Playful Performers by David Binkley

Author:David Binkley [Binkley, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, General, Social Science, Anthropology, Children's Studies
ISBN: 9780765802866
Google: 2V0angEACAAJ
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2006-01-15T04:35:49+00:00

Children's Music and Dance

With regard to costumed dance there is a flexible continuum between sacred and secular, and to describe any dance performance, whether by children or others, as merely “play” is to underestimate the role of dance in Igede society.9 Most performances are thought to conduct supernatural beneficence to some degree or another, irregardless of whether the performers are men, women, or children.9 In Igede, as elsewhere, dance provides a common ground of shared experience between human and supernatural realms. Alegwu—the spirits of the dead (Alekwu in Idoma)—are thought to have a particular penchant for music and dance, and during public celebrations and festivals they assemble with the living to be entertained. Moreover, as with the Kalabari, the deity’s propensity to help the community is proportional to the quality of the entertainment provided.10

In many ways Igede children’s dance cannot be viewed as separate from the adult world, for children get co-opted into adult activities and their music making is important to Igede communities for a number of reasons. The Igede’s belief in reincarnation engenders a cyclical view of time. In most societies that feature ancestor worship, elders are revered both as links to the past and for their proximity to the forebears. By the same token, children, as recent arrivals from the other-world, are considered near the life-force and in close rapport with the spirits. The Bobo of Burkina Faso also have a cyclical time sense; Le Moal11 suggests that Bobo adults attach significance to children’s imitation of adult ritual because in a sense the children are the parent’s own ancestors. Exemplifying this view, Ojo12 reports that among the Yoruba of Ekiti, groups of young girls took to singing incantations, an expression even denied to adult women, as a vehicle to criticize adult society. When challenged they denied responsibility, attributing the songs to the ancestors. Thus excused they were allowed to continue. Armstrong13 shows that in the ancestral songs of the Idoma of Otukpo, the terms “father” and “child” are interchangeable and that the hallowed Alekwu ancestral mask is referred to as “The Child.” He states: “Throughout these songs, long departed ancestors and their Alewku masks are referred to as ‘child.’ The ancestor is the child of some still earlier ancestor.”

According to Erny,14 who examined the symbolic meaning of childhood in Africa, the child participates in society as: (1) a symbol of growth and transformation, (2) a being close to the ancestors, (3) an example of the endless reincarnation of the lineage, and (4) an innocent, a symbol of divine wisdom. Representing the last of these attributes among the Igede young, uncircumcised children are considered the embodiment of purity and sometimes symbolize this quality where purification is required. For example, because of the association with menstrual blood, a woman’s death is traditionally thought to defile the compound, which requires purification as a result. One purification ritual involves passing objects associated with the deceased through the smoke of the blacksmith’s fire. According to Idikwu15 (1976, 18), “this important ceremony is carried out by a boy of about six years of age, who has not yet been circumcised.

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