33).
From this outflow of Leni, a metaphor that goes beyond seeing animism as primitive and epistemologically challenged becomes easily discernible. Animism is a way of life, a window of creating and viewing reality. It is inextricably embedded in the culture of the people. Garuba (2003c) also draws on the connection between nature and animism when he asserts that animism has become “a platform for political action, particularly around issues of ecology and the environment” (p. 1). By this, he shows that animism reflects in everything that the African mind does. It moves from the spiritual to the economic and indeed from the pristine to politics. Garuba (2003c) further argues that the “new interest has overturned the old prejudice which equated animism with everything that was childlike and epistemologically challenged, everything that was the negation of the mature, the modern, and the civilized” (p. 1). This is the view of animism that will be held in analyzing Remi Raji’s
The title of the collection
Similarly, the “ebbs” section of the collection, like the name suggests, comprises poems which tend to deal more with issues in the environment of the poet. They reveal in varied forms distressing matters confronting the society and which have created enormous environmental, security, and general infrastructural challenges, among others, for the generality of the masses. The “flows” section consists of poems reflecting love and admiration for some people dear to the heart of the poet. Some of the poems therefore characteristically exude friendship and affectations. The last part of the poem is “recessional” with which the poet concludes the collection.
As a ground clearing approach, it is instructive to note that Remi Raji thrives so much on orality in the collection and this creates rich resource armor base for the poems. It also must be mentioned that orality is the product of an oral tradition. It is therefore not surprising the avalanche of the oral materials found in most of the poems.
In Remi Raji’s
The approach is informed by the animist belief that there are supernatural agencies that pervade the human environment and who are potent enough not only to grant human desires but are powerful enough to change equations in the cosmic realm. And as in worship, the poet persona addresses an unseen god who can grant him favor. Again, he writes, “I make a pledge this day, to rekindle hope in the hard ground/ To swim in dreams, breathe life, to find rhythm where a river is found” (lines 3–5). The poet thus enumerates what his task would be in the collection; he would give hope even though the situation seems hopeless and that he would praise in acknowledgment of where there is such effort at display.
Such exciting animist beliefs transfuse the entirety of the poems in the collection. The poem “Untold” sees the poet persona displaying his readiness to begin to create images with his powerful rendition. This is another feature of the griot for as he prepares to lunch out, he indulges in making a stream of boastful proclamations to show his readiness for a befitting and wonderful performance. This affords the griot to garner the necessary strenght and confidence that he needs for the outing. It is also a strategy to continue to whet the appetite of the audience. The poet persona in the poem bemoans his silence for some time: “Like the canary forbidden to sing for a century, / Now feed, I want to burst into an ocean of songs” (pp. 1–2). The poet must have been pulled into silence by strange happenings around him. But he is now ready; hence, he is conceited in his readiness and ability to deliver. This accounts for why he wants “to burst into an ocean of songs” (p. 2). He further brags when he says, “I have killed a conspiracy of impotence . . .” (p. 5), “ I ate the guts of the sunbird/ I have swallowed the throat of the robin” (pp. 8–9). The eating of the gut of the sunbird and the swallowing of the robin are further testimonies of the underlying animist beliefs that run through this poem as eating these birds suggests, among the Yoruba, a transference of the poetic features of those symbols in the poet. The poets therefore can thus begin to sing like the birds. This practice is common in orality and is also alluded to by Ezenwa-Ohaeto (2003) when he says, “my ancestors were minstrels I have continued in the same tradition” (p. 8). The practice therefore is part of the oral tradition of the people which must not be forgotten. Commenting on the oral tradition of the African people, Wilson (2003) says that Most African societies place great worth in oral tradition because it is a primary means of conveying culture. It is also a mode of transmitting feelings and attitudes . . . Oral tradition delivers explanations to the mysteries of the universe and the meaning of life on earth (p. 23).
Part of the beliefs in the animist world is that natural qualities found in certain elements are transferable through some supernatural powers. This is why the poet persona relies on the transference of the power of nature to trust in the appropriation of these powers by consuming the animals. It must however be noted that the eating may or may not be in the real sense of the word. It may be a spiritual dramatization, a form of ritual; yet, the efficacy is never doubted by initiates and is passed on from generation to generation. Beyond the symbolism of the ritual, avowal of the potency of consuming natural elements for aesthetic and creative excellence reinforces the assertion about what other scholars refer to as the value of neo-paganism in contemporary times. As Rountree (2012) intimates, the “worldview provides a model of social relations among ‘people’ of all kinds, along with an ideological and motivational charter for human action which has urgent, contemporary ecological relevance” (p. 42). Indeed, the adoption or the call to service of natural elements in support of oral performance has become intrinsically coiffured into the art of chanting and praise singing and it has become part of the value added to the enchantments. The poet persona further deepens his reliance on animism when he says, “What the rainbow said to me, I will teach you / What the riverbird whispered to me, I will tell” (pp. 11–12). Nature in animism is seen as the ultimate agency, the model of creation; it is out of this belief therefore that people draw power, imagination, and experiences from nature. The tutelage that the poet has received from these natural beings spurs his confidence and enhances the mastery of his art.
The poet persona concludes what appears to be a ritual as he says, “I have come to your door, penitent, poised for your potent prayer” (p. 21). He seems to have concluded his prayer ritual and is expectant of a favorable response. In “The god of poetry,” the poet persona sees the poetry god as capable of doing all things. In the poem, the nameless god of poetry is the strength and the source of the poet’s fecundity: The god of poetry works in wonderous ways he cuts a babel of tongues among the horsemen of shit he sets the gift of fire in the house of hunger (Raji, 2013, p. 18)
The poet finds in the god of poetry an ally, a trusted alter ego who is wont to assume any task on behalf of the poet. This is akin to Wole Soyinka’s connection with Ogun, the god of iron in Yoruba mythology. Wole Soyinka in many of his works such as Now the fires of confessions burn them all They who broke the diviner chain I count their cries and lick their tears, So crisp, so crocodile saltry The god of poetry is my sweetener. (Raji, 2013, p. 18)
At the core of major belief system among the Yorubas is animism. The Yorubas believe that everything has a god that controls it. For anyone to have fortune in a location, the god of such an area must be appeased. It is such a belief system that could provide the justification for the poet to have come up with a poem on the god of poetry. It is also such a belief system that could provide the rationale for arrogating such mystic powers to the god of poetry. It is this kind of conviction that accentuates the indispensability of animism, despite the technological advancement or the level of the sophistication the society has attained. It is something beyond the reductionist labeling of primitivism; it is a phenomenon that resides in every society. For instance, the salutation of flags is a common occurrence among humans, and in reverence of their national anthems, people stand at attention. Nothing can be more animistic, because the flag and the anthem, being venerated, are inanimate and mere human creations. This is an affirmation of the mutual dependence of the human society on animistic practices; it is also an indication that the human society may not be easily divorced of certain animistic practices.
Nature to Remi Raji represents peace and an effectual comforter to humans in moments of stress. In Snapshot V, the poet presents nature as capable of taking humans away from their violent activities and their attendant troubles. The poet writes, finally, the mountain will appear to you finally, the mountain will appear to you as the happy path, the valley of dreams you will walk, away from the war game, with me (Raji, 2013, p. 23)
People run to nature when their human environment becomes compromised by their own activities. This viewpoint resonates with the notion of enchanted animism “[which contends] that an enchanted re-animation of the world may be necessary for learning to live on a damaged planet” (Merewether, 2019, p. 25). For instance, during wars, people run into the bush for cover and protection. The poet reckons that nature is ever ready to assist humans. The poets’ portrayal of nature as benevolent and a model of peace and optimism is similar to the one expressed by David Thoreau as quoted in Francis (1977) that Who shall describe the inexhaustible tenderness and immortal life of the grim forest, where nature though it be a midwinter, it ever in her spring, where the moss grown and decaying trees are not old, but seem to enjoy perpetual youth, and blissful, innocent nature, like a serene infant, is too happy to make a noise, except by a few tinkling, lisping birds and trickling rills? (p. 25).
Humans run to nature for various reasons, yet they tend to forget its usefulness when they descend on same destructively for selfish reasons. African history is replete with how, in the past during, war people hid themselves in caves and on mountains to protect themselves from the ravaging opponents. The poet indeed in line 6 of the poem says that “Even the birds are singing differently, because of you” which is suggestive of the connection between nature and human experiences. This connection offers a guidance system for functioning in harmony between the cosmos and the human world. Animism stems and is sustained by the belief that nature has a way of directing activities in the human world. And this accounts for the reverence that some people have for nature.
Similarly, in “The road to Gombe,” Remi Raji, beyond using the poem to document his road trip to Gombe where the road “Is filled with the uncertainties / Of potholes,” the poet uses the opportunity to expose the paucity of infrastructures, especially good roads in Nigeria. The poet condemns the depraved state of many Nigerian roads which have become a source of fatalities in the country. The poet persona is troubled on the road not only by potholes but also by the numerous checkpoints that dot every spot of the journey. To this extent, the poem becomes similar to Wole Soyinka’s “The Road.” Vasishta (2016) says Wole Soyinka’s “The Road” depicts the Nigerian experiences during the middle of the twentieth century, and it reflects the roles played by drugs, criminals, corrupt policemen, and unscrupulous politicians. Raji writes, “the fireflies are soldiers over the unknown,/and the checkpoints, too many, so many to remember” (pp. 15–16). This is a reflection of the general insecurity that pervades the entire length and breadth of the country which has drafted the soldiers into civil matters, when, under normal circumstances, they ordinarily should concern themselves with maintaining the territorial integrity of the country.
The Jos crisis has particularly been difficult to handle, and it was only the intervention of the military that restored peace in the once peaceful plateau. This accounts for why the poet persona is able to list many locations in the Jos municipality where many of these checkpoints are erected. Many Nigerian environments have become largely combustible with actual violent convulsions and palpable threat to life and property. Insecurity and fear pervade every inch of the Nigerian landscape. Ewetan (2014) asserts that security need was the basis of the social contract between the people and the state, in which people willingly surrendered their rights to an organ (government) that oversees the survival of all. The general spate of insecurity is so high that according to Ewetan (2014), “a confirmation of this is the low ranking of Nigeria in the Global Peace Index” (p. 41). The poem reminds one of the salutariness of road travels, especially as it affords the pleasure of appreciating nature in her immense form. It offers a wonderful sight-seeing and familiarity with nature, the greens, the forests, the mountains, the rivers, the birds and some other animals that may par chance stray into the road. The poet says further: “At Godon Waya, I behold the breasts/of table mountains, shrouded by the evening mist” (lines 34–35). The poet persona gets so much engrossed in his romance with nature that he bemoans the interruption of some politicians who disrupt his view and engagement with nature. The poet writes, “then the crazy convoy of campaigners, what mad rush? / They spoil the sight of busty mountains and tender trees” (lines 30–31). This seems a metaphoric indictment of the so-called leaders who often, for selfish reasons, despoil nature or serve as accomplice in nature destruction agenda.
After the long journey with its attendant stress, the poet persona retires into nature to enjoy her therapeutic essence. The poet writes, “I must dismount and go gently into the night” (p. 46). This reverence and the thrusts of optimism that looking up to nature in moments of despair and utter hopelessness affords, offers a spirituality though not in the primitive mode of animism but one that is almost at the threshold of it and in sequence with the new animist fervor. This is precisely because “Terms that we find in critical theoretical evocations of the premodern . . . can still be used in the epochal evocation of the modern” (McCann, 2003). This new wave of animism spans across race and color and it locates animistic practices as a common human feature. It also signifies the inseparability of these forms of practices from innate human behavior.
Is there a religion that is completely devoid of animistic practices? There seems to be something in the “beingness” of humans that is in tune with animism. Christians and Muslims use many materials to worship God. For instance, among other things, Christians use rosary and images to worship God while the Muslims use
In . . . down there, two giant candles on iron stilts Following the sheen-path of fugitives oil. Two giant thunders bellowing through the village night. The carbon heat kissed my breadth in the morning I am scorched like the earth, The sunbird and the river greet me still (Raji, 2013, p. 30)
The Niger Delta region has been bedeviled with extreme environmental pollution. Although the struggle has been internationalized, and the Federal Government is showing some semblance of seriousness, the area is still a far cry from being a conducive environment for humans and nature. Any wonder then that writers’ response to the incongruent situation has been described as producing a “belligerent discourse of resistance” and “literary militancy” (Egya, 2017). Gas that is supposed to be a good money spinner for the country to provide basic infrastructure for the people is being interminably flared away. This smacks of inexplicable wastage of the natural resources of the country, making the people in the area suffer utter neglect and injustice. The poem reminds one of Ifowodo’s
The poet persona ends the poem with a call on nature using the riverbird to tell him more about the suffering of the people and the land: Tell me more about your wondrous woes, Riverbird, riverbird Tell me more about your histories of scars (Raji, 2013, p. 30)
The poet perceives of nature a witness to the calamity in which humanity is enmeshed and of course in which nature is a victim. The trust and the reverence that the poet has in nature drives him into preferring the narrative of the riverbird. In J. P. Clark’s “Streamside Exchange,” a child enquires about the return of her mother. The two poets therefore believe that nature is a reliable repository and that it is capable of providing information on things unknown to humans or explicate issues ordinarily beyond human observation or comprehension. Nature is thus expected to be treated as neighbors instead of seeking her destruction. This is the theme that Remi Raji seeks to espouse in I love your bits and bytes, And the binary punch captures it all Scribbled, my fingers sing across the monitors of life, These words strut, stream and sigh across the sea In the silent hums of hard disks, in full flight of the winged Hour all our life is tied to these tiny things—open books and faceless groups (Raji, 2013, p. 37)
The poem explains how technological devices have become human companions. Nature has become distant. Humans have forgotten that they are part of nature and that the more they get closer to nature, the more natural they become and the better for them. Technology is fast replacing nature, and many experiments to replace nature continue. If this spate is not checked, the world may soon witness a total destruction of nature. In the words of the poet in When this poem is done, and the batteries of our energies explode, Like H-bomb, we shall not be saved on earth, in hell or Heaven. . . Who or what shall we delete, where or when shall we repeat The song of Origin: let there be light, without destruction! (Raji, 2013, p. 37)
The present deification of technological materialities and others can only advance human craze to make the world plastic and artificial, which is a way of distancing the world away from its naturalness. The glorification of materialities has set the world on a seemingly irretrievable animistic mode that all humans worship consciously or unconsciously one device or material or the other. While some worship cars, some worship different technological devices, some worship science and its craze to replace humans with chips and other stuffs. In many places, natural food has given way to engineered plants with some of their attendant risks yet unknown. According to Iovino and Oppermann (2012), “this perspective sees materiality, or all objects, forces, things natural and cultural systems, and processes as players in co-creating social and cultural meaning.” There must be a conscious effort by humans against their present lackadaisical and destructive approach to issues of the environment. This is the only sure way to save the world and the entire humanity from a pending annihilation.
In “Run, country run,” Remi Raji calls on the magical powers of animism to come to the rescue and save the land from the greedy politicians who are wont to set the country on the path of destruction. The poet laments the upturn of morality in the society. He condemns the culture of violence that has enveloped the country like an inferno. He rejects the enthronement of sleaze that has become institutionalized in the Nigerian society and in such other societies. The poet writes, The flood is still rising . . . Blood still dripping from the paintings In our museum of misery . . . (Raji, 2013, p. 52)
This is a portrayal of an inclement environment. It is a reflection that the Nigerian society is tempestuous. The “locusts and the termites” (line 13), a euphemism for the politicians who have turned the country into one big hellish enclave through their greed, selfishness and massive corruption. Corruption has become a big industry in Nigeria which has grinded the country into paralysis. Some of its attendant consequences include bad roads, poor health, inadequate social amenities and pulverizing poverty which has turned some of the citizens into living deads. The new spate of violence that the country has just added into her catalog of woes is one dimension that is scary and has become a major threat to the existence of the country. The poet, however, evokes his animist belief by his call for the perpetrators of these ills; that is, the leaders to be cast in fire and water for them to receive a divine healing and change for the better. In a similar vein, Achebe (1983) locates leadership as the problem of Nigeria. He says, “The Trouble With Nigeria” is; simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land, climate, water, air, or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which is the hallmark of true leadership (p. 1).
Raji, sharing the opinion of Achebe that leadership is the bane of the Nigerian society, calls for the baptism of such leaders in the elements of nature. He writes, Into the fire Into the fire Into the waters Into the waters Be healed, be healed. Run, country, run. (Raji, 2013. p. 52)
The poet’s call on these natural elements further corroborate the potency and the belief that these elements have souls and are capable of changing the course of events in the physical realm where humans reside. The Nigerian politicians have been so thoroughly infested with corruption that it would take those natural elements to rid them of the affliction. When an individual embezzles the funds meant to provide health infrastructure for the people, the person can only be afflicted by a kind of madness to do that and only a recourse to nature can bring such a person back to sanity. In Nigeria of today, there are so many killings in the name of Boko Haram, farmers/herdsmen clash, political violence, and general insecurity. Human and natural life cannot thrive in a crimsoned and an unsafe environment or What Odia Ofeimun in “How Can I Sing” calls “morbid landscapes” (p. 23). People therefore tend to move to saner climes and this portend a number of challenges to the world. The world already seems overburdened by refugee crisis and increase in migration rate across the globe; further crisis can only aggravate an already overstrained international system.
The poet’s reliance on nature is further accentuated in the ‘
Conclusion
It is pertinent to note that animism with its superstitious and sometimes superfluous beliefs has become inextricably associated with humanity, and there is no letting go of animist thoughts and practices. As long as there are people and as long as there would be religious longings and spiritual engagements and indeed religions, there shall always be animism, though in variegated dimensions. Even at the height of science and technological breakthrough, there shall be some inadequacies, and some lack in effectual spirituality, yearnings by humans for which modern science and technology would fall short. Even in the current age that science and technology seem to have taken over, there is still a plethora of animist practices observable in the so-called age of science. Otto Friedrich quoted in David Sitton (1998) notes that “a strange mix of spirituality and superstition is sweeping across the world (
Footnotes
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Funding
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