Comment on E.M. McClelland's “The Experiment in Communal Living at Aiyetoro”

Extract

Dr. McClelland's account of the communal settlement of fishermen at Aiyetoro, with its moving tribute to “the strength of purpose” and “fortitude”of “simple uneducated men”, brings to mind some lines by the Nigerianpoet, Gabriel Okara, in which he attempts to show something of the religious force behindan older group of African Christians on the West African coast, members of what is now known generally as the “Aladura” movement, the praying people, with their emphasis on the Holy Spirit:

They pray, the Aladuras pray

to what only hearts can see while dead

fisherman long dead with bones rolling

nibbled clean by nibbling fishes, follow

four dead cowries shining like stars

into deep sea where fishes sit in judgment;

and living fishermen in dark huts

sit round dim lights with Babalawo

throwing their souls in four cowries

on sand, trying to see to-morrow.

Still they pray, the Aladuras pray

to what only hearts can see behind

the curling waves and the sea, the stars

and the subduing unanimity of the sky

and their white bones beneath the sand.

And standing dead on dead sands

I felt my knees touch living sands -

but the rushing wind killed the budding words.