Photo Story of 2016 World Youth Day in Poland & A Short Poem for the Youth and the Pope.

 The Crowd was like a Cloud

Of river of the Youth flowing

Towards the Pope and around

Oh fruits of Earth's blessing!

- Ositadimma Amakeze



The Meaning/Commentary on the Logo of WYD

The four saints who loom over Krakow’s World Youth Day

The first two of our World Youth Day saints, St. Edith Stein and St. Pope John Paul II, were intellectuals. They were, if you like, “head saints,” The second pair, however, Sts. Maximilian Kolbe and Faustina Kowalska, are “heart saints" who burned with the love of God.

Krakow is a city of saints, and four great souls from the modern age stand tall as radiant examples of courageous faith in troubling times. All four have a special link and meaning with World Youth Day.

They are two men and two women. They are two philosophers and two simple souls. Two were killed at Auschwitz. Two lived life to its natural end. The four saints are St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) Pope St. John Paul II, St. Maximillian Kolbe and St Faustina Kowalska.

St. Teresa Benedicta and Pope St. John Paul II were both philosophers. As pope, John Paul II was the inspiration and founder of World Youth Day, and Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is one of the patrons of World Youth Day.

St Teresa Benedicta was born with the name Edith Stein. Her family was Jewish, but by her teenage years she had become an atheist. She studied philosophy at university , and after completing her doctoral thesis in 1916 she got a teaching job at the University of Freiburg in Germany.

Edith’s area of philosophy was “phenomenology.” This area of study attempts to understand the relationship of human perceptions, emotions and consciousness with reality. This interest brought Edith to a study of mysticism in religion and to the life and work of sixteenth century Carmelite St Teresa of Avila. She was drawn to the Catholic faith, baptized and eventually became a Carmelite nun in a German monastery.

By 1938 the Nazi threat to everyone of Jewish descent was growing, so Sister Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, (who had also become a nun) were sent to a monastery in the Netherlands for their safety. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands and the Catholic bishops spoke out against them, they launched an attack on Jewish Catholic converts.

On August 2, 1942 Edith and Rosa were arrested and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber about one week later.

While most people are aware of the gigantic stature of Pope St. John Paul II in the history of the twentieth century, not all are aware of his status as a philosopher. The future pope Karol Wojtyla was ordained as a priest in Krakow on November 1, 1946— four years after Sister Teresa Benedicta’s death in Auschwitz.

Two years later he was in Rome defending his doctoral thesis in the philosophy of the other famous Carmelite mystic, St. John of the Cross. On his return to Poland he taught philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and at the Catholic University of Lublin.

In 1957 he earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology. Like St. Teresa Benedicta, it was in the area of phenomenology. The future Pope John Paul developed a theological approach that combined traditional Catholic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas with the ideas of personalism—a philosophical approach deriving from phenomenology.

The first two of our World Youth Day saints were intellectuals. They were, if you like, “head saints,” The second pair, however, are “heart saints.”

The hearts of St. Faustina and St. Maximillian Kolbe burn with the love of God. They connect with young people because both of them experienced the reality of God’s love and the call to serve him unconditionally when they were both very young.

Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 in Zduńska Wola, in Poland. His life was strongly influenced in 1906 by a childhood vision of the Virgin Mary.

He said, “That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”

By 1907, aged just thirteen, Raymund and his brother had left home to join the Franciscans. At sixteen he became a Franciscan novice and was a fully professed friar by the age of twenty. Full of youthful, burning zeal for Christ and a powerful love for Mary Immaculate, Fr Maximillian Kolbe became a radiant witness of Christ’s love in the world.

He started a monastery at Niepokolanow which, in his lifetime, attracted nearly 800 young men. He published magazines that reached millions, went to Japan, and then India to do missionary work and returned to Poland, only to face the horror of the Nazi occupation of Germany. He and his Franciscan friars stood up courageously and spoke out against the Nazi threat.

In February of 1941 the Gestapo closed Fr Maximillian’s monastery, arrested him and sent him to Auschwitz.  In July, the prison guards decided to punish inmates for a recent escape. When one of the randomly chosen men pleaded for his life, Fr  Maximillian offered to take his place. He was thrown into the basement starvation cell and, after two weeks with no food or water, he was given a lethal injection.

A similar “saint of the heart” is St Faustina Kowalska. Born into a poor family in the countryside of Poland, young Helena Kowalska felt a call to the religious life at the age of seven while praying before the Blessed Sacrament. At the age of nineteen she went to a dance with her sister and afterwards had a vision of Jesus instructing her to join a convent immediately.

Not knowing anyone in the city, with only four years of education and scarcely able to read and write, Helena set off for the city of Warsaw and began knocking on convent doors. Because of her ignorance and working class background she was rejected.

Eventually she was accepted by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Faustina. She served in a humble capacity as a kitchen assistant and yard worker.

During that time she also had regular visions of Jesus who imparted the message of Divine Mercy which she recorded in a diary. She died at the convent in Krakow just 33 years of age, one year before the young Karol Wojtyla arrived in the same city to begin his university studies.

As World Youth Day begins in Krakow, these four great modern saints—two of the head and two of the heart—beckon the world’s young people. They call us to move forward into the future with a solid intellectual faith combined with the burning passion for Christ and his love.

If we see and hear their witness, then like them, those with minds enlightened by learning and hearts enflamed by the Divine Mercy may transform history.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

 

 

Youth is a thing of the mind, let the smiles keep your soul strong and simple. 

A Little Polished Artist from Poland

She's just cute with sunglasses that glitters in the sun. Her sense of colours is like the rainbows and her strokes just speechlessly perfect beyond her age. A wonder to ponder and a sight to behold. Today we are honoured to introduce Bosnia #TeenArt

Title of Work: mermaid singing for the moon
Medium: crayon on paper
Age:
Name

Time To Say Goodbye! I Couldn't Believe I Wrote This In 2009

Time to Say Goodbye!

In dedication to All I have ever loved, to all that have said goodbye and to all I did say goodbye. In my hurts and in the ways I might have hurt the order and in view of our healing and acceptance of reality, I say Goodbye.

03/19/09

There is nothing in the intellect that does not first come through the senses. I conceive and concretize my beliefs from the things around me. A couple of days ago, I wrote in my diary, “Don’t force rings in your fingers. They have the character of slipping in easily; but you might need a jack to crack them out.” Previously, I slotted the silvery ring on my fourth finger. It was stubborn to go in, but I was bent on having it on. The next hour, I needed to pull it off. I tried till the finger got swollen…. Suffice it to say I don’t put the ring on again for the simple reason of not fitting in.

Then I came to realize that with time, something might not fit in again. When I see trees sheave their leaves in the dry season, I perceive a goodbye. A sorrowful goodbye! I see the agony of the trees, meaninglessness and futility. The clinging warmth, the intimacy between the leaves and the branches, the collegial swinging in the wind, the ‘good old time’ of flourishing, all now are gone in the wind.

And I see a goodbye in the metamorphosis of a ‘thing’, when nature forces the Caterpillar out of the haven of its cocoon, to an emergence as both a prey and a pest. I see a pitiable goodbye. Then, when it adjusts to this storm of the unfamiliar and begins to savour its devastation, nature sets in again. The exuberance wanes, the effects affected and defected, till it becomes weak and begins to blister.

So sad it is to say goodbye. Often I wonder what’s good after all about the bye but bad. For come to think of the endangering departure of the chick from the sanctuary of its egg, I see little or no good about the bye. Yet little than it acclimatizes itself with the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ of existence than its mother pecks with beaks so unfamiliarly painful! A heart-breaking signal that it is now, ‘A time to say goodbye.’

Nevertheless, when I see those tears in your eyes, streaking down to your cheeks, I remember mine there were. You are left alone even when you have tried to bring them back. However, if you have tried hard and it didn’t work, try trying harder and if it works not still, try not to try hardest for you may break down. Save the strength in knowing that virtue lies in the middle. Despite the fact that the seal of love is ineffaceable even beyond reciprocal affection, learn that there is time to say goodbye!

Thusly, though the trees sheaved their leaves, they did not die. They wouldn’t love to let go their ‘beauty’ but at the touch of water, all things were made new: new and succulent leaves, boughs, fruits and scintillating scents. Nor would the beastly Caterpillar have loved to lose its exploits; but at the touch of ‘beauty’ with time, it gave way to a gorgeous butterfly. Now it flies on wings, in colours and goes for pretty petals and juicy flowers. Oh, a ‘heart-breaking signal that it is now a time to say goodbye’ to the mother bird. Goodbye hurts, but would the little bird stay in the comfort of its nest, it would not learn to fly neither would it learn to be man-bird were it to stay forever in the cradle of its birth.

Therefore, learn to say goodbye to those ‘things’ you cannot have, those things you cannot help, those things that don’t want you, especially those things that have said goodbye to you. It hurts and it is hard to accept, but the truth is that if something doesn’t fit in again, it’s a moment of saying goodbye. Do not wish to die because ‘something’ has said goodbye to you. If it is someone you love so much, wish him or her good and never cease to love. It is the only consolation you have. If s(he) belongs to you, your love will win them back at last.

Nevertheless, every goodbye is a moment of reflection, and if your actions have been in the proper order of humanity, expect a positive transformation. The good thing about the goodbye is that it propels you to the secret potentials of the ‘You’ in you!

Goodbye.

ARE YOU RIDING A DEAD HORSE?

ARE YOU RIDING A DEAD HORSE?

 

Every morning a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run

Fast than the lion or it will be killed.

 

Every morning the lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun

the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

 

It does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.

When the sun comes up you better start running.

 

               African proverb

Creepy Things are Everywhere. They are Invisibly Visible in their Invincible Annoying Ways.

Creepy things 

Pic Courtesy of http://www.wallpapervortex.com/

Are everywhere. 

They are invisibly visible in their invincible annoying behaviours. That one, is careless or cares less of these monsters doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Look at your back now and or listen attentively you can hear their whispers; or close your eyes calmly and you can see them scamper and dawdle. At the middle of the night, when everything else slumbers but them, when one can hear the tic-tac of wrist watches banging like an old belfry in such solitude of night; then is the hour of their keeping of the jungle ruthless laws.

I see them always; they always love the company of humans as shadows derive their casts from the beings they attend to; as bulus fly and lie around cattle in the lea. I guess this ethereal companionship gives them a meaning.

I don’t mean to scare you like to be afraid to go out and pee in the middle of the night; but they are everywhere. So beware you don’t nudge or trudge on any. Sometimes, they flap your curtains like winds on the flayed pages of a huge book abandoned on a pavement. Not just there; not even in my wildest imagination could I ever say who often flips the pages of books on the desk, like ghouls scavenging for flesh in fresh graves. What are they searching for in the texts?

“Who?”

No one answers, but they are there! And often someone feels someone calls him and he says, “Yes?” in anticipation for a dialogue or a follow up, without knowing one is eerily being followed by nothingness. I had once been haunted by a headless or rather a heedless one. It lived with me and went about my rooms; a resident spirit. I guess it would hang in awkward places like on the ceiling fan or on the pane of the windows like someone catching the early morning sun in the neighbourhood. Occasionally, something is pushed down at the balcony, and I thought it was the wind again. It wasn’t always the winds. It was the creepy thing everywhere. No, they can’t just be one. I think, a band wagon of restless soaring spirits sailing the atmospheric expanse of someone’s personality.

There are often clashes or lashes behind this heedless ‘guy’ like water splashing against an old canoe at the seashore. The wadding water doesn’t know what is in the canoe nor does the canoe know what the water conceals within. Only mother earth knows. That’s how elusive these slippery heads are, that I can’t really place them; say, “this one is Tom or Mot by name.”  One is particularly prominent, but flickered like a mirror-cast of a tall beach palm in the shimmering waters. Often like a wiggling worm in warm salty water, this looming image will waggle wobblingly! In all, I was in the midpoint of everything like a fly caught in the middle of an angry-hungry spider’s web. The fatal fate of this creature is unimaginably horrific.

However, In lieu of such casualty, the snare spirals into a concatenation of imaginations from the epicenter, sending signals like the lighthouse; attracting cargoes of all sorts like a lone light in the middle of a cave. The unrestrainable flight of flies around, could explain this mysterious visitation or ghostly presence of these creepy things. Where there is light, there is flight of possibilities as where a carcass is laid, there vultures are found.

However, my worry is that these aliens are never hurtful but are a noisome bunch. It’s not that they should anyway. It’s only worrisome too, to think of the squabble among them; some are inclined to either gory or glory. No one notices that that sometimes people might look at the host as kind of weird or cryptic. Being odd is really odd especially when it is others that think one isn’t sane any longer. It is only a bat that knows what it means to be a bat! Yes, no one experiences them; but it really feels like a whole army of white ants trooping in and out, over one who was unaware that a drop of honey stuck on his hairs the previous night. It’s like mind control.

This is a disturbia!

It is most disturbing when these have to wake one from a night’s blissful rest; especially when one is dreaming dreams, ‘In the scene of a most terrific adventure, the skies were diamond-blue in a dazzlingly hue; and the champion is ushered in in fiery chariots propelled by flying lions from the cloud.

THE CORONATION: The crowd was yelling your name in fine flames of fame. Your head was about to be crowned with wreath gold…’ and something fell off from the bookshelf tinkering away on the bare floor, cutting off the dreams at such a crucial moment. It was a bottle of CalligrafInk.

What pushed it down?

Silence stared stilled on the splashes the spilled ink made on the floor. The thick dwarf bottle is broken into pieces. W-H-O made them?

“Dark blood bonfire of a slain monster prostrated from the point of crash to its squash.”

The creepiest piece is that when the lid was removed from where it had fallen apart, it gave the MONSTER a one-eyed white hollow poise of wonderment.

“It is looming gloomily!”

I tried to wave it off over my shoulder. It’s a mere optical illusion.

“You’re delusional”

I heard it echo as it distended as if writhing in pains.

I had forgotten I was sleeping. I was dreaming. It is consciousness of a fleeing feeling of fright. Through the white-eye, a miasmal beam trouped upward in an encircling gloom. Like a magical invisible whirlwind in an invisible wheat field.

*I hope to finish this Creepy Things Stuff; I am only trying to say, "My characters disturb and haunt me until I write them,"

Sunset of Hope: A mediation of Speeches Between Poetry and Photography

I was walking home one evening
Then these saw me, and I saw them
too in a one shutter-string shot!

It was a pretty landscape in a beautiful
village North of the place of my itinery. 
They knew they wouldn't resist me, for 
the feeling was mutual. 

I didn't and I couldn't
resist them either.

They spoke so loudly that I applaud and
laud the colourful black and white coloured 
canvas of the sky.

Their speeches was of hope
Hope of a blissful night's rest
Of spoils of oil of our toils
Of a new dawn and dew
The Sunset of Hope is set!

African Ceramics at the Crossroads (?): An Interdisciplinary Conference in Honour of Michael OBrien

The Ceramics Researchers Association of Nigeria (CeRAN), in collaboration with the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Energy Centre, UNN and Project Development Institute (PRODA), Enugu, Nigeria announces its 13^th annual conference and exhibition

Theme: Modernising African Ceramics Since the 1900s: Agencies, Agents and Outcomes

Venue: Energy Centre, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Date: 25-28 October, 2016

It has been severally observed that pottery in Africa ran into a variety of difficulties following the introduction of new methods of production and other social transformations associated with the colonial encounter. The Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria appear to have captured it better in one of its maxims: Onye ite abụghị onye ahịa, literarily meaning “the potter is not in business”.

Looking back to the terrain of modern African ceramics since the 1900s, this conference examines the following key questions: What have constituted the agencies of modernisation in African ceramics over the past millennium and what have been the implications? Who have been the key agents of the modernising process? What have been the innovations and challenges associated with African ceramics modernity? Ceramics researchers, potters, curators, writers and scholars of art history, art education, economics, geology, anthropology, archaeology, engineering, and related disciplines are invited to submit paper proposals addressing these or related questions, including issues surrounding the following sub-themes:

·         Contemporary traditional potters in Africa and the challenges of modernity

·         Landmarks in modern African pottery

·         Ceramics and the decolonisation of curriculum in African educational institutions: Previous issues and current directions.

·         The making of modern potters and potteries in Africa: Histories, processes and products.

·         Pottery painting in African metropolises: Creative innovation or emblems of production problems?

·         Domestication of modern ceramics tools and production technology in Africa: Challenges and breakthroughs

·         Ceramics industries in Africa: Yesterday, today and tomorrow

·         Ceramics raw materials utilization and development

·         Geology, Archaeology, Engineering and African ceramics since the 1900s

·         Ceramics and greenhouse technology

·         Ceramics education and educators in Africa since the 1900s

·         Potters, potteries and their practices in a developing economy

·         Commercialisation of African pottery in a globalised world

  

This conference is a tribute to the many agents of the struggle for a viable ceramics production on the continent, especially Michael OBrien, the British potter and influential teacher who succeeded Michael Cardew at the Abuja Pottery Training Centre in 1965 and who has relentlessly worked for the well being of many important potters and potteries in Nigeria since the 1970s. Insightful papers on the life and work of OBrien and other such pioneers are also welcome.

Due Date for paper abstracts: 31^st August 2016

Length: 200 words or less

Additional information: Institutional or other affiliations, email and phone contacts

Submissions: Send as attached email document in MS-Word to Dr. Ozioma Onuzulike (Conference Liaison) at ozioma.onuzulike@unn.edu.ng and May Ngozi Okafor (LOC Secretary) at may.okafor@unn.edu.ng.

Exhibition:

The conference will feature an exhibition of works by individuals and organizations working in the ceramics field (especially potters, potteries, ceramic artists, ceramics researchers and industries) that reflect aspects of the conference theme. Interested participants should email two or more images of proposed works in JPEG along with a list of works and brief biodata in MS Word. Due date is 31^st August 2016. Selected works should arrive latest October 24, 2016 at 12 noon.

Schedule of Events:

Arrival: October 24; Opening: October 25; Departure: October 28. (A detailed schedule of events will be emailed to participants in due course).

Please see attached document for other details.

We look forward to welcoming you at Nsukka!

Ozioma Onuzulike, MFA, Ph.D.

Conference Liaison

FaithTech- a Sciento Technical Rationality Approach

 Faith is like a software or even an ios. It has a default, which makes everyone as from birth a human, a thing of joy.

Softwares need daily updating to keep with time. Otherwise, one's favourite app might stop running. This can be destabilizing!

 Like apps, for communication or connection to take place, the sender device and recipient must have installed them accordingly.

Faith is installable. It is a theological virtue amidst hope and charity. According to Catechism of Catholic Church (CCC) Faith
 
1814 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."⁷⁸ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. "The righteous shall live by faith." Living faith "work[s] through charity."⁷⁹
1815 The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it.⁸⁰ But "faith apart from works is dead":⁸¹ when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.

A workshop with the youth on the importance of Social Media: blogs, youtube, epub etc. and how to turn social platform into social capital.

I was driven by the amount of time youth spend online and most often than not, not doing any meaningful thing. They spend irrecoverable time, irreparable money (data) and irrevocable false (at times) impression online thinking they have time.  Now is the time to time Time. Time to turn one's talent into passion and passion into wealth: to write, to shoot videos, to read, to upload on YouTube, to apply for google Ad sense etc.

The Phenomenal book, COW WITHOUT TAIL (Book 1) by Godwin Boswell Akubue

"Until the lions produce their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter ".
This saying lamented by Chinua Achebe, a renowned Igbo writer of internal acclaim , leads the direction of this carefully researched book about the connections of the Igbo people and culture to their verifiable ancestors, the Jews.
Godwin Akubue tackles the various areas that connect the Igbo people of Nigeria---customs, beliefs, genealogy, etymology, etc.---to their long lost brethren of the past following the Diaspora, which drove ten out of the twelve Israeli tribes out of the holy land.
In an unbiased manner, Akubue lays out every piece of evidence culled from archaeological , oral, biblical and other published sources believing that the Igbo of Nigeria are descendants of the Jews. Cow without Tail, by Godwin Boswell Akubue, is a treatise building the case of the lost tribe of Israel on their longed-for Jewry recognition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Biography

Godwin Boswell Akubue was born in 1958 in Kano, Nigeria , West Africa to Igbo native parents. Due to the exigencies of the Biafran Civil War in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970 , he had to grow up in Onitsha and Nimo respectively , in Anambra State . Happily married with four lovely kids , his two science degrees and peer-reviewed published papers in Biochemistry Journals and exploits in Clinical Laboratory Sciences seemed to have conspired to prepare him for an International Award in 2000 . This award, a travel grant, was extended to Mr. Akubue by American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) in Washington , DC . Before becoming a U.S citizen in 2010 , Mr. Akubue had earlier received his greencard and those of his dependent family members in the category of an Immigrant of Exceptional Ability in the areas of Arts and sciences( Eb3 ) from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2005 and 2006 respectively . Subsequent years saw Godwin working as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist , Pharmacy Technician and a Science Substitute-Teacher largely in California . His passion for creative writing and having served as high school editor of Students' Magazine , The Ladder, which earned him UNICEF award and then his effervescent skills in doing series of inspiring cultural essays in most interactive online groups overseas in his adult life metamorphosed into his first published book , Cow Without Tail (CWT) Book 1 ,in 2013 . This incisive new book title which is based largely on archeological ,biblical and oral sources chronicles the many parallels that exist between the Igbo tribe of Nigeria and Jews of Israel and elsewhere . It is a book that appears poised to go places with time . Mr. Akubue's new book is currently receiving great reviews from Jews and Gentiles around the world .

    Paperback: 308 pages

    Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co, Inc (June 2, 2013)

    Language: English

    ISBN-10: 1434915395

    ISBN-13: 978-1434915399

    Product Dimensions: 1 x 6 x 9 inches

    

      To the blessed memory of  Ben Gurion of Igboland - Ikemba Nnewi

About the Author

Godwin Boswell Akubue is an educated man in several areas of science, including chemistry, laboratory science, and medical science. Fifty-four now, he lives in Ukiah, California, with his wife, Monica, and his four children, namely, Augusta, Justice, Hope, and Promise. Being part of community organizations and clubs does not deprive him time for his hobbies like listening to folk music, doing adventures, playing chess, and of course, writing. He has written several cultural essays in local and international journals, and this one is specially made to help define a true Igbo identity in Nigeria .

The entriot, “God drives away flies that bother a cow without tail,” is like the booming sound of Ikoro, that large wooden gong at the center of the village, that bekoned on the Ndi ichie and community at large to deliberate on issues that matter. That gong that established democratic sedation in Igbo land every nation practice now or claim to have founded.  When the gong booms, the community listens to hear what is it, that would be spoken! The Hummimgbird has knitted a provocative nest best described as, "Okuko bere n'ngige..."for he, himself would not cease to dance as the world awaits, "Cow Without Taill II" as a night guard waits on the morning.

In this historic presentation, “Cow Without Tail,” a mammoth author is born with a clear vision like the eagle and an outlined mission like the lion in the heart of the jungle.

Until the lions produce their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter.

This saying lamented by Albert Achebe, a renowned Igbo writer, leads the direction of this carefully researched book about the connections of the Igbo people and culture to their assumed ancestors, the Jews.

Godwin Akubue tackles the various areas that connect the Igbo people of Nigeria---customs, beliefs, genealogy, etymology, etc.---to their long lost brethren of the past following the Diaspora, which drove ten out of the twelve Israeli tribes out of the holy land.

In an unbiased manner, Akubue lays out every piece of evidence culled out from books, publications, speeches, and works of other people believing that the Igbo of Nigeria are descendants of the Jews.

Cow without Tail, by Godwin Boswell Akubue, is a treatise building the case of the lost tribe of Israel on their longed-for Jewry recognition.

Our way of life, however, is our way of life today. It is the present that matters, though the present does have its roots in the past and already points to the future. The culture we are talking of is our culture of today loaded, of course and heavy with thousand of years of history, experience and evolution as a people, but all the same our culture of today. ^I

i Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies, New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. p.18.

 ^Gratis:

When I was writing my project, "The Significance and symbolism of Igbo in Igbo Tradition," the first port of my inquiry/research was Nri, the ancestral home of Igbo land. Igwe Onyeso, Eze Ndinri

CHAPTER ONE

NRI: THE MYTH OF ORIGIN OF IGBO LAND

Myths are cultural reservoir of a people’s history in the absence of writing tradition. Hence, they are veritable vehicle through which the conveyance of unwritten history is made available to the grasp of written history for documentary and reference sake. Hence, it is the special creativity of myth that accords it a fundamental and yet a revelatory status in understanding a community. Thus, “the history of a community’s experience is determined by its mythology, that is to say, no community can disengage itself from its myth nor can it by mere thought decide to invent another myth”.¹

¹    Onyesoh O. C., Nri the Cradle of Igbo Culture and Civilization, Onitsha: Tabansi Press Limited, 2000, p. 28.

Myth encompasses the theory of the traditional and ancient society, as well as a hypothesis concerning its origin and the motives of its cultural forms. It reconstructs what is historical into that which is notable. Moreover, of all the various views about myths, it is workable in this context to accept that it (myth) is a highly subjective account of objective events. “Myth in this view is cultural tradition, a repository of ancient history or science”² in which human self is relied upon as model (Protagoras). Consequently, the origin of Ndiigbo as a people is subjugated to a peculiar mythology which centered on Nri kingdom and hegemony – the centre of Igbo culture.

²    Abraham, W.E. Sources of African Identity, in Alwin Diemer (ed.) Africa and the Problem of its Identity, Peter Lang Frankfurt, 1985. p. 21

The Igbo culture is linked with a remarkable similarity with that of ancient Hebrew. Some scholars establish a common origin and argue that the Igbo migrated from Israel.

The Nri people are the descendants of the Levites/Kohanim…. Igbo studies can fill in all the gaps in the history of Israel. In the Torah, Israel was asked not to molest the Levites when they settled in any town/city in Israel. Nri men settled in most Igbo clans and, custom was that they must not be molested. From the Levites, the priests were drawn in ancient Israel. In Igbo land, if one committed suicide by hanging, as the Bible stipulated, he had committed an abomination, as far as the Igbo were concerned. Only Nri men could purify the land which he had desecrated.⁴

⁴    Ilona R., The Renewal of Israelite Identify Among the Igbo People of West Africa. Summer, 2005 Series http://www.moreshetnet.com

It is the creation of this awareness therefore, that this book "Cow without Tail" is set to do according to the author.

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe deeply lamented this needless waiting game  in the following words: “Until the lions produce its own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter”. Another writer of renown,Gikanki , while reviewing,'Things Fall Apart',  suggests  it is a classic masterpiece  that actually “responds in the imaginary to the problems of genealogy and cultural identity that have haunted Igbo culture” for far too long .

Unfortunately, no one seems to know how much  longer some doubting Ndigbo may  have  to wait on the  wings of  this  whirlwind  for a mysterious  hummingbird  to drop a miracle  storybook on their laps with an  impeccable account of their genealogy! It is a dilemma that partly  explains why, beside Biafra ( a name said to have been derived from a combination of  the ancient  Kingdom of Nubia and Jacob's grandson ,  Efraim) , only  very little seems to be  known about the ancestral roots of Ndigbo. And even the civil war  stories  of  Biafra's survivalist struggles  merely constitute   only  a tip off  this  iceberg .

The response of Ambassador Noam Katz, an Israeli Envoy in Nigeria (Sun News, Abuja, 2014) is a direct confirmation of the veracity/ authenticity of the claims of this book. He said and I quote, “I am sure, Igbo are descendants of the Jews. We have some traditions, culture and strong bonds that link us to the Igbo people. It has been proved that theres unique bonds are helping in creating ties between us”.

Igbo ancestors on their own part have also ensured that they left behind long trails of  cultural clues and traditional hints on both parchments of Nshibidi scripts and some of their cultural practices that criss-cross various parts of Igboland which only a handful of discerning minds could figure out or piece  together .

Igbo people are very religious and often  invoke the name of God of Abraham (Chukwu Abiama ) in virtually all aspects of their lives especially their choices of  personal names  (Chukwuemeka, Chukwuma , Ifeanyi Chukwu, Nebolisa ....

Yakov , a Hebrew word for Jacob or Israel , is still found in Igboland as name of a community called Yako . Same goes for Eri , name of 5th son of Gad, who in turn, is the 7th son of Jacob. As a matter of verifiable fact, Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State  is one of the many direct descendants of Eri  having come from a long line of people that still pride themselves  to this day as Umueri , descendants of Eri . Similarly, Abba (father in Hebrew) refers to name of communities in Igboland especially , Anambra and Imo States respectively .

The sprinkling of Passover blood  of sacrificial animals at the corners of family altars as was the practice in olden or ancient biblical times is still commmon practice among in the Igbo version of Judaism ( Omenani )  at their family tents of  meeting or bethels better known as Obu or Obi  .

Also, the priestly tribe of Levi is known  in Igboland as Umunri Clan to this day and they  still peform priestly duties as was the case in ancient Israel . The wooden symbol of Ikenga which is still with the Igbo tribe of Nigeria aptly captures the victorious King David holding the sword retrieved from an uncircumcised Philistine Giant (Goliath ) on his right hand ( the hand of righteousness - Aka Ikenga)  and the chopped head of Goliath on his left  hand. The mandatory circumcision of Igbo males at birth on the  8th day (Ibeugwu)  by native Mohels  remains a practice handed down to them from ancient times . How about the echo of  'Yah' (short  for Yahweh) commonly heard at Igbo public gatherings ? Or better still, what about the biblical  Feast of Firstfruits (Iwaji) and the pervasive Hebraic symbolisms of seven (7) , three(3) ,palm trees and carved  faces of the  Lion of Judah that  adorn  royal palaces of Igbo traditional rulers  to this day ? We can read a lot more about the rest of other exciting clues including the Igbo Ukwu finds  on the pages of this book .

No wonder then each time typical or knowledgeable Igbo elders sit together  to re-tell the  story of  their lost golden era as  a people whose “...origins are from old  or  the ancient times...” ( Nahum 2 :1) , some of the quick checklist of words or their variants that frequently pop up in their conversations are as follows :

* Ndi Mbu                                    -  first generation

*Ndigboo (Ndigbo, for short)     - ancient people

 *Mgbe gboo                                -  ancient times

*Mgbe Ezi di n'ukwu ukwa         -  good old days

*Mgbe enu bu ana ợsa                -  good old days

*Mgbe Ochie                              –  ancient times

*Nna Ochie                                – ancient father

*Nne  Ochie                                - ancient mother.....

The claim of  being of  ancient origin , the first , the head of even the  human race  is  reflected in their native dialectical spellings, pronunciations and meanings of  'Isi, Ishi '  as  found  in  Nsibidi ,Nshibiri,  Ishibiri, Isimbido, Isimbu ,Isiala, Ihiala, et cetra , all ofwhich refer largely to the head , source , first or  origin   . By the way, 1 Chronicles 4:42 tells us that Ishi  happens to be one of the heads of the families of Manasseh , presumed ancestor of present-day  Amanshi clan of Igbo land. This  is why  it is no longer a big surprise that the word, Genesis, when taken  literally in Igbo language simply  means the same thing as  Ga nisisi , Je nishishi  -     “go back to the origin  ”. Igbo names such as Ndubisi , Isimbu, Isiguzoro , Isiadinso,  Isiala , Isikala and so many other  variants of the above terminologies are all suggestive of  headship , just as  in Jehovah Nisi  ( God-head in Hebrew ) .

The truth is that wherever Igbo people go, they go with their culture and traditions.  For instance, The annual Feast of Firstfruits ( known as Iwaji ) is celebrated both in Nigeria and wherever Igbo people are found .

  “Israel came out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from apeople of  foreign tongue (Psalm 114)... and ... in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Most High”  (Nahum 5 : 7 ) . it remains to be seen if the remnant of Nsude pyramids or mounds  do not point present generation of Ndigbo to the influence of  Egypt on their culture through their forefathers , then the ancient priestly burial chambers of Igbo-Ukwu probablywill . And if the account of Prophet Ezekiel 48:28 does not Igbo people about Gad  , atleast it does show them or this reader the following biblical passage : "And adjoining the territory of Gad to the south ,the boundary shall run from Tamar to the waters of Meribath-Ka'desh , thence along the brook of Egypt to the Great Sea ."   In actuality, it is this past intercourse with ' peoples of foreign tongues 'during those  slavery years as captive Jews in the land of Egypt (Goshen, Kermet) that seem to be driving the  insistence of  surviving Igbo ancestors and cultural revivalists  today on return to the golden era of  cultural purity (Mgbe enu bu ana ọsa, Mgbe ezi di na n'ukwu ukwa )  . It would seem as though Prophet Jeremiah  had Igbo in mind when he asked : “O  remnant on the plain, how long will you cut  yourselves ?” (Jeremiah 47 :6).

The foregoing  thread of  insistence and claim of the Igbo of the  headship of  people of the ancient  is still driving to this day their  theory that  present Hebrews  are actually descendants of   Igbo ethnic group , Heeboes , and not the other way round  . But the likes of Ambassador Noam Katz would argue that Igbo are  descendants of Jews . But the fact that  both cousins  tend to agree on a possible common thread of origin makes most of the reading materials factored into this storybook a compelling read for all and sundry

The late part of Chapter 1

Once again, are Igbo really ancient  Hebrews ?

Considering their culture ,rituals  and  supportive archaeological findings in Igbo land , it is safe to claim that perhaps, all these traits may have been  derived from  the ancient  religion and customs of  Jews and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who may have come to Nigeria  as early as 9 A.D .