To Die is Gain

Osu – the Problem of the Outcast

In Things Fall Apart, we are reminded of a disturbing practice taking place around the world and covertly in our very nation: prejudiced discrimination promoting invisibly segregated, though sometimes not, caste systems.  After the beginning of the Christianization in Mbanta, some of the tribe’s outcastes, or osu, “seeing the new religion welcomes twins and such abominations,” decide to try the church out.  After a great stir, and even a new convert rejecting the religion for ignorant sympathy, the osu are accepted as ‘brothers and sisters,’ as the Christian overseer promoted equality among the Ibo people.  As the Christian Europeans saw it, all the ‘heathen’ needed a Savior, not just the rulers of the tribes. 

I was determined to find out a little more about who the Osu people are and how they become social outcastes.

Originally the Osu were a group of people dedicated to serving at shrines and temples for the deities of the Igbo, or Ibo people, and as slaves to whatever deity they served, their label transformed into a social stigma.  Thus, over time the social interaction between the Osu and freemen, or Diala, also morphed from respect to fear and the cultural norms that guided their conduct and interactions became rules of custom that ostracized and branded anyone who violated the rules of interaction as Osu themselves.  Thus, not only was categorization of outcast something inherited but also something to be feared.  One site put it this way:

However, the “indigenous monks,” upon mastering their spiritual functions (of learning to serve the gods) were unjustly and erroneously assigned the Igbo pejorative name of Osu, Ume or Ohu arusi (the slave of the deities/gods or shrines). And so was the story of how the institution of the Osu cult (ritual slavery) originated. The Osus and their descendants belonged to the gods; and they become the properties of the shrines.  And they resided in the vicinity of the shrines of major deities and for all practical purposes excluded themselves from routine engagements with the rest of the community. In other words, being the agents of the deities the Osus maintained an aloof relationship with the rest of the civil society.

Another definition of how people became labeled as Osu was found at the International Society for Human Rightssite.  It explained that anyone who became ostracized by a particular tribe and “sought refuge with the gods,” became the spirit’s property and begat a “life-long exclusion from the community.”  I could see how a son like Nwoye, who shows signs of effeminacy, could have been ostracized by a zealous, proud and many father like Okonkwo and fled for refuge with the Osu if the need had arose.  Instead, he found refuge with the Christians, which he was permanently persecuted for anyway.  

Many contemporary African natives, especially those indoctrinated and raised in democratic principles of liberty and freedom, believe the continued practices of ostracizing those labeled osu is a heinous evil.  They say that, “Some traditional sentiments are unfortunately expressed, by those who believe in the preservation of our primitive heritage and customs, whenever the issue is mentioned.  Some of them may shift uneasily in their chairs; yet other may even tiptoe away, at the mere mention of the word ‘Osu’. Those individuals who observe this tradition with reverence treat any of the so-called ‘Osu’ person with callous disregard.”

It appears that Africa has an endless struggle against a form of racism commingled with religious sentiments that it must attempt to seize and destroy through education and manipulation.  Sounds familiar enough, especially for anyone who lived through the Civil Rights movement; and who knows what will happen with the future of white, black and Hispanic interactions.