The Secular Aspects Of Afa Cult And Its Relationship To Communal Life In Anlo

Abstract

Among the Southern Ewes known and called '"Anlo," Afa is a religion. It has an organised worship system in it, headed by a well trained body of prIests called '"Tgboko'" in their individual performances of their religious rites as priests. Although there is the belief in the "Supreme Being" known in the Jewish and Christian religions as '"God", the ‘Supreme Being' is approached through myriads of delegated mediums who are considered subordinate gods or dieties called simply in the Ewe Language as 'Vodu'. Hence, some people call this religion variously as 'Afa' or 'Afa Vodu'; meaning, the Cult of Afa. Each 'Vodu' exercises its own delegated powers within the confines of horoscopes in their major and minor modes known among Anlos in the Ewe Language as "Du" and 'Kpoli" respectively. There are 16 major horoscopes, further replicating themselves to permuted minor horoscopes. In effect, the permuted horoscopes number up to 256. However, researchers like Abiinbola, Wande nd Bascom, William researched well over one million horoscopes or dities in Afa (Ifa). According to the above scholars, divination by way of geomancy is the main method Ifa (Afa) speaks to Its adherents. All essential characteristic feature about this religion is that it has no canonised literature about its do's and don't's as known among Christians and Muslims as the Bible and Koran respectively. Only the priests of Afa relIgIon have the singular duty of disseminating the do's and don’t's by way of geomancy in their divination practices. Even here, priests exercise the greatest circumspection with the messages received from deities to their clients, since priests could incur the displeasure of the gods, should they proclaim they proclaim falsehood. This is why the training of Afa priests is not only long but arduous as observed by Ottenberg, Simon (I960), in hIs work, "Culters and Societies of Africa"

This study is therefore, an attempt to look at both the content and context in Afa religion in order to discover its secular dimensions which enable it to serve as props of social cohesion that always engenders the desIred communal spirit prevalent in Anlo. In the content, we shall look at incantations, spells, witty expressions as well as long and short stories contained in some horoscopes. This will help us discover how the daily life of the society is affected by Afa through its literary corpus. In its context, we shall discover how painstaking admirers of this religion become infused with the expert knowledge and use of the entire folklory in Afa, becoming the best adjudged members in Anlo society

in terms of the use of the local language . In the study, we shall also discover that Afa contains in It a prolific sense of industry In the form of petty trading, agriculture, tourism, drumming and dancing etc . We shall finally note that Anlo Community appears enmeshed with the entire Afa religion since the belief is cogently shared in Anlo that there is nothing that precludes identification and recognition of Afa : even the names of all herbs and plants are believed to be the names of Afa deities.