Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-Aesthetics, and The Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria

Palm Fronds (M

86 Palm Fronds (Màrìwò) Màrìwò, bá mi tún �r� yí ṣe, màrìwò. Màrìwò, let this ceremony be done properly, màrìwò. —Babaláwo K�láwọlé Ọshìt�lá, 8 February 1999 “Orisha’s sword is always sharp—” forever green although it doesn’t grow upright highly respected used according to prescription— that’s the way to catch a thief! —From Odù Ifá �bàrà Méjì (Gleason 1973:103) an eMbleM of saCreDness anD Warning n a 1924 volume entitled The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People, A. K. Ajisafe devotes an entire chapter to legal matters attending the establishment and breach of contracts. In a firm, clipped language and outline form that lends to the book the tone of a legal brief—a tone that would have been reassuring to the colonial agents of the British Protectorate who sponsored, published, and read the book—the author writes: Palm Fronds (Màrìwò) 87 9. MariWo. Young palm leaves are an emblem of sacredness and warning. (a) They are put at the entrance of every sacred grove as a warning that the place must on no account be defiled. The same rule applies to every shrine. (b) When a man has entered another man’s land with intent to take possession of it as his own[, the] owner shall cut and put Mariwo to every possible entrance to the land, thus impeding trespassers’ encroachment. Any further dispute or case of trespass shall be decided before the tribunal of the chiefs. (1924:75) In both cases, màrìwò is placed at a boundary: “at the entrance of every sacred grove,” and at “every possible entrance to the land.” It is set in place with the intent to establish dominion and to discourage transgression; on the one hand it is a signifier of inviolable sacred space, and on the other it is an impediment to the trespass of landed property. Màrìwò thus gives shape and definition to the most fundamental but unstable spaces of Yoruba cultural and social life, spaces of transaction that constitute relationships of the person to divinity and to one’s own earthly legacy. Materially simple, màrìwò is conceptually abundant, an emblem of an extraordinary range of terrestrial and supernatural powers. So, what is màrìwò? It is the freshly sprouted frond of the �p� palm tree (Elaeis guineensis), which grows only after the head of the tree has been removed by palm tappers as they harvest the tree’s oil-rich fruit or its fermentable sap. The �p� palm is the most valuable tree in Yorubaland. It is the source of deliciously intoxicating palm wine (ẹmu) as well as the red oil (epo pupa) ubiquitous in Yoruba cuisine. The broken shells of the palm’s kernels are used as fuel for cooking fires, and the midribs (�wá) of its young leaves are used to manufacture brooms. The fronds (im� �p�) of the living palm tree are still used to thatch roofs, although the material has largely been replaced by galvanized, corrugated metal sheeting. The frond called màrìwò is differentiated from the frond called im� �p�—while màrìwò may also be used to thatch roofs, its real vocation lies elsewhere. Màrìwò is the vegetable matter most commonly employed in ritual performance and in the construction of protective garments for numinous spiritual beings. Also, it is one of the principal elements used in the creation of ààlè. There is a second type of màrìwò, which should receive a brief mention before we move on: it is ìko, raffia from the �g�r� palm (Raphia vinifera). The 88 Creating Ààlè �g�r� palm grows on the banks of rivers, and its fronds are longer and thicker than màrìwò from the �p� palm. Of its relationship with màrìwò from the �p� palm, K�láwọlé Ọshìt�lá suggested that “they are more or less brothers” (22 January 1999). �g�r� too produces a fermentable sap, likewise called �g�r�, a liquor not valued as highly, and not nearly as tasty, as ẹmu. The fronds of the �g�r� palm are used to manufacture �dùn, a woven raffia cloth that, according to Ọshìt�lá, is worn only by the Òwàrè, “priests, elderly men, people who...