It is said teach a Man, you teach an individual, teach a woman, you teach a clan. Religious dogma aside, what were the building blocks of the Original African women and are they still applicable but not used? The Black Race is economically and politically restricted because the Original African woman has been culturally and economically disoriented. Her Trinity of productive and reproductive powers has been discarded and she has been kept on her knees waiting for an unproductive masculine Trinity.
The Original African woman was an equal partner in the evolution of human civilization. When we talk of the Original African civilization, we are not only referring to the fact that they speak a continuum of dialects, known as the Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family; or the Original African Information Retrieval system also known as Ifa/Afa/Iha/Eha/Fa, but the fundamental naturally evolved duality that brought a balance of spiritual energies upon which the African civilization was built.
Across the Original African cultural sphere, before the invasion of Abrahamic imperialism, we had strong realistic female Original African spiritual entities (Orishas/Alusis) that represented the spiritual Holy Trinity, the philosophies of the lifecycle of birth, death and rebirth.
These essences were represented in Yoruba (Yemoja, Osun, Oya), in Ijaw (Woyengi, Ogboniba, Aiyelala), in Edo (Obiemwen, Olokun, Oti) in Igbo (Ala, Idemilli, Anyanwu), in Ibibio/Anang, we have Atai, Isong and Eka Abasi, the Jukun (Ama, Yaku Keji) all the way up to Hausaland, where their ancient Original African Bori traditions were led by women empowered by the Alledjenu (Alujonu). The balance of masculine and feminine energies were obvious, as while Shango, a man, was the Orisha of Justice, it was Oya that brought revolutionary change. In Igbo traditions, Amadioha was the Alusi of Justice, while Ala gave the sense of justice, the Jukun had Chido, the creator of the universe and Ama the female creator of humanity. With the Ibibio, it was Abasi and Atai.
I read an article praying that a man with more balls will take leadership in Nigeria to free us from our arrested economic and political development. I responded we have had too many balls getting in our way and maybe we should try something else. The forceful balls are represented by Oguns spiritual essence and philosophy of war and aggression, while it’s opposite is Osun, the spiritual essence and philosophy of diplomacy, equality and true love, sometimes tough love.
When we tie the DNA evidence of Yoruba created 87,000yrs ago with its oral traditions of evolution, when God sent the first 16 spirits (15 men and 1 woman) to Earth, the Men went their own way and tried to excel in their various and collective pursuits, but failed woefully time and time again. When they complained to God, he told them that they will have no success unless they included Osun in their plans. They obeyed and the world bloosomed. Over the course of our Original African civilization, woman came to play important parts represented by the most effective spirituality trilogy of birth death and rebirth.
Yemoja, Idemili, Mammy Water and others represent the birth of Earth, and oral traditions says she gave birth to Babaluaye, the father of Earth. Scientifically, we humans are not not only made up with over 70% water, water covers over 70 percent of the planet Earth and it was the receding of water that gave birth to land. More than just being our historical physical content, Yemoja and Mammy water entities are affected by the gravitational pull of the Moon, which results in high and low tides and behaviour patterns in humans. This gave birth to timing monthly menses cycles to full moons and development of the world’s first calender 10,000yrs ago, the Age of Yemoja 8000BC to 6000BC.
Osun/Ala brought fertility to humanity, beautiful, duality, trade, diplomacy among other spiritual and philosophical essences. The philosophy of Osun represents the fullness of life. Osun married Ogun, a marriage of positive action for money and married Shango, a love for for equality and Justice. Oya, the Orisha of revolutionary change, in form of winds, brought death and rebirth of Man, the environment, systems and civilizations.
Britain was made great first by Queen Elizabeth I (slavery) that initated it with the power of astrology follow by Queen Victoria (colonization) and Queen Elizabeth II (neocolonization), so where are Original African women to spiritually and materially inspire Africa’s political progress? In Yorubaland, the political structure was divided into two camps – Men were led by the military commander while women were led by the Iyalode and Iyalojas that controlled the economy.
Women were a strong foundation for Original African civilization as we later saw the Original African civilization spread to Hausaland female spiritual and political leaders and into Egypt where women continued to be the real power behind Egyptian Pharaohs. In Original African settings women controlled trade and the economy which transformed into political power and institutions.
Right from the family to the collective, the African woman had their own female hierarchy based on age and productivity. The institution of polygamy wasn’t based on sexual desires but an economic system. The Men cultivated huge famrs in the forest while the women sold the produce and had small farms around the house for food. As the Man’s produce increased, the woman sought more markets. The women, not the men, choose the younger wives to help and compliment their efforts in the marketplace, birth of more farm workers and organization of the home. Property was for the collective, not for individual so they all worked for a common goal.
This natural progressive cooperation of female and male energies were not obtainable to the Asiatics that evolved in the arid and freezing wildernesses of Eurasia, where female Trinity was broken for war against Man and his environment. There came a Jehovah God of War as from Jews that fought for 40yrs to settle to Mohammed wars to modern day USA, that has fought a war every day since its creation 250yrs. Unfortunately, this spiritual and philosophical essence of Ogun overwhelmed the worlds economic and political systems, at the peak of which in the case of Yorubas, women like Efunsetan Aniwura and Madam Tinubu also controlled the slave trade and arms sales.
Asiatics that evolved around 4000BC in the Age of the Osun, tie with Ogun, began to attack and overwhelmed Original African civilizations from Southern China to the Egypt from 2250 BC to 1AD, known as the Age Of Ogun. With the knowledge they gained from ancient Egypt’s Original African trilogy, they created their own versions that Abrahamist religions used over the last 200yrs to disguise their imperialism and takeover over Original civilizations first in Egypt and Ethiopia then along North African coast and straight to Lake Chad. Starting around Lake Chad, Afroasiatic imperialists were resisted by the Kwararafa and other Plateau Original African groups, so they spread along the desert fringes to Daura, and into Hausaland where the female Bori spiritual leadership was dethrone, robbing diverse groups of Original Africans of their culture to become Afroasians/Afro-Arabic over a long period.
The European first foothold in Morocco 1415 led to the influx of Afroasians into Northern Nigerian to completely takeover by 1520, by which time the Europeans also launched a slaves for arms race into the Yoruba and Igbo coasts, plunging the subregion into 300yrs of anarchy, with millions shipped to slavery in the Americas before we were finally colonized. The balance of Osun between Ogun (war) and Shango (justice) was tipped to Ogun.
The defeat of Southern economic and political leadership, led to female cultural, economic, spiritual and political disorientation, and if allowed to fester for another 250yrs Oya cycle we would completely lose our cultural identity like Afroasians. Instead of being equal partners in spirituality, economics and politics, the new Abrahamic religions disempowered our women, keeping them on their knees, waiting for a male figure to bring change.
The change of the economic system based on family production to foreign mass production took away the African woman’s economic power and political relevance. Especially since the colonists restricted trade to only those that attended their missionary brainwashing schools. So, instead of organizing her family and economic sphere, she took her family to beg in the White establishments. Those that were allowed to prosper the most were those that sold products that denigrated her Original African identity from hair straightening to skin bleaching products.
This led to the denigration of Original African values from birth. A Black baby is born into self hate when they see their mothers are not proud of their natural hair nor skin. They drag them as toddlers to worship another races God and instructed to follow another races standard of perfection. They would rather their sons work for a stable income in multinationals than make sacrifices to build permanent family wealth. In the end, everywhere under the Sun the Black Race is crying for economic, political, racial and cultural Justice.
Thousands of years of political knowledge accumulated in our Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa knowledge bank clearly shows that while Men blow hot and cold over injustice like with Shango, the Orisha of Justice, it is the Woman that rages and brings about revolutionary change. Far from expecting the African woman from taking the Ogun aggressive warlike position to change the warped systen, her Osun with Shango slant that births diplomacy and hard love is required. When the Fulani Jihadists and Yoruba warriors confronted themselves in the Ogun theater of war, it was Osun that Yorubas used to blunt the Fulani edge before defeating them. Nigeria born October 1st is Libra the sign of Osun with Shango slant and feminine energies of equality, diplomacy and justice has to be harnessed.
Fortunately, we are at the start of a 2000yr era of Shango that will bring cultural Justice and Black ascendancy. With Oya hitting Babaluaye structure with Coronavirus to crash all economic and political systems, we are at the end of the nightmarish side of Osun seen over the last 4000yrs, the era of Ogun (War) and Olokun (religious and political dogma).
In the Shango era, we expect Original African women leading in the digital economy (Shango) and push for cultural and political revolution. Normally Oya’s last 250yr cycle in the 2000yr cycle of civilizational change, always shows hints of the theme of the next civilization, which has been Justice and shown by the exemplary examples of Harriet Tubman, Igbo market women, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti. Now that the show proper is about to start we need the real Original African women power to be flexed.
The African woman has to retrieve her spiritual and cultural identity from the shackles of the paternalistic Abrahamic Trinity to her Original African Trinity of female energies that made her Mother Africa. She must awaken her economic creativity and productivity, and then structure it into political power alliances. To do this she must realize her Osun spiritual essences that made her the mother of humanity, fertility and creativity, to her Yemoja, the mother of planet Earth and global trade to Oya, the mother of revolutionary change. The situation whereby the women’s market leadership is subservient to the male leadership is unnatural and unprogressive.
Fortunately, digital businesses are to be the leading growth sector and we are already seeing our women make important strides. The Southern women and their Northern counterparts need to push for better representation. The situation whereby women only account for less than 20% of the political appointees can never be progressive. The rise of Africa starts with the woman teaching her kids and uniting her women folk. Unless we Africans want to resign ourselves to continuous war and bloodletting, our women need to step up for a balanced economic and political advancement. At present we are hopping on one foot.
