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Date: 09 Nov 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Oba Koso
Message-ID: <20001109130616.23201.00000467@ng-fv1.aol.com>
References: <3a0a1e56$0$1594$23c96b10@news.corecomm.net>
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>The work was of the story when Shango (then mortal and an oba) is at war and
>achieves deification. Thus the title Oba Koso = the king did not hang.
I remember being told by Wande Abimbola that that story about Shango hanging
himself is a fabrication by a Britisher who wrote a Nigerian reader for school
children, and included this story. It was a subtle way to diminish Shango and
the cult of Shango in the minds of the young. Years later, this story is retold
in operatic form, perpetuating, perhaps unkowingly, the Britisher's lie. The
error hinges on the phrase "koso" or "ko so", which, depending on the
intonation (Yoruba is a tonal language) can mean either "did not hang", or "go
on". It is the latter meaning that was present in the original stories from
which the Britisher fabricated the one about the king hanging himself, and for
Oya, upon finding him, to utter the words, "the king did not hang". No, the
phrase "Oba koso" rather means "the king lives on", reminiscent of the words
that are uttered when the the British monarch dies, "the king is dead; long
live the king!", and with much the same paradoxical meaning. Death by hanging,
whether self-inflicted or otherwise, was never a feature of the original Yoruba
legends regarding Shango.
There is an irony here. The culture vultures that control the commanding
heights of academia and the media, are in a position not only to plant lies,
but to see these lies grow and mature into deep-rooted trees, bearing strange
fruit generation after generation. The music and the play are wonderful, but
they are untrue.
>Antinous
>
Iwa pele,
Grisso
PS. By the way, something similar happened in Trinidad. The art form now known
as "calypso" is/was known originally as "kaiso". And it was known by that name
in the African creole because the audience encouragement that would be shouted
at the singers was "kaiso!" signifying approbation, encouragement, and to go
on. This term is common to several West African languages, including Twi, where
the phrase "ko so!" is often used to encourage someone when they are pouring
libation. The British were not very good at learning others' languages, and
respecting nuances therein; others were rather expected to conform to British
distortions of their own language. This is why Peking has now reverted to
Beijing, Bombay to Mumbai, Burma to Myanmar, etc. These guys obviously didn't
even try. And they took "kaiso!", a phrase used to urge singers on, in the hot
and raucous atmosphere of a kaiso tent, and turned it into "calypso", an
amorous island nymph of Greek mythology! The same was done with Kamit, which
was Europeanized by the Greeks into "Egypt". African names like Waset became
Thebes, etc. This later facilitated the attempted separation of "Egypt" from
the rest of Africa. The same program continues in a more subtle way every time
Kamit is referred to in a manner distinguishing it from "sub-Saharan" Africa.
As Diop has pointed out, one can literally walk from Waset (Thebes) in the Nile
Valley to Ile Ife in Yorubaland, without ever crossing the Sahara or any other
desert. And of course the Sahara provides no obstruction when it is the turn of
the Arab to come bearing alleged cultural gifts. But such is the power of a
word or phrase that the lie can be in the word itself, a place where it is easy
for it to remain unexamined. Notwithstanding all of that, Oba ko.. so!
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