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

Introduction

3 introduCtion Kini yìí? What is this? —A Yoruba expression an olD soMething, a traDitional soMething n a Nigerian town called Modák�k�, at the junction of Okéèsọ Street and Ìgborò Street, stood the ruins of a two-story private home that had been gutted by firebombs in early 1999. It was one of many ruins along those streets, fallout from what was then the most recent outbreak of a conflict at the heart of Yorubaland, a clash between different Yoruba ethnic groups that had run hot and cold for a century and a half. On one side of the conflict, literally a stone’s throw away, was the town of Ilé-If�, where Yoruba legend tells us the world began. For many of If�’s citizens, Modák�k� was not a town at all, just a district in If�, established in the 1840s to harbor refugees of a collapsing �y� empire. Modák�k� people generally saw the matter differently: they weren’t refugees anymore, and they didn’t care to be regarded as tenants on someone else’s land. With homeland and identity at stake, the battles, when they happened, were devastating. I hadn’t been able to visit the area for months—the fighting put a stop to my work there, sent me off to other places to do research I thought had little to do with this bitter history. Now that I’d returned, just a few weeks after the 0.1 Mr. F. F. Afọlábí and his ààlè: “An old something, a traditional something.” Polyethylene bag (contents unknown), fiber, wood. Modák�k�, Ọṣun State, 6 March 1999. Introduction 5 fires had subsided, the place was all but vacant, and nearly unrecognizable.1 I felt as if I were standing in a vacuum. In front of this burnt-out home was stacked a large pile of fresh green branches, apparently collected for firewood. Suspended over the pile was something that had all the earmarks of being an especially dangerous protective object (fig. 0.1), part of a category of objects called ààlè. It was nothing much to see, but there it was: a small black polyethylene bag filled with something spherical and tied to the end of a stick. I had already seen many ààlè during my time in Nigeria, and knew something about them; they were the focus of my research, and are now the focus of this book. Ààlè are warning signs, meant to protect properties from thieves. In their materials they often describe the punishments awaiting those who disregard their warning—for example, an old shoe, battered from constant use, might portend a similar battering for a thief. This ààlè, however, revealed nothing. There were no visible signs by which to gauge the punishment for stealing the branches, and no way to determine the contents of the bag. But something was lurking there, and I wanted to know what it was. A man was inside the building, raking through the rubble with a machete. I called out to him, “Ẹ kú iṣ�-o,” greetings for your labors. After a few calls, the man responded, “Óóó,” and came forward out of the charred skeletal frame. He was an older man, about sixty, shirtless and covered with ashes. After a round of further greetings, I asked about the mysterious black bag. “That?” he said. “It’s nothing.” “It looks like a type of ààlè,” I suggested. He laughed. “It is ààlè,” he admitted. “Why do you have ààlè on these green sticks?” I asked. He picked one of the sticks off the pile. “I put these green sticks in the sun so they will dry. I want to use them as firewood. I’ll leave them there until my wife comes to pick them, either later in the day or tomorrow. People will pass by during all that time. The ààlè lets people know that the wood belongs to someone, and that no one should try to take the wood, or something will happen.” “What will happen to the person if he takes the wood?” I asked. 1 On the history of Modák�k� and its longstanding conflict with Ilé-If�, see Akinlawon (1996); Akintoye (1970); Johnson (1921:230–33, 452, 475–78, 497–98, 505–7, 521–60 passim, 646–48); Olaniyan (1992); and Omosini (1992:176–80). 6 Introduction The man laughed again. “Something bad,” he...