hello world
this was sent on a listserve w/o a link
tried to confirm this and could not
did find out that the new additions to unesco
list were just announced so i assume its true
and of interest even if not
at least to folk like myself
interested in divination
wish i had known they were doing this
i would have submitted hoodoo
ohwell, moving right along . . .
i scheduled 2 days for my breakdown of rest
it took about 7, god aint it always like that
it was a very humbling experience
noting all the problems to be fixed
and im still coming up with ideas
which is really bad, new ideas means raw manuscript
and some would say dont do it arthur, just go with what you got
but whats happening is that now that i have the storyline down
the magic is staring to come thru and i want this to be a magical text
for instance:
one of my folkloric neighborhood characters is staggerlee
a gangsta rapper who after katrina becomes political
there is this rumor in the neighborhood that the crossroads
where you sell your soul to legba to become a great bluesman
is where the person ave crosses the expressway into the park
highjohn and most of the neighborhood consider it a local urban legend
until staggerlee decides to cut the deal and when he gets the the midnight crossroads
he is surprised to find highjohn waiting for him and this is a surprise to highjohn too
that he the one folk been calling legba at the crossroads
so he cuts the deal in legba or rather highjohn the conquerors name
dont know how i will work this out
maybe he takes walks in the woods/park when hes feeling fey, day and night
and realizes that people have seen him walking the woods at night
and thats where the legba at the crossroads rumors have come from
i dont know, got a lot to work out to make this work
and more like it that have been percolating in me
got to just do up the raw manuscript and then start fixing it
i might do that one crossroads one today just to get it started
new ideas like this you have to just do the raw manuscript immediately
then you know eventually you will fix it, but if you dont do the raw manuscript
immediately you might not ever do it, so ima start that today
(after i do the days longhand, finishing draft is still priority)
while i was breaking my draft down i had many such 'what ifs' present themselves
i wont followthru on all of them cause i want to be through more than anybody
but some like this one i cannot resist, i wont even try
when i thought of this one i got that little oh yeah feeling that no writer ignores
messed around and started making some ideological moves too
seems im coming out of the woodshed and did some institutionalization maintenance
on the hoodoo way list, my secretsocieties initiative and newren workshop
and i put my music collection on my ipod (some 7,000 songs now, that was a lot of work)
i had to upgrade recently from a 20 to a 60 meg ipod because of all the goodies
i found at the public library and then i figured what the heck, the best collection in
the world is right here on my shelf
and instead of my absolute favorites which is what i had in the 20, (about 3000 songs)
i put everything that i might want in my digital collection on it (7000 and counting)
got obsessed with it like i do and bonnie will tell you thats the reason
it took 7 days to do what should have taken 2 but what can i say, music is
an integral part of my artistic being - i work to the beat
finished that project this morning reeling w/fatigue,
now i got to get down with some serious longhand
im behind schedule
and i got to bring my ideological projects back online
i just cannot stand to see them languish any longer
its like im in kind of a half woodshed
but they still my projects instead of the schoolhouse grind
im still good to go - i love feeding my obsessions
i have over the years come to trust my obsessions
i remember when i took up the bluesharp and spent hours and hours
and wondering if i was not being serious about my writing time
w/all this bluesharping
but i was obsessed with it and could not fight the power
samesame kalimba
now the bluesharp and kalimba are integral parts of my literary identity
of my griotic skils as a black writer in the oral tradition and i see
where the gods of literature were looking out for me when they gave
me that obsession
samesame when jeff parker turned me onto hypertext and
online competency, what i cursed as a distractive obsession
turns out to have been a critical skill in my evolution as a
21st century literary man
i have come to trust my obsessions
so i got to maintain my production schedule
and feed my obsessions when they come
thats why im always looking for more gears
(being ever more disciplined and systematic about my productiohn)
im outta here
got to get crunching on my longhand
got to get busy got to get busy
instruggle
rickydoc flowers
------------------------------
Nigeria's Ifa corpus enters UNESCO heritage list
By Kabir Alabi Garba
ORUNMILA, the Patron Saint of Ifa practitioners which other praise name is
"Okunrin Kikuru Oke Igeti" (the small statured one resident in Igeti
Hill), must have beamed a smile at the weekend.
The country, in far away Paris, booked another place on the UNESCO cultural
heritage map as Ifa, the country's submission to the Proclamation of
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity secured the
approval of the international body.
The occasion was the Third Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and
Intangible Heritage and Nigeria was among 75 member states whose 65 cultural
masterpieces were reviewed by an international jury composed of 18 members.
The five-day conference, which ended last Friday in Paris, France, had in
attendance two representatives from Nigeria. They were Professors Wande
Abimbola, Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Culture and
Traditional Matters and Akinwumi Ishola.
Nigeria's ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Professor Michael
Omolewa described the development as outstanding.
"It is with great pleasure that I am announcing to you that our entry of
Ifa into the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is successful. The
decision was taken last night by the International Jury and it was announced
today (Friday) at the award ceremony held at the UNESCO Headquarters in
Paris,'' according to a press statement by Omolewa.
He said: "This achievement belongs to the Almighty God alone, He is the
one that gave us the very professional expertise of Professor Wande Abimbola
and Professor Akinwumi Ishola, both of whom prepared the very rich candidature
file of Nigeria.''
The diplomat premised the importance of the proclamation on the competitiveness
of the award. "Now, the world can appreciate the quality of the wisdom and
understanding of the African race before the intrusion of colonial rule, we
therefore expect that the award will lead to an enhanced status for tourism
promotion and capacity-building in Nigeria,'' remarked Omolewa.
Since 2001 when the proclamation was instituted, it has remained an international
forum to reward popular and traditional forms of heritage such as oral expressions,
music, rituals, social practices, traditional craftmanship or knowledge and
practices concerning nature and the universe.
The brief on Ifa submitted by the two renowned scholars, said the masterpiece
is presented as a West African geomantic system popular among several West
African groups like the Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Bete, Bariba, Eve, Fon, Ebira, Jukun
among others.
It is stated that "among some of these groups like the Eve of Togo and
Ghana, the Fon of Benin Republic, the Bete of Cross River State and others, Ifa
has been playing an important role in their social, political, and cultural
lives. Perhaps the most important thing to note is the fact that in all these
West African cultures, Ifa has been preserved as an oral tradition passed on
from one generation to the other by word of mouth, yet it is carefully
preserved and disseminated.
"Among the Yoruba, the training of an Ifa priest so that he/she can chant
or recite the elaborate corpus of the sacred literature in the course of
rituals, healing and divination, takes more than 20 years. It is a rigorous and
time-consuming exercise in which only the very best can excel.
"Everywhere the Ifa divination is practised, the language of ese Ifa is
Yoruba, and that is why the first three parts of ese Ifa are chanted in pure
Yoruba. However, among non-Yoruba communities, other parts of the ese Ifa are
chanted in their local languages or dialects. For example, in Cuba, the first
three parts of ese Ifa are chanted in Yoruba while the other parts are chanted
in Spanish.
"In other words, the contents of the story remains the same but explanation
in prose by the babalawo to the client are rendered in local languages or
dialects and based on their experiences. However, Ifa literature is not fully
developed among the non-Yoruba speaking communities because of lack of
competence in the Yoruba language.
"Each Ifa poem also has its own adornment of stylistic features. Two of
the most important and characteristic features of Ifa style are repetition and
word-play. Both of these stylistic features often occur in combination. It will
be sufficient to mention that the richness of style and language of Ifa poems
is very greatly valued and appreciated by the highly poetically-conscious
Yoruba traditional society.
"The ordinary Yoruba person patronises the Ifa priests not only because of
their belief in the predictions and pronouncements of Ifa but also because of
the aesthetic enjoyment which they derive from listening to the chanting of a
form of poetry which is exceedingly rich in style and language.
"Since traditional Yoruba society was non-literate, going to Ifa priests
for divination therefore represented an important medium of contact with such a
highly developed form of poetry. The contact which the traditionally minded
Yoruba makes constantly with the Ifa literary corpus therefore enriches his
aesthetic values and satisfies his imaginative instincts in the same way as
modern novels, poems and films educate, satisfy and enrich the city dwellers.
"Studies have shown that the oral texts of Ifa divination contain valuable
hints on Yoruba history including the history of the Yoruba language. In
addition to their roles as experts of Yoruba mythology, divination and
sacrifice, Ifa priests also play the role of historians, counselors, and
physicians up till today in the communities where they still exist.
"Studies have also revealed that Ifa textual materials contain deep philosophical
themes which can be regarded as West Africa's contributions to philosophical
ideas. The Ifa literary corpus is the storehouse of Yoruba culture, inside
which the experiences of the Yoruba people and some of their neighbours have
been preserved throughout the ages. This demonstrates that non-literate people
can preserve, maintain, transmit and disseminate important ingredients of their
own culture without knowing how to read or write. As a profound West African
body of knowledge, and West Africa's contribution to intellectual ideas, Ifa
deserves to be preserved and made available to a wider audience in the modern
world.''
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