Because of their attachment to rivers, the Ijaw cultural, social, economic and religious lives are defined and influenced by water. Water, ti is said, has no enemy. According to some Ijaw elders in Bayelsa, “water is friendlier to the Ijaw people,” however, every bggbbbbIjaw is expected to be a good swimmer so he or she can survive capsizing of boats when it happens.
Sir Ballard Benedick Bedewuru is an Ijaw man and the Director of Arts and Culture Bureau at the Bayelsa State cultural centre in Yenagoa. He told Sunday Trust that, everything about the Ijaws is interrelated with water. “Unlike in the north where they dance like antelopes, we dance like fishes. Our dance steps are like the movements of the fish and the wagging of their tails in the waters, The Ijaw masquerades usually wear heads of the fishes. All our festivals have their origins from water. Our ways of life are influenced by our environment which is surrounded by water.”
His Royal Highness (HRH), Wisdom Franklin, is the paramount ruler of Aguda-Epie, the largest Ijaw community in Yenagoa metropolis, in the Bayelsa State capital.
He traced the lineage of the Ijaw people to Benin in Edo State, where they migrated from and settled in Yenagoa, where they fish in the regions waters and engage in little farming. “The Ijaw culture and customs are water dominated. This is because God has blessed us with water. We are fishermen and we do a little farming. Our yearly festivals are also water related. One of such festivals is the Obunem festival. It is related to the beginning of floods. It is the time farmers are bringing their food stuffs from the creeks and when the waters are overflowing farmlands,” he said. The yearly Obunem festival, according to HRH Wisdom Franklin, is celebrated from the 26th of June to the first week of July. It is characterized by the paddling of the Ijaw ceremonial boat regattas accompanied with all night singing and dancing, with women dressed in colorful attires and presentation of gifts to community leaders and clan heads. The bigger event is celebrated by all the communities at a designated community with overall paramount rulers. HRH Wisdom Franklin said boat regattas as part of Ijaw festivities, symbolizes “the early days when our forefathers used to go to war in the waters so as to conquer neighbouring communities and make them their slaves. That reminds us of that.” He said there are two types of boat regattas: the ceremonial boat regatta and the war boat regatta.
Sir Ballard Benedick Bedewuru said from time immemorial, the Ijaw war boat regattas are painted black to attack neighbouring villages. The attackers are also painted in black charcoal as a form of camouflage.
“Canons are put in the boats. A small traditional pot is usually tied to the rear- end of the war boat, which dangles from one point to the other. As the boat passes by a community, the warriors challenge member of that community to dare them by cutting the rope that holds the dangling pot at the rear of the boat. Somebody from the community swims across to cut the rope signifying the beginning of the war. If you don’t want war, they simply allow the boat to pass to the next communities,” he said. The ceremonial boat regattas on the other hand, are usually colourfully decorated and have a tail similar to that of the fish and are also used for marriage ceremonies, annual festivities and carnivals to showcase the culture of the Ijaw man. Chief Lawrence Iniya is the paramount ruler of Akampai Ijaw community in Yenagoa. He said another event celebrated by the Ijaws is the Ogori (Leopard) festival. “There was an animal which was a spiritual leopard that had killed and tormented the Ijaw people in those days.
One Ijaw man killed that animal and today we do the Ogori celebration to commemorate the killing of the leopard.” He said it is celebrated by jubilations in different communities, dramatization of the fight, boat regattas and shooting of canons and dances. The Ijaws have a lot of idioms and proverbs which are water inclined. One popular Ijaw proverb goes thus: “when you see a hippopotamus pursuing a canoe in the river, it is not actually interested in the canoe, but what is inside the canoe. As soon as the person insight jumps into the water, that ends the pursuit.
To the Ijwas, the politics of oil exploration in Ijaw land best explains this proverb. With the discovery of oil in commercial quantity by Royal Dutch Shell in Oloibiri in 1957, Ijaw land (being the canoe this case) became a centre of attraction to the world with many multinational companies (the hippopotamus in this case) exporting cargos of crude (now the content of the canoe). With this proverb, the Ijaw people are of the belief that if not for the oil, the ‘hippopotamus’ will not be pursuing the ‘canoe’ in the waters of Ijaw land. A common proverbial saying among the Ijaws is that: One does not get annoyed with a bad canoe when you are inside it. Meaning you cannot say let me do away with the canoe because it is bad in the middle of the sea until you have a replacement or else one risks going down with it.
It is used when the people in the Ijaw community are becoming something else. Another proverb is that: no matter how tall the okro tree is, it cannot be taller than its owner. This is because at whatever time the owner wants to plug it; he will bend the tree and do exactly that. The Ijaws use this idiom at a point a child is trying to go wild. The economic strength of the Ijaw people lies in the rivers. Apart from oil exploration in the Ijaw land that has defined the economic future of not only the Ijaw people but Nigeria and its place in the world, everything inside and around the Ijaw water is of huge economic value.
Sunday Trust correspondent gathered that ownership of the rivers that surround Ijaw land and the activities therein are shared among different communities and are a source of revenue to each neighbourhood. One river bank is owned by one group of people while the other side belongs to another community. Revenue are paid to both sides by business individuals operating there. Being fishermen and women by occupation, the Ijaw people feed on fish, market some to make some money. Snails from the waters are equally eaten and sold by the Ijaws. The shell of the snails are used in place of concretes in buildings and as ornament by artists for decoration.
The sand in Ijaw watercourse is a source of income to a large number of Ijaw youths and a source of income to community leaders and clan heads. A visit by this reporter to a place called oilmill waterside in Yenagoa revealed how hefty looking young men, extract sand from the river to sell and make ends meet. Diala Emotua is 34-years- old and a father of three. He told this reporter that though he does not like the work of dredging sand but he is forced into it because he has no alternative. He makes N2000 daily after carrying sand from the river to be sold to agents by the riverside. He complained of regular body pains but vows not to go into militancy or other criminal activities.
Many young Ijaw men like Emotua are taking advantage of their connection with water to make a living, optimistic that things will be better for them in the near future with many who spoke to our correspondents appealing to government to bring in more companies to Bayelsa State so as to create jobs for the teeming Ijaw youths in the state. Due to lack of adequate roads, many Ijaw communities can only be accessed by boats. Canoe is thus, a mode of transportation of goods and people and a source of income to many Ijaws. Sharam waterside in Yenagoa is one of the economic nerve centers of the state where petroleum products are brought in and transported to different towns and communities by Ijaw youths. So also the market side waterside where passengers are conveyed to neighbouring states of Delta, Rivers and other nearby places. Ijaw women are not left out of benefiting from the waters of the land. Canoe ferrying employs many Ijaw women and serves as a means of livelihood to their families at hospital road waterside in Yenagoa. A southern Ijaw woman, who simply identified herself as Dentere and a mother of ten, is one of the several ferrywomen at the waterside.
She told our correspondent that, “my husband is not around. He is a security man and they have transferred him to Abuja. I am the only one on ground feeding the family and paying the children’s school fees from this work. If the gods take away this water from us, it is like taking away our lives,” she said. Because most houses in Ijaw communities are situated at the riverbanks, the water serves them a great deal. They wash and sometimes bath in the rivers. It equally serves as a means of waste disposal from their toilets which are usually close to the river even though analysts are of the opinion that it is unhealthy. Marrying an Ijaw woman demands the symbolic presentation of a canoe, mosquito nets and brooms among many other things. This tells that the wife to be is a fisher woman. In cases where the woman has another occupation different from fishing, money can be paid in place of the canoe and nets. Though Christianity has overtaken 70 percent of the religious lives of the Ijaw people, a percentage of them, especially the southern Ijaws are believed to still maintain spiritual connection with the water gods. Chief Gilbert Aaron, is the chief of Edpie Ijaw community in Yenagoa Bayelsa state. He told this reporter that, “The Ijaw has a traditional believe in water spirits. There are still some areas like in the southern Ijaw, where people still worship spirits that provide them with power and means of living. Some of these water spirits are called the Benkurukuru, Opukula, Eguru, Seseibiri.” He said they make sacrifice to the spirits, which are in some cases pitons, are pythons, fish and snakes and perewinkle snails depending on what has been prescribed. Mostly it is goats, fowl or food stuffs and the time for the sacrifice equally depends on when the spirit demands. It is customarily wrong for an Ijaw man to start a fight.
It is expected of them to always allow their enemies to start the fight first and they act in self defence. When going for war, they are prohibited from sleeping with a woman and taking away the enemy’s properties. In the event enemy’s belongings are taken, they are to be given to the deities such as the Egbesu (the god of war) or the Beni-Awere. Doing the contrary is making the body vulnerable to bullet attack.
It is believed that the Benkurukuru has territories in Ijaw waters that boats made of certain types of woods are prohibited from crossing. It is believed that when attempts are made to cross there, the boat will sink. Common Ijaws see the large oil deposit found in the waters of Ijaw land as more of a curse than blessings, owing to the high level of corruption among Nigerian leaders and consequent militancy in the region. Water is then seen by most as their only blessing. It keeps the Ijaw man going. The average Ijaw man believes that the water surrounding him is a gift from God that must be valued in all sense. This informs why a typical Ijaw man who leaves in any city around the country will prefer having his house by the riverside.
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