NUPE TRIBAL MARKS AND THE SOLAR WINGED DISK Today Nupe people don’t know the origin of the Nupe tribal marks. Discourses on the origin, meaning or significance of the Nupe tribal marks have completely disappeared among Nupe people as the very practice of Nupe tribal marks has itself virtually disappeared among the Nupe people. There is no doubt that in the next one or two generations, and certainly in the third, the practice of Nupe tribal or scarification marks would have completely and totally disappeared into history. Whenever the discussion on Nupe tribal and scarification marks comes up, and it hardly ever does these days, it immediately become clear to any discerning observer that the Nupe people are completely and totally ignorant of the origin, meaning and significance of the Nupe tribal or scarification marks. Nupe tribal or scarification marks definitely belong to a lost Nupe culture and tradition that has disappeared into history with the ancient Nupe people. Various Nupe peoples today voice their ignorant and inconsistent views about the origin, meaning and significance of the Nupe tribal marks. The common claim is that the Nupe tribal marks originated from an incident in the life of Tsoede the Founder of Nupe himself. It is said that Tsoede ended up with an harelip and various scars all over his face and bodies when he, of all other Gara princes, was the only one able to receive the bolt of a bunch of palm kernel thrown at him from the top of a very tall palm tree. A witchdoctor oracle had stipulated that only a palm so caught from that particular palm tree can cure the ailing AtaGara, the emperor father of Tsoede. In intellectual and academic circles there is also the complementary opinion that the Nupe tribal marks originated among the ancient Nupe peoples as a means of cosmetic beauty. In other words it is assumed that the ancient Nupe people practised Nupe tribal marks because they believe that it enhance their beauty or handsomeness. The truth of the matter is that both of these views are wrong and unfounded. Yes, the practice of Nupe tribal marks did not originate from Tsoede and the ancient Nupe people did not initiate Nupe tribal marks in order to enhance their facial or cosmetic beauty. First we should note the fact that the story of the scarification marks originating from the the palm kernel incident in the life of Tsoede is actually apocryphal. Regarding the Tsoede-palm kernel apocryphal story we should note that not even Professor S.F. Nadel, who is credited with being the first to document the Tsoede-Palm Kernel story, intimated or mention that the incident resulted in Tsoede being covered with all manners of scarification marks all over his face or body. Moreover even the story of the palm kernel incident in the life of Tsoede as recorded by Professor S.F. Nadel was itself a fiction. The story that a court oracle or diviner maintain that only a particular palm kernel from a particular tall palm tree can cure the ailing AtaGara is a latter day invention interpolated into the original myth of Tsoede. The palace historians at Patigi in the 1930s, who narrated the Tsoede Myth to the Professor Nadel, might have been the inventors of this apocryphal interpolation. Or this apocryphal version might also be the work of the Bida palace historians if we are to go with the observations of Professor Michael Mason. In any case Nupe scarification mark was in practice several scores of centuries, if not millennia, before the time of Tsoede. Professor Leo Frobenius discovered, long before the time of Professor S.F. Nadel, that Tsoede was merely a latter time dynast of the original Isa or Yisa empire that was established by the Yisa or Kisra Nupe people several centuries before the age of Tsoede. It was these Yisa Nupencizhi or the Kisra Nupe people who popularised the practice of scarification mark in ancient KinNupe. Their religion, called Sara, was a patriarchal faith centred on sun-cultism. They revere the sun as a personification of God Almighty, the Creator of all and sundry. They had the same name for the sun, God, and even their kings, namely, Yisa or Isa. In other words the ancient Yisa Nupencizhi used the same name ‘Yisa’ to refer to the sun, their kings and God Almighty. In the ancient Nupe language of the Yisa Nupe people the same name Yisa or Isa was the name of the sun, the royal title of the king, and the divine name of God Almighty. That the Sun, the King and God all bear the same name among these ancient Yisa Nupe people was due to the fact that these ancient Yisa Nupe people considered the three – i.e., the King, the Sun and God – to be one and the same. It was a complex and ancient kind of Trinity theology that perfectly justified and consummately explained the sacred kingship status of the King or Etsu of the ancient Yisa Nupe people. To the ancient Yisa Nupe people the king was a sacred divine because he was simultaneously a personification and incarnation of the Sun and God at the same time. This, ancient Nupe Trinity, was the original theology of Trinity from which Hellenism and the Romans were to derive their latter forms of the Trinity that have survived into our modern times. In ancient symbolism God Almighty was symbolised by the Cross and the Sun was symbolised by a circular disk. A compound symbol of the Sun and God Almighty then became the Cross circumscribed by the Solar Disk. This Solar Disk was frequently depicted in the ancient world as possessing wings in order to convey the belief that it is subserved by the guardian gods we call the angels today. This constituent symbol of the Cross inside a Solar Disk possessing Wings is what was referred to by the British anthropologists as the ‘Winged Solar Disk’. Sometimes the Cross circumscribing Solar Disk was flanked or surrounded by two or more snakes instead of the wings. The reptilian guardian gods, the Fallen Angels of Hades or the Underworld, are the ones represented by the snakes. This is the form in which we see it depicted in the Uraeus sacred symbolism of the ancient Egyptians. The Winged Solar Disk was a ubiquitous symbol of sacred kingship in the ancient world. The ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the ancient Indians, the ancient Native Americans, the ancient Chinese, the Ancient Africans, and so on and on, all have depictions of the Winged Solar Disk as symbol of the divinity of their Sacred Kingship. The ancient Etsu Nupe was considered to belong to a Trinity in which he is simultaneously a personification and incarnation of both the Sun and God Almighty at the same time. In this context the Etsu Nupe was also symbolised by the Winged Solar Disk. Professor Leo Frobenius was told that in ancient times the Etsu Nupe carries an orb, symbolising the Sun or the Winged Solar Disk, in his hand whenever he appears in solemn or ceremonial occasions. And, as we can see to this very day at the National Museum in Lagos, the standing figure of the Tsoede bronzes collection from Tada is wearing an headdress overwhelmingly bedecked with the Solar Disk surrounded by the Uraeus snakes from which the modern Hausa symbol of Arewa intertwining snakes is derived. The symbol of sacred kingship – that is the King or Etsu who is the Sun and God Almighty at the same time – was the Snaked Solar Disk or the Winged Solar Disk. And these, both the Snaked Solar Disk and the Winged Solar Disk have been found as a recurring and ubiquitous symbolism among the Nupe royalty in ancient times. What M.D.W. Jeffreys discovered in the 1940s is that the Sacred Kingship institution had the ancient ritual of inscribing the symbol of the Winged Solar Disk, or the Snaked Solar Disk, on the bodies, and particularly the face, of the members of the sacred royalty, most especially the king. In West Africa it was a common and rampant habit among Sacred Kingship societies to inscribe the symbol of the Winged Solar Disk on the face of the King and other members of the royalty. That was the practice of the Yisa or Kisra Nupe monarchs... .... And that was the origin of the Nupe tribal marks. The ancient Yisa Nupe people were of the belief, according to the tenets of their ancient Nupe religion of Sara, that inscribing the symbol of the Winged Solar Disk as scarification marks on the face of the Etsu Nupe and other members of the royalty directly empowers them with the spiritual powers of the ancestral shades who are alive and not dead but who have simply ascended to the realm of the Gods. Now then, the interesting point here is that these ancient Yisa Kisra Nupe people actually have sacramental rituals which are performed during the procedural of the Winged Solar Disk scarification marking and which truly empowers the initiate with potent spiritual powers. What we are saying here is that the ancient Nupe scarification marks truly used to empower the Etsu Nupe with special and supreme spiritual powers that are not accessible to the commonality. In the process of etching the Winged Solar Disk scarification marks on the face of the initiate a number of sacred rituals are simultaneously performed which transforms the initiate into an ascended being with supreme and potent spiritual powers. For a modern illustration of this point I will suggest the reader watch the Hollywood film titled ‘The Mask’ starring Jim Carrey. In the film Jim Carrey becomes a superhuman being whenever he wears the mask. In the same sense the ancient Nupe initiates become spiritual superhuman beings whenever the scarification marks are etched onto their faces. In those far off ancient days a new Etsu Nupe will not be recognised as such unless the legitimate college of kingmakers inscribe the mark of the Winged Solar Disk over the entire face of the new king. As a matter of fact the Winged Solar Disk scarification marking is an indispensable part of the coronation ceremony of the Etsu Nupe in those days. The face of the ancient Etsu Nupe is a scar-face hideously covered all over with the symbol of the Winged Solar Disk scarification marks. But it is not only the face of the new Etsu Nupe that is radically transformed by the scarification mark, the personality of the new Etsu Nupe is also radically transformed by the new and potent spiritual powers the sacramental rituals of the scarification marks have imbued him with. From that moment, the moment of the marking of the Winged Solar Disk symbol on his face, onward the new Etsu Nupe is no more considered as an ordinary mortal but as an ascended deity who is a member of the ancient Nupe Trinity as he is also the personification and incarnation of the Sun and God Almighty at the same time. The Nupe scarification marks have transformed the Etsu Nupe into a God. Actually the Winged Solar Disk or the Snaked Solar Disk was the highest symbol of power and divinity among the ancient Nupe people. But there were lesser and lower similar symbols of divinity and power which are also etched out as scarification marks on the lower members of the royalty, and the general members of the aristocracy and the gentry. So was it that the entire ruling and administrative class of the ancient Nupe society was marked with differentiating scarification marks in a gradating manner that clearly indicated the office and social position of each official. The higher the position and power of the person the greater the number of scarification marks on his face since at every graduation into a higher position more scarification marks are added to the face to indicate the social rise of the particular individual. This way the Etsu Nupe has the highest number of scarification marks on his face and the number of scarification marks on the face of the other members of the royalty and the ruing class ministers decreases as we move down the royalty. Such is it that we eventually found the commoners among the citizenry with scanty marks on their face. And the villagers and the peasantry, who are on the lowest rungs of the social ladder, used to have little or no scarification marks on their faces at all. This was the meaning and the significance of the Nupe scarification marks in those far off ancient days when the Nupe people still knew why they were practicing the Nupe scarification marks. And it was with the Nupe people that the Nupe scarification mark spread to almost all the other peoples of ancient Nigeria and even beyond. Today the Nupes call the Nupe scarification mark ‘Etsa’. This Etsa is just a dialectal variant of Esa or Isa or Yisa which was the original word. They are all one and the same word. Other dialectal variants of the words Etsa or Yisa also include Isa, Isi, Ishi, Itsi or Itchi. The Nri Ibos, who got it from the Nupes, call it Itchi and they also incise the Winged Solar Disk symbol on the face of their ascended social elites. This was documented in exhaustive details by M.D.W. Jeffreys. Jeffreys categorically noted that the Itchi scarification markings of the Ibos is cognate with the Tici aristocratic gradation of the Nupe people. It was when the practice of Nupe scarification marks spread to other tribes and ethnicities that it became tribal marks as each tribe and ethnicities began to add little variations to their manner of practising the scarification marking. We see, now then, that the practice of Nupe Scarification mark started long ago among the ancient Nupe people and that it actually predated Tsoede by several centuries if not millennia. In fact the practice of Nupe Scarification mark even predated the arrival of the Yisa or Kisra Nupe people into KinNupe. The Kisra people were said to have begun their series of migrations into KinNupe from the outside world somewhere around the first half of the seventh century AD, that is in the 640s AD. But the ancient practice of Nupe scarification had been around several centuries before that. In fact the Kisra or Yisa Nupe people only came to revive or popularise the ancient practice of Nupe scarification which had been around long before their arrival. There are documentary evidences to the effect that the practice of Nupe scarification marks have been around since the time of Dionysus, otherwise known as Osiris or Nimrod, who was the Black Negro world emperor who left KinNupe at the beginning of era of Patriarchy to plant civilisation in all other parts of the world. Dionysus – or Osiris or Nimrod – was then a Nupe man with Nupe scarification marks on his face. So, the Yisa or Kisra Nupe people, who arrive KinNupe a millennium before the time of Tsoede, simply revived an ancient Nupe ritual, the Nupe scarification mark, that has been with the Nupe people since time immemorial. And even during and after the time of Tsoede the Nupe people continued with their practice of the Nupe scarification marks until both Islam and Christianity came and begun to dealt death blows on this ancient Nupe practice. The first form of ancient Christianity, which the Yisa or Kisra Nupe people brought to KinNupe, actually promoted, or, as we have mentioned before, actually revived the ancient Nupe scarification marks. This is testified to by the fact that as late as the end of the eighteenth century ancient Christianity-practising Nupe Kororofa slaves were still arriving Europe with the ancient Nupe scarification markings of the Winged Solar Disk incised on their faces. It was the advent of Islam in KinNupe, circa the beginning of the first millennium into the Christian Era, that led to a gradual relegation of the ancient practice of Nupe scarification. Islam was virulently and viciously opposed to the ancient Yisa Nupe religion of Sara because, being a patriarchal religion, Islam saw a threatening rival in the ancient Nupe religion of Sara which was also a patriarchal religion. And then the Fulani uprising at the beginning of the nineteenth century led to the rise to aristocratic supremacy of the Fulani over the Nupe Nation from the middle of the nineteenth century onward. The Fulanis, originally a race of pastoral and Caucasoid barbarians from outside the African continent, knew nothing about the spiritual potency of the ancient sacrament of Nupe scarification marking. The emergent Fulani aristocracy therefore dealt another death blow to Nupe scarification in the nineteenth century – a deathblow from which Nupe scarification have never recovered.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 20:24:05 +0000
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