7 - Ozidi, the Ijo, and the World

Summary

Can anyone think of the Niger Delta

and not feel an ache in his heart?

–Ogaga Ifowodo

So far in this study, I have examined The Ozidi Saga as a work of oral art on the evidence of a text of the Ozidi story presented by one master narrator, Okabou Ojobolo of Sama, whom Clark-Bekederemo had the singular good fortune to record in a command performance. Although the story has long fl ourished as part of a periodic festival no longer vibrantly observed as in the past among the Ijo of the Niger Delta, there has been no other record of it comparable in size and significance to what Okabou has given us. The 16mm film made by Clark-Bekederemo and a production crew from the University of Ibadan—from a performance by Erivini in the Niger Delta—featured the ritual drama of the myth so prominently that the accompanying verbal text spoken by the officiant-performer was little more than “a program sheet,” according to Clark-Bekederemo. The other narrator (Afoluwa) from whom Clark-Bekederemo tried to collect a version of the story (in Lagos, then capital of Nigeria) failed to rise to the level of effort demanded by the task. The only other document relating to the Ozidi tradition that claims our attention is a play (Ozidi) that Clark-Bekederemo published in 1966, three years after he recorded Okabou's performance in Ibadan.