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Given the importance of Odù’s “oracular utterance” in consecrating the earth and creating humanity, it is not surprising that prophets of Àjf arise periodically in life and literature to impart holistic guidance. Their spiritual power often recognized in adolescence, these emissaries of Odù are community wisdom-keepers and -sharers whose destiny is to offer their divine utterance and assistance in hopes of realigning misdirected communities and reinstilling the values that facilitate humano-spiritual harmony. Because of the force of their message and spiritual af¤liation, these prophets are often forced off course by the very communities they seek to heal. However, no matter what the impediment is, the Qrq of Àjf will be manifest, even if it means the death of the prophet, and it will be heard and absorbed, textually if not extratextually. Indicative of the impact historical fact and ancient orature have on contemporary Africana literature, Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons is a spiritual-political-historical novel that depicts cycles of African oppression and enslavement as enacted by Arabs, African patriarchs , and Europeans. The primary source of hope and enlightenment for the Africans depicted in the novel is the wisdom and direction offered them by Àjf-directed Prophets of the Anoa (also spelled Anowa). Anoa is a proper name and a title for a mythistorical line of female seers who arise cyclically and use their Qrq to enlighten, prepare, heal, and, facilitate their communities’ evolution. Reminiscent of “the one with two faces,” one Anoa yields her prophecy in twin voices. The ¤rst voice lists a “terrifying catalogue of deaths” that will befall Africans at the hands of the Europeans, the 4 Initiations into the Self, the Conjured Space of Creation, and Prophetic Utterance in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo “white destroyers.” The utterance details what befalls both the survivors and the victims of the international enslavement of Africans— those who remained on the Continent, those taken away, and those pitched into the bloody waters of the Middle Passage. The voice reveals that this calamitous annihilation will be cyclical and have a span of “two thousand seasons.”1 Cognizant that many of the seeds of destruction were sown within, the second voice laments the disintegration of African unity, the loss of “the way.” “The way” is one with Maat’s keys of perfectibility and the sociopolitical impetus of Àjf: It is centered on reciprocity, holistic connectedness, purposeful creation, and balance.2 With the loss of “the way,” disunity, discord, and sel¤shness prevail, ripping African social and moral bonds and leaving wide spaces for “predators” and “destroyers” to enter. The Anoan prophecy that centers Two Thousand Seasons was rendered by a prophet who came of age just before the full Arab invasion of northern Africa. Raised in a society still clinging to the threads of “harmonious dualism,” where males and females followed vocations that suited their character as opposed to their gender, this particular Anoa becomes a master hunter. Her vocation is appropriate because Àjf are inclined to literally, ¤guratively, and spiritually “hunt” the dubious , traitorous, and deceitful—including and especially those who disregard “the way.” Anoa exhibits the clarity of mind, voice, and purpose of a prophet from childhood, and the fact that her wisdom is greater than that of the elders is a respected fact in her community. However, because her destiny is one of struggle against any form of oppression, and because she sees present and future centuries of slavery awaiting her people, Anoa goes beyond prognosticating: She . . . brought the wrath of patriarchs on her head . . . by uttering a curse against any man, any woman who would press another human being into her service. This Anoa also cursed the takers of services proffered out of inculcated respect. It was said she was possessed by a spirit hating all servitude, so ¤erce in its hatred it was known to cause those it possessed to strangle those—so many now—whose joy it was to force the weaker into tools of their pleasure and their laziness , into creatures dependent upon their users.3 With an Qrq be¤tting her Àjf, Anoa eternally condemns all enslavers. By doing so, she nearly pushes herself and the entire line of powerspeaking prophets out of the communal collective consciousness. Armah’s characterization of Anoa in Two Thousand Seasons owes a debt to Akan mythistory and Ama Ata Aidoo’s play Anowa, which is the ¤rst literary exposition of the prophet. Aidoo’s...

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