African time is a familiar concept which we hear about everyday used to describe a black person has arrived late to an occasion, conference or meeting. It is a way of summarizing a person who did not follow western clock time and promptness in keeping to appointments. But the traditional Igbo man is not disturbed when he comes late to the village meeting, traditional marriage, funeral or in honoring private invitation. The concept of clock time came with the Europeans but our forefathers had a way of calibrating their own time – minute, hour, half day, evening, night. He determines the progress of the day with the length of his shadow. He also has his own method of calculation one year which has nothing to do with twelve calendar months. For him, from dry or festival to another one is one year. He has adapted his own time to suit him, his activities and his environmental needs and challenges. Even when the white man came with his time gymnastics, the Igbo did not did allow himself to be confused with it. He stuck to his more practical and utilitarian natural time framework which has served him better since the beginning of ages in this environment. This is despite all the insistence by the white man that his own clock time was better and should be adopted.
The traditional Igbo man had divided his day into four, namely, early morning (ututu), midmorning (mgbachi), afternoon (etiti ehihie), evening (mgbede) and nightfall (uhuruchi). He does not know when one stops and when the other begins. Often times, it is his activities that determine the time for him such nri ututu (food meant for morning), let me go to work which presumes that it must be morning. They believe that morning controls labour. He talks about Una oru (time to leave that farm which presumably is mid-afternoon or early evening. At times, he uses his work to determine the time of the day such as oge ite nkwu ututu (morning round of tapping), oge nkwu mgbede (time for evening round of tapping), aghasasia ete nkwu abali (when the wine tapper has finished evening tapping). That is the time for fixing Umunna family meeting in the evening when the wine tapper is back. Such time is usually between 6.30pm and 7.30pm. For them anybody who arrived the meeting place within the one hour interval did not come late.
The Igbo man of old also divided his night time into four, namely, uhuruchi (nightfall) (6pm to 8pm) abali (early night, 8pm-11pm), ndeli/ime abali (12midnight to 3am). First cockcrow is by 3am signifying the beginning of day break. At 3.30am, the second cockcrow will come and it is time for people to start getting up from sleep and begin to prepare for the new day. Wine tappers, early market goers especially those who will go to Onitsha on foot will get up. It is also time for children to go to the village stream. Hunters will begin to come back from the forest while trappers will go to check their traps. Early risers were considered more serious persons just as those who wake up late for no reason are considered lazy and a sign of planlessness.
An average Igbo traditional woman has a perfect synchronic use of time and has zero tolerance for time wasting. She will be cooking in the kitchen and washing cloth at interval at the same time. There is no specific time to sleep in the night until she has finished getting ukpaka and ogiri ready for tomorrow’s market time.
Our grandfathers’ sense of time is relative as against white man’s ‘prompt’ ‘sharp’ or ‘O clock’. The white man goes to the office at 8 O’ clock am but the traditional man goes to the farm when he thinks he is free to go and when he is through with what he is doing presently. For instance, the wine tapper goes to the farm when he is back from the tapping and selling of early palm wine or when he has discharged the visitors who came to his house. He eats when the food is ready and not when he is very hungry. In fact, he considers himself less a man when he opens his mouth to say that his hungry. Hence, the proverb that says that it is a child who says that he is hungry while a man says he is tired. When he says he is tired, only his wife will understand what he meant by quickening to readiness of the food.
Often times, when he goes to the farm, it is the quantum of work he has that will determine when he will leave for home. If he is not satisfied with what he achieved, he stays behind and continues to work. At such a time, he gives a proverb that nwata na-ala oru ma ike gwu ya mana okenye na-ala oru ma oru gwuchaa (A child leaves that farm when he gets tired but an adult goes home only when the work is finished). A great source of quarrel between the missionaries and their early African employees was about reporting late for work. For an Igbo man, even he has an urgent appointment with a white a white man at a village meeting or office, he will never bypass the home of his sister whose marital home was on his route. In fact, is a sign bad brotherhood for him not to enter the house of his sister and take some food and drink there. If a close friend lives on the same route, he must call on him, enter his house and take kola nut, a cup of palm wine and even snuff before he continues the journey. Even when he arrives one or two hours behind schedule, he is quite satisfied and holds no apology for the lateness. He simply walks in and sits down and asks the person nearest to him what has been discussed before he entered.
Therefore, it will take a little more time before an average Igbo will begin to keep clock time with every promptness. He is not ashamed of ‘African time’ since it is part of his culture to be humane first. He is yet to be convinced about the wisdom of rushing to come and sit at the meeting venue ten minutes before time when his sister he has not seen for the past four years is living nearby. He is ready only when he has finished what he is attending to at the moment. It could be that things have changed so much today that some people could leave their sick mother in the house unattended to in order to be early to a particular appointment. We are Africans who are gradually learning to be Europeans. Oyibo biara abia. ‘African time’ without apology. That was how we saw it. Or what do you think?


From the Village Elder,
Okenye
(Rev Fr F.O.F Onwudufor)
Ụkọchukwu Osebụrụwa
www.igboproverbs.com

Igbo Amaka

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