By Chinwendu Carlos
The last time I wrote about the origins and meanings of both Chi and Chukwu in the Igbo worldview, some people rushed out to attack me.
.The point I tried making then and now remains that Chukwu is the name of a deity in Igboland that has nothing to do with God.
Both Chi and Chukwu did not represent Abrahamic God. Also, Chi and Chukwu are not the same.
Whereas Chukwu is a physical deity belonging to the Aro tribe, Chi is multi versed. Chi can mean fate, day, personal god, and guiding spirit, as in Chiefo, Chibua, Chisom, etc.
Chineke on its own is a compound word comprising of Chi and Eke. Note, Eke here is not the Eke market day, but sharer or as in Chijioke.
To understand Chineke, you have to understand Chijioke. Invariably, Chineke and Chijioke pointed to same direction: the chi that holds portions and the chi that shares. It is not the Abrahamic God.
If your argument is to be on post Missionary Chineke, Chi and Chukwu meaning God, then you might be right since the new attributions of these terms to the Abrahamic God happend in post Missionary Igboland. So we can say there is a pre Missionary Chukwu, Chi and Chineke. One is original, the other a wishful fabrication.
In pre Missionary Igboland, creation from nothing did not exist.
In all Igbo folklore, no deity ever made anything out of nothing: things usually sprout out of an existing one. Pre Missionary Igbo people were actually polytheists. So polytheism is the only existing practice obtainable in Pre Missionary Igboland.
Those who tried to elevate Chukwu of the Aro as the Abrahamic God tend to miss this very point: that pre colonial Igboland only practiced polytheism and there was never any trace of monotheism nor a distant record of it.
Chukwu itself is also a compound word: Chi plus Ukwu. Chi means deity in this context whike ukwu means Big. (The British colonial government transliterate it as long juju). Ihuchukwu existed in Aro in Pre Missionary times. It was Ihuchukwu because that was where the Chiukwu was kept.
The Aros in whose home the Oracle was kept were called Aro Chukwu.
Aro people usually add prefixes of the towns or common legend associated with their settlement. They are usually Aro something of which those in the site Chukwu was kept were called Aro Chukwu.
Legends have it that Chukwu itself came from neighbouring Ibibio people and was captured by the Aros during the Aro-Ibibio war. Prior to the war, the Oracle was called Ubini Ukpabi by its Ibibio owners.
.Those who insisted on twisting pre colonial Igbo world view into the tiny enclave of monotheism are either those who view monotheism as sign of civilization and tried to squeeze pre colonial Igbo people into it or emotional Christians looking for justifications. Polytheism is actually more on the side of civilization than monotheism. Polytheism rarely breeds intolerance that often lead to terrorism.
I am ready to engage anyone that have academic facts to counter this.
But frankly, I wont respond to those of you with “Sunday School diplomas” whose sources are their conditioned minds.
