Book
The world of the Ogbanje
Fourth Dimension Publishers • Enugu, Nigeria • Published In 1986 • Pages:
By: Achebe, Chinwe.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Ogbanje is a 'personality disorder' that describes someone who is not true to their god-given nature and talents, in spite of an excess of good attributes. Ogbanje can be extraordinarily handsome or beautiful, achieve meteoric success, but die prematurely without making any lasting mark. They are believed to be part human and part spirit; their fate entwined with one of two spirits who intercepted them at birth and renegotiated their fate to include serving them in the world. In exchange they are given fame, wealth, or beauty, but always a short life. Achebe reviews the Igbo cosmology, creation myths, and the concept of CHI, which is the divine, creative spark imbued in persons by the supreme deity CHI UKWA. NNE MMIRI and ONABULUWA are the spirits whose pacts contradict a person's CHI and create the alienated personality of the ogbanje.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Magical and mental therapy
- Religious beliefs
- Magicians and diviners
- Congregations
- Ethnopsychology
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Igbo
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2003
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Psychologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2001
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1982
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1982
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Anambra State, Nigeria
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Chinwe Achebe
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68)
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Igbo (African people)