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175 At the Back of the Black Man's Mind By R. E. Dennett the month or season of love or spring. It is called IKHURE, and is the time of drizzling rains, just before the rainy season. This month, however, instead of representing the first month at the beginning of the dry season, is in the place of the sixth month of the Bavili. The next period is EHAW, and includes the seasons IHEDU, two months of which are the tornado months, and IHEMA, two months of heavy rains. EHAW is the custom of giving food to a stranger on his arrival in a town. The next period is named IGWE, and it includes the seasons IGWE, two months, including the little dry season and heavy rain, and AGWE, one tornado month and one month of rest and quiet. IGWE (or IGBE or IWE = weight also 10) signifies the care and dress of children, and is the season of harvest. It is worthy of note that the Bini connect the idea of weight with harvest. The period IHEUKU is that which contains the seasons AHISHUKU and IHEUKU, the four months forming their dry season. It is said that the Bini have no names for their months, and this in a sense is true. But they number them, and so the numbers are really their names. If we wish to know the meanings of the names of their months we must get at the signification of their numerals. 1. Let us begin with the first month of their dry season, when, having reaped their harvest of yams, the people say they "rest and chop." This is the second month in the season AGWE. The word for one is ÔWU, which in the form Owu means death, or, as we might put it, the beginning and end of all things. This agrees with the time and idea contained in the month of MAWALALA in the Kongo. 2. The next month, the first in the AHISHUKU season, the Bini are busy cutting down woods and forests for the purpose of making their farms. This action they call IFIE. IFA is literally that which is scraped off and is also the name of the palm nut god of the Yoruba. The verb FA is to clean or scrape off. The letters F, H, and Y, are interchangeable thus, HA is to scrape, UHE the Bini for IFE, and the Bina palm tree river spirit, taking the place of the Yoruba IFA is OVIA. O is a royal title short for OGIE; IA is the lengthened form of A, so that OVIA is really a lengthened form of IFA. E as a prefix gives the verb following it a substantive form; thus EFA or EVA would mean a scraping. This idea of scraping off is connected with the idea of creation both in Xivili and Bini. The Bini use the word EVA as the numeral 2; EVA is therefore connected both with the river spirit OVIA and with ideas of creation. 3. The third month the people begin to burn what they can of the felled trees, and this act they call EGBAW. www.globalgrey.co.uk
176 At the Back of the Black Man's Mind By R. E. Dennett EGBAW is a state of being cleaned as corn is when its husks are scraped off; so that the idea of scraping is associated with the third month also. Thus we have EHA three opposed to EVA, two both with much the same symbolic meaning. EHA, however, in the word ten and three or thirteen appears as ERA, and ERA means father. We may then conclude that in EVA and EHA we have given to us the maternal and paternal principles, found under the symbolic names of the second and third months, in XIVILI, i.e., the deep of fresh water and the deep of salt water. 4. During the fourth month they clear the ground, thus getting it ready for planting the yams. This action they term EKWEN; the number four is ENA, and means that which contains the power of spreading. 5. ISAN, or five, means the act of springing. Thus these two months are connected with planting in the earth. 6. During the sixth month the people drive poles (IFIEMA) into the ground near to their yams, so that the yam vines may creep up them. Now the word for six is IHAN, and that means the act of being entangled. This is the month of marriage following that of love, the spring. 7. During the next month they keep on putting poles in the ground. The word for seven being (3 + 4) IH'INAW, signifying the act of being entangled and spreading. This is much the same meaning as that of sambuade, or seven, in the Kongo. 8, 9, and 10. Then for three months or so they keep on weeding their plantations, EKBONA NAGWINIMU: 8 = INENE the act of much spreading (conception). 9= IHINI the act of having fruit (germination). 10= IGBE the act of being heavy (pregnancy). 11. Six months after planting, or the eleventh month, the yams known as EMAWWE are ready, and 11 is OWARA (i.e., first being or first substance), the second month of pregnancy. Harvest, weight, pregnancy have been also shown to be associated with the tenth and eleventh months of the Bavili. 12. During the twelfth month the IKME yams are ready, and 12, or IWE'YA, might be termed maternal weight or travail. 13. During the thirteenth month the Bini finally harvest the yams called IGULWA. The number 13 is called IWE'RA, or paternal weight, the second month of travail. The meaning conveyed by these numbers 12 and 13 agrees with the Bavili twelfth and thirteenth months. www.globalgrey.co.uk
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