The Route to the Root of Man
(A conversation with Krydz
Ikwuemesi on his “Story of Stories”)
By Peter Ezeh
When I heard that Krydz Ikwuemesi did a collection he named “The
Story of Stories” for his MFA thesis it was the fact it had to
do with myth that attracted me, for the obvious reason of my
involvement in career ethnology. He was attempting to show how
the idea of origin of man is grappled with in diverse cultures:
among the Igbo, Yoruba, Indians, Chinese and Jews. But when he
displayed the series to me it turned out that it wasn’t just as
simple as that. His inclusion of physical anthropology’s effort
in this direction proved to be really engaging, some would say
controversial. As we got ourselves embroiled in the argument we
forgot that his breakfast was on the stove. It was the acrid
tang of the burning meal that announced the mishap. And as the
extracts from the interview (?) demonstrate, I am not sure that
we didn’t end up spoiling each other’s morning too.
Ezeh:
You call it The Story of Stories. What I am seeing is quite
fascinating as usual.
Ikwuemesi: It is The Story of Stories in the sense of
looking at the origin of man; the origins of man because we are
dealing with different formulations about origin. We are looking
at the stories that generated the story of life. That is the
essence of The Story of Stories. The Story of Stories is a very
long story in the sense that it started in 1991 with a
discussion I had with Dr. Chuta of General Studies Division of
the University of Nigeria. He suggested that I do something from
Genesis looking at God’s six-day’s work. So I set out to do some
sketches which I lost in, I think, 1992. In 1994 I came up with
the “Story of Man” - what I called it then. But somehow it
couldn’t go on until when I came to study for my Master’s
(degree) programme at the University of Nigeria and decided to
have it as the theme of my studio project. I call it The Story
of Stories now. I decided to give form to Dr. Chuta’s suggestion
in the spirit of liberalism. This I did by looking at sources -
other religions - so that as it were, you have a composite
imagery.
Ezeh: It is quite fascinating really. Even with my
connection with anthropology I haven’t managed to garner as many
of these myths as the works you have here indicate you have
done.
Ikwuemesi: China. This deals with their myth which states
that at the beginning of the time God wanted to make man. He did
the first copy and threw him into the oven. But he brought him
out late burnt and black. He became the black man. Not wanting
to relent, God did the second copy, threw him in but being too
anxious and careful, brought him out too early and that became
the Caucasian. Not satisfied still, he did the third copy and
brought him out well timed and that became the Asian (the
Mongoloid), the quintessential man.
When you look at it closely you find that element of superiority
complex. They believe they were the last to be created and the
best. You find that it lends credence to what I want to do from
the political angle where I want to Africanize my own idea of
origin. It is remarkable that the myth affixms that the African
was the first to be created. I don’t know if that adds or takes
from what the myth is intended to represent or achieve.
Ezeh: It is one of those ironies in life. Sometimes
people, in the ardour of their chauvinism end up scoring their
own goals, you know scoring against themselves ... Anyway, there
are some of the messages of the painting that are difficult to
place in terms of geopolitics or ethnocentricism. This, for
instance (pointing at one of the pieces). I suspect this is the
Buddha’s lotus but you look at the god himself he is black. This
is the usual Ancient of Days motif. I suspect the other figure
could be the first man, therefore I relate it to Genesis. But
outside of the Genesis story, that of the Chinese, that of the
Buddists, it would appear that the other ones have no
geopolitical or ethnic specificities.
Ikwuemesi: Most of them do. There is one that has to do
with Persia. I did something on the Persian god where Mithran,
the god, slew a bull at a particular time to give birth to the
ancient world. So I took the head of the bull and I took the
head of the God and combined them in a particular pattern to
give rise to a painting. But you have the. You have the Yoruba
myth dealing with Oduduwa. You have the Igbo myth dealing with
Eri as the mythic hero. Then of course a little bit from
science.
Ezeh: It will be so good to see those. They are not
around here?
Ikwuemesi: They are not immediately available. Then there
is this one on the Egyptian myth dealing with Ra the Sun God.
And so on. These are essentially the ones I have looked at, and
of course, the Genesis stories which I regard principally as
myths. All these have been combined to form The Story of Stories. Concluding it is the one you are just looking at. It is
not the traditional myth per se. I am looking at man here ..
having been created, having emerged from whatever mythic channel
as the beauty of life...
Ezeh: I remember you are saying that your dad talked
about man as “mma ndu” in Igbo which translates as the
quintessence of life.
Ikwuemesi: Yes. That’s what I have tried to do here. I
recall that whenever my father wanted to break a kolanut, he
prayed and said, “God who created the world and after doing so,
planted the flowers and the vegetation decided to add mma ndu”,
which is literally “the beauty of being” or as we now call it,
human being. So I thought it could form an imagery in itself,
and that is what you see here. There is a second part with a
female figure to compliment the first.
Ezeh: So The Story of Stories is an ongoing project?
Ikwuemesi: Yes. The “Story of Stories” may never really
be exhausted even by other painters if they tried to. What I am
doing, I think, is a continuous process. Whenever I stop or I
find myself stopping I believe artists, anthropologists and
others interested in that kind of study can continue. I can
never really say I am through with it. It depends on when the
spirit ceases to move me in this direction. So I see myself
doing this for quite sometime until the works are publicly
presented.
Ezeh: Now, I find one thing quite curious here. You make
the remark, which will be familiar to some people who are into
this area of study which is that as far as you are concerned the
story of Genesis is just one of those creation myths. It is well
known that almost every culture have their own creation myth. So
to that extent if anybody is trying to conjecture on how man
came to be from nonscientific perspectives we can only but, and
perhaps on good account, label it myth. But this (pointing to a
piece) is the bit that I find curious as I said. I have been
trying to see either the usual hand creating or Ancient of Days
or any indication that something is creating here but I
couldn’t. So I am left with the conclusion that perhaps you are
referring with these motifs to the anthropological efforts at
explaining the origin of man. So if I am correct in the deduction
what has anthropology got to do in a context where you are
focussing on myth?
Ikwuemesi: First of all I am taking the artist’s licence, the
same way you talk about poetic licence. On that basis it is
possible to bring down the theories of science to the level of
art and examine them visually or graphically. Again, I look at
myth as primitive science, so to say. I think somebody has
written that much. Irrespective of that, personally I think
there is some element of reality in myth to a given extent.
Again you look at what we were discussing sometime ago about
someone arguing for scientific myth. I think somehow one can go
along with him to a certain level. In doing so I think it is
possible for one to ideate on this and align it with the
so-called traditional myths so that you have a balanced
presentation that can really form The Story of Stories.
Ezeh: So, if I read you correctly, in The Story of
Stories you are not necessarily concerned only with the mythical
aspects of the creation narratives, you are looking at every
possible effort that has been made at tracing the origin of man?
Ikwuemesi: That is essentially what I am doing. Like I
said, I want to have a composite imagery and in doing so to
bring some of these things under one umbrella. It may not be
acceptable to people outside my socialisation. But I think the
experience has been really worthwhile so far. Again, in doing
this kind of thing, it is not a question of taking away from the
prestige of science, so to say, in bringing it over to this. One
is looking at, as you said, efforts - varied as they may be -
but all tending towards the same thing. That is the essence of
the exploration.
Ezeh: When I look at these two pieces they tend to say
the same thing in different ways. Here I see the Ancient of Days
motif bringing out someone. This someone is black. Here you look
at him doing the same thing except, essentially, that this one
is white, I think...
Ikwuemesi (cutting in): Not necessarily white. The figure
is more or less bathed in light but essentially it is a black
guy. I look at all of them, even God himself as black.
Ezeh (cutting in): Which hasn’t addressed my curiosity
because essentially in this type of motif you find that, because
people tend to draw from Genesis; the Hebrew book, they
therefore tend to make that first human being white, a
Caucasian. Why did you decide to go on and make your own black?
Ikwuemesi: You see, none of us was there when God was
making the first man in the first place. I remember Mazrui
arguing in his book Triple Heritage that if certain things were
taken into consideration the Garden of Eden could also have been
in Africa.
Ezeh (cutting in): Onyewuenyi was arguing in that vein
too in his book, The African Origins of Greek Philosophy,
although the basis for that argument is quite faulty,
scientifically, even if he meant well. But his basis for the
conclusion was that since Australopithecus Africanus was found
in Africa the Garden of Eden would have been here because those
fossils are taken to be those of the precursors of man. But it
is a very terribly faulty argument because in the first place,
anthropology does not anticipate Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden
is part of a particular myth out of the myths trying to explain
the origin of man. Garden of Eden is part of the Jewish attempt
with the story of Adam and Eve to account for the origin of
human beings. So if you have a different attempt, more so
scientific, your Garden of Eden is not necessary because Garden
of Eden is not a proven fact. There is no way scientifically you
can even say there was ever anything like Garden of Eden.
Ikwuemesi (cutting in): Mazrui didn’t argue in the same
line. He was just looking at the politics of geography, so to
say. I have forgotten exactly what he said but I remember that
it was in the Triple Heritage which I read some long time ago.
But essentially I believe it could have been any colour. I look
at these things as the politics of the white man - politics
resulting from history and colonialism. They represent the black
man to come out as the devil and the white man to be God. I
don’t see the reason why it cannot be the other way round. It is
possible for the white man to be looked upon as the devil when
we are illustrating the Bible for instance. So it could be any
way. Since I am black, possibly I couldn’t resist the temptation
of superimposing my own colour over and above another one. It is
just natural for somebody to feel so.
Ezeh: Anyway, you will find that science appears to be on
your side to a large extent. Anything anybody has found so far
tends to support the suspicion that the first man was from
Africa. I think early this year (1999) or late last, it made
headlines all over the place that a team of Finnish and American
researchers have found through study of gene density or so that
the black man has the most of this of all the human race. The
implication is that he may be the oldest. The more recent the
category the less the of the mass of genes they will have. This
is if you go by the living samples.
Again if you go by the evidence from paleoanthropologists
studying fossil remains you discover that the oldest of the
hominid fossils relating directly to the history (or prehistory,
if you like) of man (in fact the one you painted,
Austrolopithecus Africanus) was first found in I think;
Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1925. And lately by the likes of
the Leakeys; you know, Leakey the father, mother and now the
son. So all I am saying is that if anybody can prove anything,
given the evidence so far available, it is even your approach.
The rest, perhaps, might be propaganda.
Ikwuemesi: So there is an element of competition in the
myths; they all tend to promote the centralizing cause of their
exponents. I wonder why it is so.
Ezeh: The truth is to say, because myth is not
scientific. That is why some of us insist on science when it
comes to certain topics. In science you go for facts and whoever
has these facts. For instance, let’s say I am a microbiologist
and I have tested a certain tumor on me in the lab, and I found
that evidence suggested it was cancerous. Even though I am the
person and even though cancer is a very unpleasant, often fatal,
condition, what do I do? I just have to face the fact. But if
you are using myth you might try to avoid whatever facts that
appear unpleasant to you. The point I am making is that because
of the very nature of myth, because truth usually is not a
crucial element in myth, it ends up where it ends up.
Ikwuemesi: Don’t you think that the myth must have been
factual at some point, to the people who originated it.
Ezeh: I don’t. I don’t, and there are two ways to explain
it. There are still surviving evidence, if you like, nascent
myth; myths that are being “born” now with prospects of growing
into a bigger form in the future. I will illustrate but first of
all let me conclude what I was going to say before you brought
this in.
I was trying to also explain why the competitiveness among myths
exists. I was going to explain in terms of the nature of self as
I understand it. I have always thought that there are two types
of self; the individual self and the corporate self. This sort
of myth is usually in the service of the corporate self. It is
in the nature of man, except he suppresses it; it is in the
nature of nature in fact except it is suppressed. The individual
always tends to look at himself as the more important. In fact
it is in the animals. You see it in the cocks. Each wants to be
the one to own this territory, and you see the fight. It goes on
among practically all sorts of animals. The same with human
beings. If you like let it be one object that any two of them
are interested in. The instinctive thing about it is that each
will want to be the one to possess it. I grant to you that you
do get millions of people who manage to suppress that instinct,
and that is part of what refinement and culture is all about: to
suppress that crude animalistic instinct in man, and to still
remember somehow that the other one also needs to enjoy the good
things like everybody else.
So, having said that, you find that it is just that sort of
self-centredness that some of these myths tend to bring out. It
must be the Chinese who are superior; it must be the Indian who
was created first; it must be the Jew not only was created first
but was selected as the favoured one of the creator and for you
to be entitled to the favour of the creator somehow you must be
a Jew by birth or you are converted to his own side either
symbolically or by some other interpretation like the Christians
do now by saying “Once you are a Christian ipso facto you are a
spiritual Jew”.
You come over here the whole thing continues. It must be Oduduwa
who came down and eventually his offspring emerged and they
fought the Igbo (I don’t imagine it’s our own Igbo) and, usually
conquered them as the superior people. If you ask any other
people, say the Ibibio, they tell you how it was their own
people who were superior or favoured and so on. So I just see it
as a corporate manifestation of the same thing we do at the
individual level.
As for the other question about the truthfulness or otherwise of
myths I can only tell you that I have observed nascent myths and
I find it works that same way. If you study nascent myths which
is what I take most of nationalism to be, you find that truth is
not a crucial ingredient to it. But that is not to say that myth
is useless. We have to underline that. It serves a certain ...
Ikwuemesi (cutting in): It has to be plausible.
Ezeh: Yes, of course; to be believed. And those who think
they are critically minded enough not to believe it must somehow
be forced to believe it.
Take the religious sector as another example. All sorts of wild
claims are being made and people are believing them. Let’s say
there is a blind man and somebody says some miracles are being
wrought at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium. If we take the blind man
to the place he will not be cured. But you will hear that there
are some other blind men who are cured in the venue. And the
truth is that no one is ever cured in such a circumstance but
somehow the myth must be perpetuated. For everyone that is not
cured some excuse must be given. But the truth is that no
genuine case of blindness or lameness or anything was ever cured
extramedically in that place but somehow the myth must be
propagated and the rest of the people who wouldn’t ask questions
will be carried along.
So, myth? No, truth is not a very good friend of its, but it
does serve a very good purpose. That of social solidarity.
Ikwuemesi: How do you look at myth vis-à-vis the products
of science and the psychology created by such products? I am
talking of myths serving as the route to our root, and some of
the options provided by modern science. Should one of these be
suppressed in favour of the other?
Ezeh: None should be suppressed because the two do not
serve exactly the same purpose. But I am afraid I will not
suggest myth as the route to our root, borrowing from you. Why?
For the preeminent reason that it is not the truth. But it
serves a certain purpose, namely that of group solidarity. We
need it. We do have wonderful novelists. We do have wonderful
playwrights. We read them. But we know that they are not writing
history. They are not presenting science. We read Things Fall
Apart and we know that there has never been a person called
Okonkwo who underwent exactly the experiences that the great
novelist presented. We know that but we do enjoy it. Myth is
more or less that way. But science is a different thing.
Science tries to reach conclusions that may always be reverified
and by anyone and found to be valid. Myth may say that, for
example, a certain god cures smallpox. But how? It couldn’t
explain it. But for one reason or the other the assertion gives
succour to those inflicted with the trouble and encourages those
who are not yet victims. But science will look for the
unmistaken curative agent of this disease, and find out whether
anything may be done to neutralize it; and remove the scourge
wherever it may exist among all human groups.
I cited this because it is a very practical case. We had myths
about smallpox before science made a success of discovering the
very nature and treatment of the thing. Right now, because
science pinpointed the exact thing that was doing this, there is
not even a single case of smallpox anywhere in the world.
So the two are different things, the two must be encouraged. The
two should exist side by side. They are serving two different
purposes.
Ikwuemesi: But will you bring myth down to the level of fiction?
Ezeh: Yes.
Ikwuemesi: Somebody else, the anthropologist Mircea
Eliade, says it is not; an anthropologist. She says that myth
should not be treated as ehm... how did she put it?... an
aberration in thinking and it is not fiction. That at a certain
point in time it must have been real to the people who
propounded it, and that there is a sense in which it is
historical. She was even making a case for myth being scientific
to those who propounded it at the time they lived, given the
fact that there could not have been other means of explaining
the world at the time in question. She says it should not be
dismissed as imagination run wild. I tend to go along with her.
Ezeh: The problem there is that you are mixing up a whole
number of things that do not belong together. “Imagination run
wild”? No it is not. Myth is not.
Ikwuemesi (cutting in): If it must be accepted as fiction
then it must be imaginative.
Ezeh: But, but when you create a novel, when you create a
play it is not “imagination run wild.” It is a very, very - just
the word you have used - imaginative accomplishment. What is
meant by “imagination run wild” by my own reading is you just go
where the imagination carries you. You are not the one directing
the imagination. It is like, if you like, the cart pulling the
horse. But in a case where the proper thing is done, you
deliberately set out to device a way of explaining a phenomenon
which you lack the exact facts about at any given point in time.
It may be a myth but it cannot be purposeless, and it is not
even frivolous which would have been my own idea of “imagination
run wild.” It is purposeful; it is even creative.
Having said this, I would disagree quite vehemently with the
fellow who wrote that myth cannot be fiction. We have one of the
largest corpora of European literature in the shape of myth;
Greek and Roman myths. They have even their own attempts to
explain the origin of man and so on, but which everybody knows
never happened that way. Take, for instance, the story of
Promatheus which is supposed to account for how man got fire and
the origin of women and suffering among men.
Ikwuemesi: I don’t want us to overstretch the issue of
relationship of myth and science otherwise we will move away
from the focus of the present exercise. I think that the essence
of the project the way I regard it is to examine the origin of
man no matter where it comes from. I think that bringing in
evolution does not really change the fact that it is science.
But I think that there has to be some middle ground in terms of
the arguments to be able to accommodate it within that field and
that is what I think has been done.
The issue of myth not being real. You talked the other day about
the possibility of acquiring new facts in science and discarding
old ones. I believe that myths at the time they originated were
useful to the people who created them and they almost assumed
the position of facts if not so. Possibly with the acquisition
of knowledge, enlightenment and so on, it was possible to know
that such could no longer be held on to. Certain things began to
look ridiculous. I look at the situation as a progression from
one stage of knowledge to another, which is natural.
Ezeh: I shall reply briefly. First the issue of some new
facts emerging in science and the other becoming obsolete. I
guess you are referring to Karl Popper. Popper made a very valid
point; and that is that you can prove only falsehood and not
truth. For instance it is known that it is germs of the
Plasmodium family that cause malaria. Series of studies have
only been reconfirming this. To a large extent science is like
that. I think that the essence of what Popper did is to warn us
against dogmatism. If you start pretending you can prove truth,
science will end up not being too different from catechisms for
instance. So you see it does not mean that everything science
has established is ultimately subject to disproof. I don’t
think. There are such things that have been confirmed from the
beginning of time and they remain like that. For instance, we
know that if a head of a human being is severed from his body
such a person stops existing. Perhaps at the most remote period
of human existence this fact must have been established and it
remains the scientific fact that it is up until today. So
certain things are in that form.
Now, you made the valid point about the progression of human
knowledge. I want to remind you that as far back as the 19th
century it’s been firmly; very clearly articulated. Though his
formulations are not altogether flawless, Auguste Comte
theorized that the knowledge of man was progressive. It starts
from the theological stage which is the stage he believed that
myth reigned, passes through metaphysical, and then to the
positive or scientific stage. He anticipated that at this final
stage people should be able to explain phenomena in terms of
cause and effect and not rely on theocentric conjectures which
both myths and metaphysics usually depend on.
I can only round off by insisting on one thing. Myth from
whatever society is not useless but that if we are looking at it
as a replacement for science or even as being related to science
I would have a problem hurrying to endorse its acceptance.
Ikwuemesi (cutting in): I don’t think it can ever be a
replacement for science or a rival to science but I think
somehow that if myth is supposed to give meaning to society the
modern world owes something to myth in a particular sense and by
that fact science can also be said to owe something to myth,
being part of the modern world. We as modern people living in
the modern world owe something to myth, if not psychologically,
historically, then otherwise. There has to be some way of
linking this time and its peoples to myth. But beyond what we
have before us, works of art, what do you think is the place of
myth, say in the 21st century?
Ezeh: Oh yes. An important place until the end of the
world. I have talked about social solidarity. You and I, for
instance, being Igbo if there is anybody that is said to be our
eponym - fictitious or real - there is always that sense of
group solidarity. Can you see that even in the present days, the
modern world, people go out of their way to create myths if they
know that it would serve that purpose of bringing people
together for social solidarity to have one common intellectual
meeting point for everybody of whatever intellectual level? Take
for instance the flag. If you burn the Nigerian flag today the
average Nigerian who understands the symbolism of such an action
can stab you. But we know it is a piece of cloth painted with
certain colours but we agree that it stands for Nigeria. It is a
myth; it is mythical. And so on. We can’t do without myth.
There are some people who will stone you today if you go out and
say that the first man and woman were not Adam and Eve, and that
God did not make them in the Garden of Eden. You will be in
trouble. It is easier to believe this type of thing than saying,
“Look at these bones, rusty bones that were discovered, we have
studied them, matched them with how your body is and we think
their owners are the precursors of man.” Even if this second one
is really the truth of the matter, the other one is more
convenient because it tends to touch on the sentimental. So,
knowing human nature for what it is, myth will always continue
to serve that crucial purpose of social solidarity at least.
The only thing I worry about and I am anxious to underline is
that we should also learn to remark its limitations; granted
that science does have its own limitations too.
Ikwuemesi: Thank God, it does.
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