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Aki

In Editor's Pick, Return by Odogwu Ibezimako

When Uncle Sunny asked Ogbonna to come home for Easter, it was not a request, and there was no talk about human sacrifice. Now he is kneeling here, in the middle of a forest, beside his family house, with a sharp cutlass piercing through his chest, a gallon of blood gushing through his veins, and he cannot help but know, this is exactly where he is supposed to be.

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What Igbo and Hindu comsic calenders say about tomorrow

In Time by Odogwu Ibezimako

In all the units of time I have learnt to measure, time is never alive. A minute, second, year, is always a function of counting, a container to organize stuff, to organize life. Categories like millennia, era, ages, try to say something about culture, and the cultural machination of the time—the dark ages, the Muslim golden age, the age of …

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Food Is Medicine

In Food, Health and Healing by Odogwu Ibezimako

Prof. Maurice Iwu invites you to consider that our ideas of medicine are never fixed in time, and never complete. There have always existed multiple healing disciplines. He asks you to consider that the food you eat has great potential to heal you.  Prof Iwu is a professor and practitioner of pharmacognosy.  His expertise is in herbal medicine, and has …

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Chapter 1: Waiting

In Door of Return by Odogwu Ibezimako

In my dreams, there is a little girl standing in front of a door. Waiting.  And I am waiting too. For her, or for this dream to be over, and to be free from these tremors that haunt me at night. Whichever one comes first. I try to see what is on the other side, of her face, of My …

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My Great-Grandmother married her Husband’s Brother.

In Matrimony by Odogwu Ibezimako

In a society with no social insurance checks and no modern medicine, your family was not just your labour force. Your family was your healthcare system, your emergency response unit, and your primary caregiver. Polygamy promised safety. Everyone had a family, and every family protected their own.

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Does Lobolo (Bride-Price) diminish the status of women? It’s complicated:
What bride price says, and doesn’t say about marriage, power, and gender

In Matrimony by Odogwu Ibezimako

Bride price, sometimes called bridewealth, often understood as “purchase money” was regarded as incompatible with British legal jurisprudence and colonial Christian traditions. It became an obstacle to the legal recognition of indigenous marriage practices.  Contemporary feminists consider the practice to be inherently anti-feminist and a relic of the pas that upholds traditional patriarchal norms. In some ways, they are correct, …

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Good family:
Who is worthy of love ?

In Matrimony by Odogwu Ibezimako

Marriage is not about marriage – it is about power. It is about who is considered valuable, and what human interactions are sanctioned by society. This is what I am going to discuss here—value systems that are upheld and reproduced through marriage rituals.