[MSN] Pentecostal doctrine quickening loss of valuable Nigerian artifacts.

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Pentecostal doctrine quickening loss of valuable Nigerian artifacts 

The Associated Press 
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 
ACHINA, Nigeria: Born in a family of traditional priests in southeastern
Nigeria, 52-year-old Ibe Nwigwe converted to Christianity as a boy. Under
the sway of born-again fervor as a man, he gathered the paraphernalia of
ancestral worship - a centuries old stool, a metal staff with a carved
wooden handle and a carved god figure - and burned them as his pastor
watched.

"I had experienced a series of misfortunes and my pastor told me it was
because I had not completely broken the covenant with my ancestral idols,"
said Nwigwe of that bonfire three years ago. "Now that I have done that, I
hope I will be truly liberated."

Generations ago, European colonists and Christian missionaries looted
Africa's ancient treasures, art still coveted by collectors around the
world. Now, Pentecostal Christian evangelists - most of them Africans - are
helping to wipe out remaining traces of how Africans worked, played and
prayed in the distant past.

As poverty deepened in Nigeria from the mid-1980s, Pentecostal Christian
church membership surged. The new faithful found comfort in preachers like
popular Nigerian evangelist preacher Uma Ukpai who promised material success
was next to godliness. Ukpai has boasted of overseeing the destruction of
more than 100 shrines in one district in December 2005 alone.

Achina is typical of towns and villages in the ethnic Igbo-dominated
Christian belt of southeastern Nigeria where this new Christian
fundamentalism is evident. The old gods are being linked to the devil, and
preachers are urging not only their rejection, but their destruction.

The Ezeokolo, the main shrine of Achina - a community of mainly farmers and
traders in Nigeria's old rain forest belt - has been ransacked repeatedly in
recent years, its carved god figures disappearing. While no one has been
caught, suspicions range from people acting on Christian impulses to
treasure thieves.

Recently, members of an age grade - village civic association formed around
people of similar ages - volunteered to build a house meant to keep burglars
away from a giant wooden gong decorated with carved male, female and snake
figures in the market square. The gong is reputed to be more than 400 years
old and was only beaten in the old days to mobilize the community in times
of emergency.

"We feared it may be stolen or destroyed like so many of our traditional
cultural symbols," said Chuma Ezenwa, a Lagos-based lawyer who is a member
of the age grade.

The move to protect a communal symbol has not stopped people from taking
private action.

Ikechukwu Nzekwe, a 48-year-old Achina farmer who was initiated into the
masquerade cult as a boy, rues the unilateral action of his younger brother,
a born-again Christian who last year destroyed the family's masquerade
costume, pieces going back seven generations.

The masquerade cult was partly traditional theater, appearing during
festivals to perform songs and dances, and partly traditional police,
helping enforce mores and customs. Currently its role is largely restricted
to theater featuring performances and races by men in costumes acting as
ancestral spirits during festivals.

Ukpai, the Nigerian evangelist, said during a crusade gathering last year
the destruction of the symbols of the old gods was "a continuous thing."
Efforts to speak to Ukpai were unsuccessful and e-mails to his office asking
for an interview received no reply.

Early missionaries to Nigeria had condemned most traditional practices as
pagan. The two mainstream groups, the Catholic and the Anglicans, gradually
came to terms with most of them, even incorporating some traditional dances
into church liturgy. But there was no room for the local gods, which were
left stranded and unprotected once their erstwhile worshippers became
Christians.

Similarly, Muslim preachers in the predominantly Islamic north of the
country forbade any interaction with figures and figurines dedicated to
local idols. But many cultural dances featuring traditional masks are still
tolerated in the north.

Most converts are in constant tension over how much of the old beliefs can
be taken into the new faith, said Isidore Uzoatu, a specialist in the
history of Christianity in Africa affiliated with Nnamdi Azikiwe University
in southeastern Nigeria.

"Where the older Catholic and Anglican denominations are more tolerant, the
Pentecostals reflect more strictly the idea of a jealous God that would
brook no rival," said Uzoatu.

The changing attitudes have not escaped the attention of art dealers.

"This work you see here is from a shrine. It was brought to me by one woman
who said her pastor had asked her to get rid of it," said Wahid Mumuni, a
dealer at Ikoyi Hotel, in the commercial capital, Lagos, gesturing toward a
carving.

Mumuni said the price was the equivalent of US$1,500 and he expected a
European visitor to take it away soon.

Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, which is charged
with protecting the country's cultural antiquities, is responding with a
sensitization campaign.

"We are ... telling the Christians that they can't detach themselves from
their past, that there is a beginning to their history," said Omotosho
Eluyemi, a senior official of the commission.

The commission urges those who do not want to keep sacred objects to take
them to their local chiefs. It also was seeking stricter enforcement of the
law prohibiting export of artifacts.

Okwy Achor, a Nigerian archaeologist, fears the government's response so far
has been weak compared to the fervor of the evangelists.

Achina is part of the region where the famous Igbo-Ukwu bronzes were
discovered in a private compound in 1958. Older and more sophisticated than
the better known Benin and Ife bronzes, the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes dating to
between the 8th and 10th centuries provide proof that a unique form of
metallurgy evolved in Nigeria independent of Europe and other parts of the
world.

While Achina had few Christians 60 years ago, they now constitute more than
95 percent, says Emmanuel Eze, a retired school teacher in the town.

"There is hardly anyone around these days to speak up for tradition," said
Eze.

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